Letter: Housing Without Infrastructure Is Not Sustainable

Published on: 21 Oct, 2023
Updated on: 21 Oct, 2023

From: Jim Allen

In response to: Five Areas of Concern on Former Wisley Airfield Plan

In 2010 I raised the question of foul water treatment in Guildford borough. Our largest sewage treatment plant is currently operating at 10 per cent over capacity, demand still inexorably increasing since 2017. Our former MP Anne Milton provided the numbers in 2012/15. No one would listen.

I provided the figures for all sewage treatment works (STWs) serving the Local Plan area during my research. Everyone was complaining of spillage in the river, no one was talking capacity to treat. You can’t fit a quart into a pint pot.

All councillors past and present did nothing. We have our councillors to blame pure and simple. They knew because I told them. But it was treated as a joke, “Jim has his head in the sewers”. The lead councillor stated he thought I was simply “anti-development”, in reality, I am anti-development without sufficient infrastructure.

The then councillor in charge of infrastructure, one of those driving the Local Plan, thought he had done a good job by getting the completion date of one new STW built brought forward by three years to 2027 instead of 2030. Actually, it was needed in 2015.

I believe Ripley and Send also needed refurbishing on the same time scale and pipework in Ockham and Send, as with central Guildford, needs upgrading.

It’s all coming home to roost.

Houses without infrastructure are not sustainable.