Letter: But Councillor Told Me SANG Policy is a ‘Pointless and Expensive Exercise’

Published on: 19 Mar, 2019
Updated on: 19 Mar, 2019

Eashing Lane SANG

From Gordon Bridger

hon alderman and former Mayor of Guildford

I read Gordon Jackson’s letter: The SANG Policy is Working Well with interest.

Can this really be the same Gordon Jackson who responded to me after I had followed the advice of council leader Paul Spooner to seek the views of Cllr Jackson on SANGs?

This was Gordon Jackson’s response dated June 29, 2017: “I don’t support SANGs… In my view the creation of SANGS does nothing to protect the heathlands and is a pointless and expensive exercise.”

SANG email from Gordon Jackson

Now he accuses me of publishing inaccurate and out-of-date information about the impact on birds on our two key Special Protection Areas (SPAs), Whitmoor Common and Wisley/Ockham Common.

But the data provided by Natural England (NE) was not out of date, it was for 2017. It identified only 20 nests, three nightjars on Whitmoor Common, none for woodlarks and just two for Dartford warblers. On Wisley/Ockham Common the numbers were six nightjars, three woodlarks and six Dartford warblers.

What a shock. The GBC’s senior planning officer explained they ”…had effectively been wiped out by a cold spell in 2008/9”. This was confirmed by a NE expert.

It is true that I left out a much larger SPA, at Ash Ranges, for the simple reason that “this area is largely inaccessible to the public” (a NE statement, they mean it is an Army range danger area. Not surprisingly our feathered friends are left undisturbed there) and so is irrelevant to this SANG policy.

Despite this, officers have continued to defend the policy by changing its objective to one which entails the protection of the environment of SPAs. And they keep insisting the cause of the problems result from “urbanisation and recreational use by local people”.

But there is no justification for using SANGs for this objective because it is already illegal to harm SPAs and, believe it or not, NE has, as reported in The Guildford Dragon recently, given the management of Whitmoor Common an award for the best-maintained common in the region.

There is not a shred of evidence to support the claim that local people are harming these SPAs. In a report to GBC councillors, this is admitted but it also states that the policy should be implemented as a ”precautionary” measure.

So what is the “precautionary” policy costing us in Guildford? The Local Plan estimates that using its 125-year legal commitment (you read that correctly) this tax on almost all new housing would raise anything between £68 million and £90 million.

But this incredible figure is almost certainly a gross underestimate because in the next 15 years alone, if the planned 10,500 houses are built, that is likely to generate more than £70 million (assuming £7k per house; it could be more).

About £8 million has been raised already. The dreadful Solum station development will raise £2.2 million to fund SANGs.

I am not kidding. The source of this tax is on almost all new housing which developers do not like but put up with to get planning permission from which they can make a fortune. They can then deduct the tax from what is available for affordable housing and 106 environmental improvements.

This policy applies to 11 other local authorities and here another astonishing statistic emerges. In 1998/9, before this bird crisis occurred, there were 884 bird nests according to NE. After a dip, thanks to warmer weather, the total bird population has now recovered and is flourishing, with a peak record of 1,017 nests in 2017. The 2017 RSPB annual report records this recovery with delight and attributes it to global warming, not to SANGs.

This recovery has been admitted by officers and even by Dr Coffee, the junior minister at the Ministry for Environment to whom I wrote when it was reported she said the recovery showed “the policy was working”. Work that one out.

Of course, with so much money pouring in, few councils are willing to complain and since a large percentage of the population would wish to discourage the housing, there is often little will to challenge the policy. Councillors could easily do so if they wished since the guidance states that the “policy applies only if it is likely to make a significant impact on a SPA”, which of course it does not.

But my protest among others to the Minister of Housing has led to the reply from two MPs, Dominic Raab and Jake Berry, that this “policy allows them to approve housing development on green belt land”. So there we have it. All a developer has to do is to fund a SANG for 125 years and green belt development is allowed.

The one correct piece of advice given by officers to councillors is that in three recent appeals the planning inspectors have allowed SANGs despite strong local opposition. My view is that the inspectors were out of order because they agreed that housing could go ahead as SANGs were being provided, but since there is no need for the SANGs, as in Guildford, there are no birds needing protection.

Councillors and inspectors should have been advised of this and that since “the development had no significant impact on the SPA” normal planning rules should apply.

There are now massive vested interests involved in defending a policy which is based on deceit (it was a discretionary not obligatory EU directive, as we were told), an incompetent policy (it had no impact on bird numbers) and misinformation (officers have not told councillors or inspectors the developments have “no significant impact on SPAs”).

To summarise, massive funds are being raised to provide attractive (often green belt) alternatives for the supposedly bird-disturbing public to visit although there is no evidence to justify the claimed necessity. Instead, the policy is now being used to allow housing development on green belt land which the government has promised would be used only in “exceptional circumstances”.

The policy could and should be challenged because it entails a massive misapplication of financial resources and is now being wrongly used to justify development of the green belt.

I await Cllr Jackson’s reply with interest.

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