Letter: GBC Must Challenge Inflated House Building Targets

Published on: 16 Jan, 2021
Updated on: 16 Jan, 2021

From: David Roberts

I don’t understand Cllr Potter’s figure of “1,500 odd new homes” for our borough (see comments on: We Can’t Build Our Way Out of the Housing Problem in Guildford).

No-one would oppose 1,500, but the Tory Local Plan sets a target of “at least 10,678” by 2034, to be built mostly in the countryside (Policy S2). 2,000 are planned at remote “Wisley airfield” alone.

Cllr Potter says we must build as many houses as are needed. But the housing need figures in the Local Plan are discredited, as is the way they are calculated nationally (see: The Government Cannot Build its Way Out of England’s Housing Crisis).

Sanity will return only when GBC challenge these inflated numbers and create the incentive for urban regeneration by restoring protection to the villages ejected from the green belt that is now under attack from developers. The Lib Dems, whose leader was a supporter of the Tory Plan, appear to be doing nothing at all about any of this.

That said, Labour councillors voted for the Tory Plan too, and R4GV seem to have forgotten all about the V in their title. Only GGG appear to take these matters seriously.