Letter: Give the New Council Leader a Chance

Published on: 30 Aug, 2019
Updated on: 30 Aug, 2019

Cllrs Susan Parker and Caroline Reeves

From James Walsh

In response to: I Resign From The GBC Executive With Immediate Effect

I’m not a member of the administration, but give Cllr Reeves a chance; she only became leader three months ago!

I would have advised Cllr Parker to give it a year or two, to make her case in Cabinet [the Executive] and council and see where things lie before resigning.

Politics, especially local politics, is a slow process and often frustratingly so. Add to that the change of administration in May, after years of Conservative control, and you can’t really expect immediate change. Local government is like a colossal tanker trudging through the ocean; it takes time and patience to steer a different course.

For Angela and I, issues like the recent cross-party commitment to climate change and single-use plastics leave us cautiously optimistic about the future.

It’s now up to Cllr Reeves and her colleagues to deliver an even better Guildford and us on the opposition benches to hold the administration to account.

Responses to Letter: Give the New Council Leader a Chance

Harry Eve Reply

August 31, 2019 at 8:50 am

On reading this I could not help thinking of the misnamed Yulfric the Wise III in Hordes of the Things BBC’s 1980 radio comedy series parodying J R R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

I also thought give them a chance initially – but when chairmanship of planning was delegated to a Tory member I realised that was a mistake.

I am all for cross-party cooperation on matters, where that is appropriate, but strong opposition is necessary when change is not happening fast enough.
- James Steel Reply
  
  August 31, 2019 at 5:41 pm
  
  R4GV voted for the Tory candidate for Chair of Planning whereas the Liberal Democrats voted for the Liberal Democrat candidate for Chair of Planning.
  
  James Steel is the Lib Dem borough councillor for Westborough.
- Liz Hogger Reply
  
  September 1, 2019 at 9:22 am
  
  The comment from Harry Eve is puzzling. The chairman of the Planning Committee was elected by the whole council at the council selection meeting on 15 May. Given the choice of a Conservative or a Lib Dem (me), the majority voted for a Conservative chairman. The position was not ‘delegated’ to her by the administration; it was a democratic election with cross-party voting, as is right and proper for the non-political planning committee.
  
  Incidentally, I’m not complaining about the outcome of that vote, as I think Marsha Moseley is a good, effective Chairman. She has an extremely difficult role having to ensure the planning committee follows correct procedure, and the criticism of her handling of the Send application at the August meeting was, in my view, unwarranted, as I tried to set out in my letter about that planning decision (https://guildford-dragon.com/2019/08/21/letter-planning-decisions-are-always-constrained-by-planning-law/).
  
  Liz Hogger is the Lib Dem borough councillor for Effingham
Harry Eve Reply

September 2, 2019 at 8:55 am

In response to Cllrs James Steel & Liz Hogger I am tempted to suggest that R4GV might now regret their choice. However, from Liz Hogger’s response it seems that the Lib Dems have no problem with bulldozing an application through regardless, if it is in the Local Plan, with no assistance from the chairman in seeking to find and back planning reasons to support an objection.

During the Local Plan process residents who objected were assured that normal planning application processes would apply to sites in the Local Plan. But, as with the promise of an improved traffic model, we were deceived.
- Liz Hogger Reply
  
  September 2, 2019 at 12:54 pm
  
  I certainly do not believe in bulldozing through an application regardless. What I do believe is that the Planning Committee is obliged to apply current planning policies, whether we personally like them or not.
  
  I wasn’t at the August meeting where the Send application was decided, but I have watched the webcast. It seems clear that if those proposing refusal had been able to cite specific policies from the Local Plan or from the NPPF to support refusal, that would have been voted on and the Committee may have decided to refuse. Verbal reasons without named policies, along the lines of “too many houses”, are simply not enough to stand up at appeal.
  
  Councillors wanting to refuse a planning application at Committee need to do their homework first and identify the policies they propose to use to support refusal.
  
  Liz Hogger is the Lib Dem borough councillor for Effingham
  - Harry Eve Reply
    
    September 2, 2019 at 9:02 pm
    
    The point is that the councillors who objected were given no assistance from Cllr Moseley or the planning officers on what policies would be worth pursuing. My understanding is that much of planning seems to be a question of the weight that is applied to particular policies – ie it is not at all clear cut. If it were clear cut then there would be no room for QCs to hold different opinions on planning matters.
    
    When the climate emergency was mentioned the debate was shut down very swiftly. It may be an emergency but not as far as Guildford’s planners are concerned (or the government for that matter).
    
    I would also like to add that, if my memory serves me correctly, it was Cllr Hogger who pressed for the Evidence Forum in the earlier stages of the Local Plan process in 2014, for which I was grateful. The problem was that the Conservatives were not interested in valid criticisms of the evidence. All the Lib Dem councillors should have acted in opposition to the Conservatives to avoid the situation we now find ourselves in. We could have had a far better Plan that was perfectly legal but we were failed right, left and centre.
    - Liz Hogger Reply
      
      September 3, 2019 at 12:15 pm
      
      On the issue of the Planning Committee, the time to seek assistance from officers is before the meeting, not at it. You can’t expect planning officers who are recommending approval based on Local Plan policies to change their minds at the meeting and suggest reasons for refusal.
      
      However, I have always found it immensely helpful to discuss such applications with officers in advance, and I would recommend that to Planning Committee members, or their substitutes, who have concerns about a particular application.
      
      Harry Eve is right that decisions are not clear cut, and the Planning Committee does have the power to overturn officer recommendations. We have done this on many occasions in the past and the refusal has been upheld at appeal. But you do have to give clear policy-based reasons.
      
      On the climate emergency point, policy D2 of the Local Plan does address climate change in terms of sustainable design and construction. I do believe we will need to review the policies relevant to climate change to see how we can strengthen them, but at present we are stuck with what we have and can’t add policies on the hoof.
      
      I did indeed achieve the Evidence Forum, having been supported at council by some Tories. However it is hard to see how a minority of Lib Dems could then have insisted on changes to the evidence base on the emerging Local Plan in the face of an intransigent majority Tory administration. In past years, people got the administration they voted for – that’s democracy.
      
      Liz Hogger is the Lib Dem borough councillor for Effingham