Letter: Another Parish Council Being Treated with Contempt

Published on: 27 Nov, 2025
Updated on: 27 Nov, 2025

From David Roberts

In response to: Worplesdon Council’s Offer to Make ‘Horse Field’ a Nature Reserve Rejected by GBC

Yet again, here is a parish council being treated with contempt by GBC’s over-mighty planning officers who routinely tell our borough councillors what to do.

Many officers don’t even live in the area and seem interested only in enhancing their career prospects as members of the development industry, with a revolving door to jobs in property consultancy and housebuilding.

When Surrey’s twelve separate councils are shrunk into two, and our new elected councillors have to cover five or six current wards, there’s going to be a huge democratic vacuum at local level. This is certain to produce blunder after blunder unless parish or town councils are given compensating powers and resources.

Instead of centralising, planning needs to be made hyper-local, with cash rewards to force small communities and council-taxpayers to take difficult decisions about what to build where.

Part of the answer to Britain’s comatose local democracy and vanished civic pride would be Neighbourhood Plans with real teeth (and risks).

The buck needs to stop locally. Larger, more impersonal councils, constantly subject to Whitehall veto, are exactly the wrong way to re-engage residents, to encourage spirit of community contribution and sacrifice, or to counter growing public cynicism about local issues and politics in general.

Share This Post