With frustration mounting over Farnham’s traffic gridlock, housing developments, and the much-maligned Brightwells project, one resident has turned to poetry to express what many in the town are feeling.

Channeling these concerns, resident Val Harris has written Farnham’s Lament to capture the mood of a town in transition.

Here, in full, is her work:

Our poor town is a building site.

A sad and sorry place.

I don’t know how the planners

have the gall to show their face.

Everywhere new builds or those

abandoned, incomplete.

The new road plan has tailbacks -

each day drivers face defeat.

Turning right at Castle Street

for a minimum of cars,

with markings on the street

that might be made by men from Mars,

Has turned the town to chaos

with queuing all around,

nose to tail in Downing Street.

Pollution now abounds.

Pedestrians are struggling

to cross a busy street.

No crossing lights, and so

they must be nimble on their feet.

The Borough might be clearer

but the rest of Farnham town,

is full of traffic pumping out

pollution, all around.

Cars backed up to Crondall Lane

in West Street, everyday,

And lights up by the cemetery

all add to the affray,

With a big estate of hundreds more

new houses, on the go.

More people, cars - can infrastructure

take this - answer NO!

Brightwells a white elephant

where no one seems to be

renting the empty units,

It’s a town catastrophe!

The planners still insist

our town is better than before,

They must be blind or never

put a foot outside their door.

Oh wait, perhaps the reason why

they’re quick to pass the buck.

None of them live here so

they don’t give a flying …