Letter: Laws and Policies Don’t Make Water

Published on: 27 Oct, 2026
Updated on: 27 Oct, 2026

From Jim Allen

With the greatest respect to Ms Upton-Brown and previous incumbents of her post, policies are not statutes… guidance as to how the political party in power wishes to use or interpret the “law” is required.

However, the lack of infrastructure cannot be mitigated; it needs solutions. Overloaded services cannot be unloaded.

Governments use imaginative mathematics when it suits them, totally ignoring reality.

For example:

In 1984 plans were proposed for an additional 750 homes on Gosden Hill. The plan required an all direction intersection and link road to the A3 and towards the A25. Now, 1,800 homes are planned for the same site but with only bi-directional slip roads to cope with a 40 per cent increase in traffic.

80,000 comments from residents were almost all ignored when the 2019 Local Plan was written. I say, senior planning officers need to understand three things from the residents’ view point.

1. They work and are paid, I would say handsomely, by the residents of the planning area. Not central government!

2. Their work should always represent the residents’ views and local knowledge rather than the Government’s policy preference, eg: the grey belt legislation over green belt protection.

3. When its b. obvious that there is no water, no sewage capacity and no electricity, they should not say , “Oh dear!” The law says they must be supplied by the the companies responsible. When it clearly cannot be done they should pick up the phone to central government and say what you want is impossible to provide. They should stand up to the ministers.

When applying the grey belt “trump card”, planning inspectors are not supplied with information on the availability and sustainability of the required utilities, site by site. Civil servants seem only to care about implementing the government policy to meet housing targets, regardless of infrastructure requirements and availability.

What is the government ministry going to say? What can they say? The trouble is it marches on paper. Local planners puts the same objection to every application, ie that there is insufficient water supply. The rules say that if the water cannot be made available within the life of the planning application (ie 3-5 years) it must be refused. However, on appeal, this consideration appears to be excluded.

We need rational, sensible planning not planning decisions based on fear of poorly informed planning inspectors. And the inspectors need too work in the real world.

Statues do not create the necessary the elements required for successful development, perhaps most fundamentally sufficient water supply.