Letter: The Council Should Tell the Chinese Investment in Guildford Property is Not Wanted

Published on: 8 Oct, 2017
Updated on: 8 Oct, 2017

From Gordon Bridger

Hon Alderman and former Mayor of Guildford

I am intrigued by our borough council’s  proposal to link with the Chinese town of Dongying. I turned to Wikipedia for an account of it. It has a population of two million, was founded only in 1983, has the second largest oil refinery in China, “more tyre factories than any other city in the world”, and the largest chemical factory ever funded abroad by Dupont, the US chemical giant.

As for trade? What on earth could we offer them?

Well there are two things of great value. Houses and security. Wealthy Chinese are buying houses and apartments over the world, in London, Manchester and Sheffield, paying at least 35% over current prices. Great resentment is resulting as huge numbers of houses escalate in price and often lie unused. Several British estate agents are now established in China selling houses in Britain.

So what could be more appealing to Chinese investors than a special link with Guildford, and its university? Houses will seem cheap and they would expect to receive a warm welcome from us.

If only 100 Chinese investors decided to buy houses in Guildford our already overpriced houses would increase in value even further. This would be detrimental to our economy and make it even more difficult to attract the younger workers we need to keep our it going.

House prices and scarcity are our most serious problems. To embark on a linking arrangement which could be interpreted as one that will encourage investment in housing (or land) would be highly irresponsible.

Is there a solution? Yes.

The council, and indeed the university, should make it quite clear as soon as possible to the Chinese, and indeed other foreign investors, that we have a serious housing problem and that purchasing houses would make it worse and would be very unpopular.

Other types of investment which entail job creation and were high-tech would be welcome. Dongying has a university which specialises in petroleum engineering. Maybe they could explore the Surrey Hills for rich oil-fields which may be below them?

I believe that the development of the university is important to the future of Guildford and the university needs to make it clear that there are certain types of investment which would be helpful and others which would not.

However, this is a national problem. We should propose to our MP that she urges the government to control this type of harmful investment. I am told that under World Trade Organisation rules there are ways of doing this.

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