Letter: Blame the Tories for the Current Lack of Restrictions on Height

Published on: 12 Sep, 2022
Updated on: 12 Sep, 2022

From: John Redpath

R4GV borough councillor for Holy Trinity

Yet again Mr Mills shows his lack of knowledge in planning matters.

The North Street development will be decided by the current planning policies that cover Guildford Borough, passed by the previous Conservative administration in their final days in power.

The Tory Local Plan adopted in 2019, and hated by so many residents across our borough, has, for the North Street Site (Policy A5), no restrictions on building height in terms of the number of floors a building is allowed to have. It will therefore be very hard to fight the development in terms of height alone.

How wrong it is, therefore, that he should be blaming the current R4GV administration for a failing that is totally the fault of a Local Plan brought in during his political party’s administration of our borough.

Responses to Letter: Blame the Tories for the Current Lack of Restrictions on Height

Richard Mills Reply

September 13, 2022 at 1:12 pm

Not quite.

The current pressures on building height were not evident between 2015 and 2019 when the Local Plan was in preparation.

So it seems a little churlish of Cllr Redpath and his colleagues to blame the then Conservative administration for not legislating against circumstances that could not then have been foreseen – particularly when they themselves could have covered the matter in Part 2 of the plan this year ahead of the submission of the North Street Application but did not do so.

I simply fail to understand why Cllr Rigg and the other members of R4GV cannot now just make clear that they believe that the remorseless pressure to increase building height in the town centre should be resisted.

It would carry no legal weight but it might at least give developers pause before they automatically add a couple of extra stories to the next application they submit.

Richard Mills is chair, of the Guildford Town Centre Conservatives
Daniel Hill Reply

September 14, 2022 at 8:46 am

This is starting to get a bit silly from Cllr Redpath. R4GV need to stop using the Conservatives as an excuse to ignore residents.

The huge majority of residents want building height to be limited. Maybe Cllr Redpath and his colleagues have forgotten that their primary role is to represent the views of the people.