Letter: It’s A Bit Late for Councillors to Complain

Published on: 29 Oct, 2019
Updated on: 29 Oct, 2019

From Bill Stokoe

director of Guildford Vision Group

Having voted for the Local Plan, it’s a bit late for councillors to be complaining about this Solum development.

For years, precisely to avoid such damaging planning applications and approvals, Guildford Vision Group (GVG) has been lobbying for a master plan for the town centre.

There are, at present, no effective policies to prevent another Solum.

We can only hope the new administration remedies this through well-drafted SPDs [Supplementary Planning Documents] and DPDs [Development Plan Documents] to support the otherwise inadequate Local Plan when we encounter town centre development.

GVG’s masterplan encompasses such development in this location, including much-needed new homes.

But that is in the context of a people-first approach, with an integrated transport hub, proper town-centre infrastructure and joined-up thinking redevelopment, as well as joined-up cycleways and pedestrian space.

Let no one call this a station redevelopment. It’s a speculative development alongside railway tracks that delivers merely a marginally bigger ticket hall for the privilege, plus £25 million for Network Rail’s back pocket, all unconnected to Guildford’s need for a better passenger and community facility.

Rail passengers, especially the vulnerable with mobility issues, get very little out of this scheme.

And with no movement from Solum on repositioning elements of the scheme, Guildford is denied the chance to build in resilience for train operations through the addition of “Platform 0” on the east side.

Over the next few years, focus must now shift to the west side where, through careful development, to remedy some of the infrastructure deficit just might be possible.

To achieve that would require the active and imaginative co-operation of Solum and Network Rail and, not least, the inspired guidance of the council planning team.

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