Letter: Government Letters Should Not Be Written By Those With Vested Interests

Published on: 9 Apr, 2019
Updated on: 9 Apr, 2019

Cllr Hodge’s letter in support of GBC’s Wisley garden village proposal

From Ben Paton

Ben Paton’s Freedom of Information request revealed the provenance of the SCC letter of support

In response to: GBC Admits Collaborating with Property Developers on SCC Letter Backing Wisley ‘Garden Village’ Bid

Guildford Borough Council is supposedly the examiner and the impartial marker of property developer’s work. But it happily allowed [the agents of] Wisley Investment Properties Ltd to write a letter supporting its own proposals and passed this on to Surrey County Council (SCC).

SCC then put the letter on to its own letterhead, effectively passing it off as its own letter.

When government letters are written for it by vested interests things have come to a pretty pass. It is wrong.

Schoolchildren do not expect to mark their own work. But Guildford and Surrey County Council allowed this developer to write SCC’s “support” letter.

What was the motivation behind Cllr David Hodge’s decision? Was this a political favour from one group of Conservative Councillors to another?

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