Letter: I Feel Helpless and Hopeless Over Local Planning Decisions

Published on: 28 Jul, 2021
Updated on: 28 Jul, 2021

From: Sue Reeve

In response to: West Horsley To Get 139 New Homes Despite Claimed Neighbourhood Plan Conflicts

I don’t know about others but I am left feeling absolutely helpless and hopeless about all this development going on in the Horsleys.

Not only are the Local Plan sites being dealt with rapidly, but other local people with a spare parcel of land, or big back garden are also jumping on the bandwagon and making a fast buck.

It doesn’t seem to matter that the numbers required are being reviewed at government level, no hold has been out on planning permissions until the numbers are properly reviewed.

It doesn’t seem to matter that the houses the village needs are not being built (social or low-cost housing, bungalows for downsizers etc).

It doesn’t seem to matter that these houses will bring with them school-age children when there’s are not enough places in local schools for children currently living in the villages (children living less than a mile away from the Raleigh primary school are on a waiting list for goodness sake).

What can we who care about the village do?

What really makes me cross is that I objected to the first application on this site but didn’t even know the application had been resubmitted.

GBC clearly don’t care and it makes me very cross and upset. Sadly there’s another imminent application for 115 houses in East Horsley with plans for the wrong sort of houses yet again. All very depressing.

Responses to Letter: I Feel Helpless and Hopeless Over Local Planning Decisions

Jules Cranwell Reply

July 29, 2021 at 5:59 am

Mental health has been much in the press, due to Covid. Why has there been no consideration of the impact on the mental health of residents. There is evidence that the noise, pollution, and disruption from all this development is having a deleterious impact, including depression.
Stuart Barnes Reply

July 29, 2021 at 8:41 am

Blame unrestricted immigration.
Ramsey Nagaty Reply

July 29, 2021 at 4:00 pm

Sadly, the government, encouraged by their developer friends, seems to believe that construction is a utopian solution.
No real thought is given to providing the right type of homes in the right places.

Provision of social housing is made difficult for councils government rules on right to buy and use of funds received from sales.

The idea that building 300,000 homes a year will help those needing truly affordable homes to rent or buy has been proved wrong. It is not resolving the real housing needs of this country.

Meanwhile, the urbanisation of our countryside goes on unabated.

Ramsey Nagaty is the leader of the Guildford Greenbelt Group.