Letter: Conservative Councillors Should Not Just Defend Their Own Patch

Published on: 20 May, 2016
Updated on: 20 May, 2016

From Ben Paton

In response to: Councillors Speak Out Against Large Scale Development in Normandy.

Good to read that some Conservatives still have some common sense. But let’s not forget that these policies have been imposed on us by a Conservative government. And the manner in which they are being executed locally, such as refusing to reveal how the Strategic Housing Market Assessment, or SHMA, figures were calculated, is also managed by a Conservative local government.

It’s about time those Conservatives, concerned over the level of development proposed, joined GGG or local residents’ associations and swept the Conservatives from power in Guildford, as has been happening in Elmbridge.

There’s a point beyond which it is not credible for individual local councillors to profess that they are defending the green belt when the only green belt they are prepared to defend is in their own backyards.

It is a cynical policy in which individual councillors defend their local patch but collectively the Conservative administration seems hell-bent on destroying our environment.

Responses to Letter: Conservative Councillors Should Not Just Defend Their Own Patch

Lisa Wright Reply

May 20, 2016 at 1:26 pm

Although I agree with Ben Paton, I wonder if any of the councillors have actually tried to defend their wards?

They all voted like sheep to keep Stephen Mansbridge in power even when everyone knew his large-scale growth “trajectory” agenda.

They all voted through every draft of the Local Plan, knowing the risks to their villages and the countryside.

They have all moaned about GGG, even though without the group there would be no one protecting Guildford, the town of the borough.

Let’s see what happens on Tuesday. Will they actually stand up and say the draft is not what their ward members or Guildford as a whole want and vote accordingly, or will they have to hang their heads in shame when they abide by their whip for the sake of the Conservative party?
Garry Walton Reply

May 20, 2016 at 6:19 pm

Well said, Mr Paton.

I have kept all the election materials from Conservative candidates at the last election. They all said they would protect our precious national asset, the green belt.

I will have to check their names again. None were called Pinocchio, as far as I can recall?
Jules Cranwell Reply

May 20, 2016 at 8:18 pm

All Tory councillors elected stood on a platform promising to protect the green belt.

Now we have a largely unchanged local plan which threatens to destroy much of our green belt, and remove most of our villages from the green belt, with the notable exception of Ash, which is to receive new greenbelt.

We want to hear our councillors loud and clear on this. We want to hear them hollering, “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not gonna take it anymore!”.

Maybe then the leadership will actually start to listen, and abandon this disastrous ‘trajectory’, which after all was put in place during the Mansbridge/Juneja regime.