Dragon Interview: GBC Leader – Ahead of the Local Plan Hearings

Published on: 4 Feb, 2019
Updated on: 6 Feb, 2019

Ahead of next week’s further hearings on the Local Plan, Paul Spooner, the lead councillor for planning, as well as the Guildford Borough Council leader, talks candidly to Dragon editor Martin Giles about some of the issues – including: how long it will take for the plan to be adopted, whether the public consultations had any effect, the dependency on infrastructure improvements, pollution, and whether a future council would be able to make changes…

See also: Local Plan Public Hearing Will Not Revisit all Issues

Cllr Paul Spooner

How finalised will the Local Plan be by the time the borough council elections are held? Some have predicted a further consultation period will be required. Is that your expectation? What’s your best guess?

Subject to things going well next week, and by well I mean that the inspector says he’s satisfied with the position that the council has presented and therefore is able to make recommendations within a few weeks, I believe we could have the Local Plan adopted by May.

But there are those dependencies. We have taken any legal advice and we do not believe there is any issue in relation to purdah [the period of time immediately before elections or when specific restrictions on communications activity are in place], so the timing is primarily driven by the inspector. [An earlier version of this interview incorrectly stated that GBC had not taken legal advice. We apologise for the editing error.]

The consultations on the Local Plan produced an unusually high rate of response, compared with other boroughs, but despite objections the strategic green belt development sites remain in the plan. Don’t those who feel it was a cosmetic exercise have a point?

No. Because there were significant changes made in the course of that process and many of the comments that came back were very valid. We are driven by an objectively assessed need that was agreed through central government. Therefore delivery of the housing numbers is pretty much set really.

We can argue about whether the SHMA (strategic housing market assessment) was the right partner, or whatever, but I don’t actually think it matters because central government [had] driven objectively assessed need by two different methodologies and both had actually put the number up, not down in relation to the SHMA partner we chose. So I would argue that the objectively assessed need is sound. Clearly, the inspector agreed with that last year, at the hearings.

…the way our Local Plan is structured, key milestones for delivery are dependent on infrastructure provision…

After that, the [revised] ONS data came out which put a shockwave through MHCLG (ministry for housing, communities and local government) and certainly had an impact on slowing down and stalling Local Plans that weren’t at the stage we are at. We didn’t have that problem because we are already in transition.

We relied on earlier data but it does not mean that we should ignore the revised figures and we’ve got the hearing next week to at least discuss and review the net impact of ONS date.

All the comments we received went into the mix and certainly many caused us to look again at different sites and, in many cases, to actually change the plan in terms of text or indeed, if we take boundaries, to change them thanks to representations from residents and from parish councils. So I think it was a very valuable exercise.

Are you saying that the strategic sites had to stay in the plan because you wouldn’t have met the housing target without them?

There was a great deal of thought that went in to each of those site allocations. If one fell out, and I hear people saying that Wisley should fall out, others would have to be found.

You are on record as saying you will not support housing growth without commensurate infrastructure expansion. But how will you be able to stop developers who have an application refused but then go to appeal?

They can go to appeal but when we’ve got a sound Local Plan in place the Planning Inspectorate will take great care to ensure that any decisions they make are in accordance with that plan. So we will be in a much sounder place to be able to ensure that the infrastructure does not drop away once the Local Plan has been adopted.

Are you saying that if the infrastructure is not provided, say by Highways England, developments won’t go ahead with housing developments?

Absolutely. But if you look at the way our Local Plan is structured, key milestones for delivery are dependent on infrastructure provision, and in particular highways provision. If Highways England fail to mitigate in terms of infrastructure requirement then we will not be able to build out the housing in the numbers that we are talking about.

In fact, there’s a great piece of work that indicates the reduction in the number of houses that would be caused by any failure to provide extra infrastructure. I will be using it again when I talk to the minister soon to remind him of the net impact of any lack of investment in infrastructure. The number of houses would come down significantly.

We believe that as a local authority we have done all that we possibly can do but the Secretary of State can overrule everything and there is nothing we can do about that whether we have a plan or not. But I am as confident as we can be that we will put in place a plan that robustly defends the requirement for infrastructure.

How can anyone prevent more houses equalling more cars, two per house is the Surrey average, and more cars equalling more dangerous pollution?

Yes, air quality is a big issue. We are doing a lot of work both at county level and at borough level, but also through our sister city arrangements with Freiburg, in looking at the best ways to manage air quality. We need to make this place more attractive and we can if, and it is a big if, we can make improvements.

I am pretty frustrated at the moment in relation to buses and transport. If we can improve the services then people will use them. And if people use them it’s an easy process to reduce cars.

…if we suddenly saw that Party X came into power in Guildford and was voted in on the grounds that there would be no development in the green belt, MHCLG [the central government ministry] would just come in and take control…

There are hundreds of ways to reduce the number of cars on the street – for instance taxing them out – but you have to have alternative provision. At the moment, I am personally, as leader, not satisfied that we’re moving quickly enough in Guildford to achieve the bus and train improvements necessary to enable that to happen. I think that whoever is in the next administration, whoever is in charge, the key focus will have to be improvements to public transport because we are losing buses rather than gaining buses at the moment.

But you only have so much control as a council…

Correct. I mean we are obviously reliant on central government and on a whole series of other factors. That’s just where we are. We can do our bit, we strongly supported electric buses an the Park & Rides which have a small impact but we need a lot more initiatives to be able to see a significant improvement.

Have you given up on Solum’s railway station redevelopment? Isn’t it likely to be deeply unpopular? If so, who would be to blame?

We certainly have not given up on it. I blame the Planning Inspectorate for making the wrong decision. There are times when the Guildford Society, the Vision Group and the borough and county councils don’t always agree but I think that was one time when everyone agreed. We all put effort into demonstrating what I believed to be a very sound judgement for refusal. I think everyone involved was truly surprised when the judgement went the other way.

So who do I blame? I blame the Planning Inspectorate, it was a very poor decision. They clearly had not spent enough time understanding Guildford and understanding the repercussions of that particular development.

Having said all that, we are where we are and we need to try and make the best of the situation. This is why we are looking at Bedford Wharf public realm improvements and we are looking at the need to put in place the new Walnut Bridge, which has also caused some interesting comment.

It is because the Solum development is coming that we need to work with the developer there to encourage people to use the route over Walnut Bridge rather than Bridge Street.

But there is nothing you can do now to constrain the development, is there?

No other than talk. We try our best to encourage developers to work with the community including the borough council.

How constrained will a future council be by the Local Plan? If we had a council with a different opinion on what the Local Plan should contain what could it do?

They could review it. They could review the plan at any time. So if a completely different administration came in and decided that they didn’t want any development, for example, they could review the plan.

But the issue here is not local. There is a big fuss at the moment about the  Independents and the fact that Independents would make a local decision and ignore the national position. You can’t do that because what would happen the MCLG would take it off us and this is always the issue we have.

So if we suddenly saw that Party X came into power in Guildford and was voted in on the grounds that there would be no development in the green belt, MHCLG [the central government ministry] would just come in and take control over Guildford in terms of the Local Plan process, so what would be gained in the long term?

It would be quite a political risk for a Conservative government to be seen taking over a council such as Guildford, if it is against popular sentiment.

No. They wouldn’t hesitate believe me.

So they wouldn’t care what people think?

I think they care very much what people think but they care more about national policy than they do about local policy.

Share This Post