Action Group Condemns Council for Leaving Wisley Site in Revised Local Plan

Published on: 13 Apr, 2016
Updated on: 14 Apr, 2016

The Wisley Action Group (WAG) has condemned planners for, what they say is, an about face after rejecting a large development planning application on the former Wisley airfield site.

In a press release Tony Edwards, spokesperson for the group, stated: “Guildford planners should not waste more time and public money “promoting the indefensible” by including ‘Three Farms Meadows’, the former Wisley airfield, in the recently published revised Local Plan.”

WAG has also written a letter to leader of the Guildford Borough Council, Paul Spooner, condemning the inclusion as a “complete about-face” on last week’s Planning Committee decision to follow the advice of planning officers and unanimously reject the ‘new town’ planning application by a Cayman Island company, whose backers remain unknown.

In the letter it is stated: “Your fellow councillors not only endorsed the unambiguous recommendations but also vigorously reinforced many of the stated reasons for rejection with data and observations of their own.”

“Yet now, and despite the refusal of this planning application on insurmountable grounds, a similar proposal on the same green belt site is featured in the draft Local Plan.

“It is an irony which has not been lost on both local residents and Surrey media and seems likely to reach a yet wider audience.”

Commenting on the letter, WAG committee member Helen Jefferies said: “It seems unbelievable that having refused a ‘new town’ planning application in such clear and concise terms, Guildford planners should now present a similar, highly risky proposal in the draft Local Plan, supposedly based on ‘exceptional circumstances’.

“It turns logic on its head and makes a mockery of Guildford’s planning system.”

The Guildford Dragon NEWS invited Cllr Spooner to respond. He directed us to his Twitter account.

Responses to Action Group Condemns Council for Leaving Wisley Site in Revised Local Plan

Jules Cranwell Reply

April 13, 2016 at 2:41 pm

What about those of us who don’t use Twitter? Do we not deserve some explanation form an increasingly remote, and out of touch, GBC leadership?

Communicating only by Twitter, denies most of us the opportunity to know where Cllr Spooner is positioned on these matters. Is he afraid of the local press scrutiny?
Valerie Thompson Reply

April 13, 2016 at 5:17 pm

I don’t Tweet or use Facebook, or do Snapchat, or any other methods of modern communication and neither do many of us in our later years who are quite adept on a computer but have no interest in the media of youth.

GBC needs to talk to everyone, not just the young.
Jim Allen Reply

April 13, 2016 at 6:11 pm

What’s Twitter?
Garry Walton Reply

April 18, 2016 at 4:49 pm

I do use Twitter now and then. But our elected politicians have a duty to communicate with all the electorate to explain this cynical slap in the face for voters who came in great numbers to Millmead and were told the plan had been defeated unanimously without abstentions.

What has happened to democracy in Guildford?

Paul Spooner, leader of the council and lead councillor for planning was not there to vote or declare whether he had any vested interest in the plan.

Why is he hiding from us. Is it pure shame or something else?

Anyway, I have checked Paul Spooner’s Twitter account and could not see any tweets about Wisley.

There are some from him supporting the Remain EU campaign.

If only we were as important.
Michael Bruton Reply

April 20, 2016 at 10:16 am

It is not the job of a council officer to censor any part of a webcast. It is a lame excuse to claim that the meeting was closed.

The excised footage demonstrated admirably what the Tories think of their critics. Much as Gordon Brown and his “bigoted woman” comment made during the 2010 General Election showed what he thought of a very nice Labour supporting lady.

It seems that webcam censorship – widely used in dictatorships – is alive and well. It is good that Guildford sceptics are speedier than GBC.

The Guildford Dragon has been informed by GBC that a complaint, or complaints, made against Cllr Moseley are being processed formally. Ed