Letter: Feeding Developers Green Belt Will Prevent Urban Renewal

Published on: 12 Oct, 2020
Updated on: 11 Oct, 2020

From: David Roberts

In response to: Now It Is My Turn to Urge Faster Progress

Cllr Spooner’s letter is laughable. Ever since 2013 when their hated Local Plan was conceived, his party have paralysed the regeneration of Guildford town by promising developers great chunks of green belt to devour instead.

Cllr Young’s excellent letter (We Are Suffering the Devastating First Effects of the Local Plan) shows the inevitable result of this cosy Tory pact with the property industry: 400 new houses planned in the Horsleys alone, with 2,000 more in nearby Ockham.

R4GV, who now lead the borough council, will be judged on how far they reverse this insane process. While repeatedly congratulating themselves on Cllr Rigg’s urban proposals, their latest newsletter says little about the countryside and not a word about the green belt.

When will councillors learn? In a free market, urban renewal cannot happen without putting green fields off-limits.

Responses to Letter: Feeding Developers Green Belt Will Prevent Urban Renewal

Stuart Barnes Reply

October 12, 2020 at 11:06 am

Hear, hear. The green spaces still left must be protected.

We should start with the main cause of the problem and cut down severely on the recent ridiculously high levels of immigration as soon as we are completely free of the failed EU. The government got elected on such promises and it is time to deliver. There will be no excuses after January 1.

That would reduce the demand for more concreting at a stroke.
Jules Cranwell Reply

October 12, 2020 at 12:29 pm

Hear hear, we are all waiting with bated breath to know how R4GV will now mitigate the impending disaster of the tory local plan. Only when green belt status is restored to the villages will the disaster be averted.

Cllr Spooner would do well to keep a low profile, lest he be called to further account for his enthusiastic destruction of much of what was great about the borough.
David Roberts Reply

October 13, 2020 at 1:33 pm

I part company with Stuart Barnes on immigration. Leaving the EU has not made, and will not make, any difference to migration levels except wrecking Britain as an economic draw.
- Stuart Barnes Reply
  
  October 13, 2020 at 10:11 pm
  
  I would point out that until 1st January we will not have entirely escaped the clutches of the EU so the main problem of excessive immigration has not yet been dealt with.
  - David Roberts Reply
    
    October 14, 2020 at 12:42 pm
    
    My entire working life in international relations tells me that, in itself, 1 January will make no difference at all to migration trends, although a Brexit/Covid-induced collapse of the UK economy may have some effect.
    
    UK borders will remain just as porous and the resurgent fighting in Afghanistan shows that the push factor behind global population movements is not diminishing. Fortunately, immigration is very good for Britain.