Councillor Offers A New Rent Free Home for Guildford Conservatives

Published on: 4 Feb, 2018
Updated on: 5 Feb, 2018

Cllr Iseult Roche

A Conservative borough councillor is offering to accommodate a new home for the Guildford Conservative Association (GCA) rent-free on her land in Worplesdon.

The offer has been made following a decision for GCA to consider a move from its current home in Loseley Park which the association chairman Bob Hughes, in a confidential memo states is “relatively expensive”.

Cllr Iseult Roche (Con, Worplesdon) has made the offer following the grant of planning permission in November 2017 for a: “conversion of a detached redundant lambing shed to habitable accommodation” at her home, despite the objections of several local residents about the conversion within a conservation area, in green belt and in the setting of a listed building.

The application was referred to the Planning Committee because the applicant, a Mr Costeloe, believed to be Cllr Roche’s husband, was related to a councillor.

Cllr Roche has failed to respond to an invitation to comment. Her postal address has been withheld from the GBC website because it has been judged: “disclosure… could lead to her being subject to violence or intimidation.”

It is undestood that candidate selection for the Worplesdon ward is currently underway as part of the overall candidate selection process within the area covered by the Guildford Conservative Association.

The leaked internal memo, from the GCA chairman in December, identified four possible options for the future location of their offices:

1. Remain at Loseley, possibly seeking a smaller, cheaper unit.
2. Share offices with another neighbouring Conservative association.
3. Purchase a property.
4. Pursue the offer from Cllr Roche “rent free”.

In the memo, Bob Hughes admitted that the last option: “…has the obvious downside risk of us becoming beholden to one association member and any factors could change the relationship.”

Sharing an office was discounted because: “…this was not handled well by Woking“ … “sharing with Mole Valley would be difficult…”, “…The Surrey Heath offices at Windlesham are a long way…and the area may move to the Windsor constituency…”.

Cllr Melanie Whitehand, chairman of the Woking Conservative Association, told the Surrey Advertiser: “There’s no plans to establish a joint office, and if Guildford are claiming it’s due to Woking handling it badly, I refute that…”.

In the GCA memo, it was revealed that Cllr Geoff Davis (Con, Holy Trinity), whose career has been in property surveying and development, had been trying to identify premises for the association to purchase without revealing who the purchasers would be. An office in the centre of the constituency is the preferred option of Guildford’s MP Anne Milton but, with what are believed to be low membership figures, the association does not have sufficient liquid assets at its disposal and would have to seek a loan.

The memo concludes that while purchasing a property was the favoured option it risked tying up all the association’s funds, leaving no reserves. It was recommended that the property purchase option was put on hold and the offer from Iseult Roche explored. Legal advice to the association was that an agreement could be drawn up giving GCA the right to occupy in return for a peppercorn rent.

Bob Hughes

Bob Hughes, asked by The Guildford Dragon NEWS about the leaked memo, responded: “A confidential options paper was leaked – I don’t know who leaked it…

“We have a number of options, including continuing in our present offices. We are exploring how all options would work – all of them.”

The Guildford Conservative Association, which oversees the selection of parliamentary and council candidates, usually reveal very little about their inner workings. Even their officer appointments are unpublished on their website.