Letter: Local Plan Deferral? Be Careful What You Wish For

Published on: 8 Apr, 2019
Updated on: 8 Apr, 2019

From Andy Bedford

In response to: Delay Adopting Local Plan Until After the Election, Say Opposition Councillors

The adoption of the Local Plan is long overdue. Indeed GBC is one of the worst performing boroughs in this respect. It should be reviewed every five years. The current Local Plan was adopted in 2003 – 16 years ago.
Without a cogent plan and the uncertainty the lack of one yields, it is no coincidence that housing supply has not met the borough’s housing demand.

The fact that the review and potential adoption of the plan are days before the elections is a coincidence, due to the timing of the inspector’s report. For individuals and prospective candidates to make political gain, seeking deferral and “put it to the people” is applying the ridiculous fiasco in Westminster to local politics.

Be careful what you wish for, further time delay well may take the Local Plan issues outside local control and in the hands of the inspectorate. There will also be the continued lack of housing and the further waste of taxpayers’ money then further delay, consultations, inquiries into a plan that should have been issued five years ago.

The fact is housing needs to be provided, the borough has an obligation to provide and little developable land on which to provide in the timescales permitted. Everyone just needs to get a reality check about this rather than advocate the NIMBY charter that the Localism Act unwittingly encouraged. Get it adopted and move on…

Responses to Letter: Local Plan Deferral? Be Careful What You Wish For

David Roberts Reply

April 8, 2019 at 5:16 pm

Could this be the same Andy Bedford who wants to build 23 dwellings (less than half of them affordable) on a former school playing field in Effingham designated under the Neighbourhood Plan for only nine dwellings in total? [See planning application ref. 18/P/01924.]

If so, before attacking people as Nimbys, perhaps he could own up to his own, very material interest in plastering the Green Belt with concrete.

With support like this, is it any wonder that the council’s draft Local Plan is so detested? Anyone who believes its approval a week before the council elections is a “coincidence” must also believe in fairies.

The Guildford Dragon NEWS sought a response from Andy Bedford:

I have obviously struck a nerve here.

I am the trustee of the land in question – that is public record. The application is not one with which I am associated. The applicant and application details are also of public record.

I mention to be careful what you wish for because to lose local borough control will be far more damaging and unless we build floating houses in the sky (possibly to house the fairies to which Mr Roberts alludes) GBC is never going to meet its housing supply numbers. The unfortunate circumstance is that the borough is predominantly green belt. I would rather selective development on green belt occur that the Planning Inspectorate have carte blanche to dictate where the housing in green belt will be. That is where this will all lead.

I will not comment on Mr Roberts’ Neighbourhood Plan protestations. Anyone living in Effingham you will know how that was defective and was shoehorned in to make it compliant with the then policy, such that it will be out of date by the time a new plan is adopted – another waste of taxpayers money.
Lisa Wright Reply

April 8, 2019 at 9:48 pm

If our current council had come up with a sensible plan in the first place, we would already be reaping the rewards with nice affordable housing being built across the borough.

They didn’t.

Yes, the whole thing stinks and that’s why we need a sensible fresh set of eyes to scrutinise it.
Julian Lyon Reply

April 8, 2019 at 11:22 pm

Let’s just think what (in the unlikely event of the government determining our Local Plan for us) DHCLG would do. Worst case is they would simply adopt the plan.

In practice, however, they may look altogether more closely at some of the objections, at the “Exceptional Circumstances” case for removing sites from the green belt, and objectively at whether the A3 improvements are a reasonable presumption.

On the other side of the coin, we may, by deferring this decision, actually be able to turn this plan into a plan to regenerate the rundown areas of the town centre.
Ben Paton Reply

April 9, 2019 at 6:11 pm

We’ve heard “Project Fear” from the likes of Mr Bedford before. This is what Mr Mansbridge said when he was leader of the council. It is unlikely the sky will fall if the plan is scrutinised.
David Roberts Reply

April 9, 2019 at 8:23 pm

I believe the Effingham Neighbourhood Plan was approved by local referendum. Contempt for democracy, however, is only what one should expect from the development lobby.
Liz Hogger Reply

April 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

Andy Bedford’s comments about the “defective” Effingham Neighbourhood Plan are regrettable, and I can vouch for the fact that is not the view of the many Effingham residents I speak to. As David Roberts points out, our Neighbourhood Plan was approved by referendum in February 2018, with 93.5% of voters in support.

Since then, Guildford Borough Council’s planners have applied the Neighbourhood Plan policies conscientiously on many Effingham applications, and the Neighbourhood Plan has made a real difference to some decisions.

As a member of the Borough’s Council’s Planning Committee, I won’t comment on the planning application for 23 homes on the former school playing field on Church Street in Effingham. However, I understand from planning officers that this application will be on the agenda of the Planning Committee meeting on 24 April, with an officer’s recommendation to refuse.

Liz Hogger, is the Lib Dem borough council candidate for Effingham