Council Leader Issues Video Statement on Solum Decision

Published on: 24 Jan, 2018
Updated on: 25 Jan, 2018

Guildford Borough Council has unusually issued a video statement by Council Leader Paul Spooner regarding the successful appeal by Solum against the council’s refusal of their planning application to redevelop Guidford railway station…

Last night at the GBC Executive meeting Cllr Spooner also raised the Solum issue. Voicing his regret over the planning inspector’s decision and describing the reaction from some residents as “shock”, Council Leader Spooner said: “…the simple fact is that he has allowed the appeal.

“Whilst we agree with the inspector that the proposal has certainly polarised opinion, I would say that it is a very, very strong, 90% plus polarised opinion against the scheme, and therefore there has been quite a lot of shock, certainly in the communications coming to the council.

“From a Guildford Borough Council perspective we will be looking at all the options that we can. The fact that it has been approved means that we have to work very closely with the applicants to try and improve, from our perspective, the scheme.

“There was never really an issue in relation to the principle of development on that site. I think pretty much everyone agrees that site should be developed. It was the design that upset many of us.

“I will say that when my predecessor [Stephen Mansbridge] and I met with Solum about this six months, or so, before he resigned and I was running the Solum relationship, it was quite clear that he was struggling and tried to push, with support from various Executive members, to try and get various design features included. But every time he sat down, with [council] officers, in meetings with the applicants, for various reasons, unfortunately, his ideas were rejected, so what we ended up with was a very strong unanimous decision for refusal [by GBC of the original application].

“But there we are. We are where we are with the appeal and and we will do all we possibly can to ensure that the best possible scheme still can be realised, under the circumstances.”

Share This Post