Letter: Conservative Chairman Has Confirmed – The Local Plan Is An Election Issue

Published on: 23 Apr, 2019
Updated on: 22 Apr, 2019

From Julian Lyon

Former Independent candidate for the borough council elections to be held on May 2.

In response to: The Local Plan is Vital for Guildford – Vote Conservative

Well done Bob Hughes. He has demonstrated as clearly as possible that the Local Plan is an election issue. Were it not before, it must be considered as such due to his opinion piece.

The Local Plan does not need to be rushed through, it needs to be right. It is never going to be the best plan that it could have been, but there is no reason to make it the worst.

The plan fails to resolve issues of unfairness and inequality in our society; it fails to favour town centre over green belt; it gambles on the A3 improvements, whilst taking land out of the green belt just in case the A3 is upgraded; it over provides for housing by 37% whilst leaving a store of further housing to the whims of developers on a piecemeal (windfall) basis in the town centre.

If this is the plan Mr Hughes anticipated when the Conservatives were elected in 2015 under a mantra of “the green belt is safe in our hands”, and if this is the best his party can do for our local communities, move aside and let others take over.

We don’t need this Local Plan, and we don’t need any more years of Conservative stewardship on the council, thank you very much.

In the meantime, let’s pull the vote on Thursday. The matter is, as Bob Hughes points out, a political issue and it shouldn’t be determined during the purdah period just before an election.