Letter: North Street – Does the Local Plan Mean Anything?

Published on: 26 Nov, 2019
Updated on: 26 Nov, 2019

Part of the North Street development site.

From Alistair Smith

Chairman of the Guildford Society

There is a post of the Council Planning Portal (19/S/00004) detailing the scoping opinion request for a submitted Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the North Street site. This has been submitted by St Edwards, a joint venture of Berkley Homes and the site owners M&G, and Guildford Borough Council (GBC) who own 17% of the site.

The Guildford Society is supportive of development on the North Street site which has been a blight on the town for decades. We support bringing forward an innovative scheme that respects and extends the town centre and provides homes, commercial space and public amenities.

The application finally provides an insight into the aspirations St Thomas have for the site. The application is for up to 90,000sq/m of total floor space, ranging in height from five to 15 storeys, with about 850 homes, as opposed to 400 proposed in the Local Plan. The EIA scoping also gives details of proposed road changes, parking, bus station etc.

The Society has four issues with the details so far available:

a) The proposals seem to have crudely converted 40,000sq/m of retail to approx. 450 dwellings and with the change in mass and proportions required for flats vs retail shows that 15 storeys is required. Such a height is not in the character of Guildford town centre.
We need to preserve the character of Guildford not just accept that height is the only answer. St Edwards may have adapted previous retail-based ideas, using a large expensive concrete raft across much of the site rather than looking at a more modest street-based development that would have equivalent viability.

b) The Society is not against extra dwellings in the town centre, especially if this reduces pressure on the surrounding villages and countryside. We are concerned that development is proceeding apace; with GBC and its Planning Department giving the impression that achieving housing targets is the sole aim.
We note the approval of plans in villages outside the town where up to 25% extra housing as compared to the Local Plan has been allowed. On current plans, with North Street, Solum and others yet to come, we will have about 3,000-plus extra residents in the town centre with no provision for infrastructure (transport, water, power, waste, pollution control etc) and public facilities (health centres, schools etc).

c) The proposals don’t address large parts of the North Street frontage eg Norwich House. In a scheme of this magnitude, these sites should be included as an opportunity to revitalise the urban landscape.

d) We note Commercial and Woodbridge Roads and part of North Street are to be closed. Assuming that two-way traffic will be re-instated in Leapale Road, will this be able to cope with a mixture of commercial deliveries, buses turning into a bus interchange, and access to car-parking?

The Local Plan is effectively a guide to how housing numbers are to be achieved but lacks teeth without effective policies in the form of supplementary planning documents (SPD) that implement its objectives.

The GBC Planning Department seems to be late in producing these SPDs, with only the Views SPDs approved to date. It is imperative that SPDs are produced as quickly as possible. Even if available only in draft they carry weight in planning processes.

For the town centre, the most critical need is a masterplan. Despite the council unanimously agreeing to this being developed, there is no apparent movement in appointing a planning adviser and a timetable for its development.

Residents were told the new Local Plan would allow the council and its officers to get a firm grip on the planning processes in the town and borough.

We appear to be in a situation where we may suffer inappropriate and disjointed development in the town centre plus impact on the surrounding countryside with schemes being brought forward that have housing numbers in excess of the Local Plan. Has the Local Plan achieved anything?

The council recently voted through a motion promoting increased transparency. As a first step, it would be good to see published the discussions that must have taken place between St Edwards and GBC.

St Edwards will have had discussions for this important site which resulted in an indication that submitting ideas for 850 dwellings is acceptable. The detail present in the EIA indicates that a plan must have been developed to a reasonably advanced stage.

Isn’t it time for the people to see a brief for the site and what ideas have been discussed?