Letter: A Local Plan Review Should Come Before Specific Planning Applications

Published on: 7 Feb, 2023
Updated on: 7 Feb, 2023

From: Ben Paton

In response to: Doesn’t Government Announcement Mean Development Should Be Curbed?

Guildford Borough Council – by which I mean the majority of its councillors – have abrogated their responsibility for revising the Local Plan.

Most were elected on election promises to revise the Local Plan. But they have done next to nothing about it.

Some blame central government. That’s been a recurring theme. Former leader Stephen Mansbridge and his Conservative group deputy Monika Juneja made an identical claim.

But in fact, the buck stops with the majority of the GBC Councillors.

They have not put the horse in front of the cart, ie the revision of the Local Plan in front of specific planning applications.

R4GV and the Lib Dems have just scrambled to take the credit for re-developing North Street.

They are more interested in winning some kudos than in addressing the underlying problem – which is that the Local Plan is not fit for purpose.

Now that R4GV and the Lib Dems have failed to act together to develop a core brownfield site in the centre of Guildford the failure of their joint policy – to avoid the issue of revising the Local Plan – has been exposed.

The crack in the wall does not cease to exist just because the borough council has papered over it. The council majority only has itself to blame that the North Street application has, for the time being, failed.

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