Letter: Over Five Years’ Work Went into Our Plan

Published on: 20 Mar, 2018
Updated on: 20 Mar, 2018

From Bill Stokoe

Director, Guildford Vision Group

In response to Martin Elliott’s comment on my opinion piece: How Did This Planning Disaster Occur?, over five years’ work has gone into our town-centre plan, by people who collectively represent hundreds of years of property experience. All are also long-time residents of Guildford.

The plan comprises 105 pages. It has been put together with the considerable help of leading external professional advisers who also have decades of experience in advising major UK developers and working locally on large projects.

So in direct response to Mr Elliott:

1) The plan is published and is available. If you are connected with the council, eight full copies have been supplied to GBC which no doubt you can recover to review. As a voluntary body, we don’t have the funds to supply individual copies.

2) The plan has been put together at no cost to council or community by people with no property interest other than the homes they live in and who want the best for Guildford. Is that a sin?

3) If you try to compare our plan with an equivalent council plan, you can’t. No such council plan exists.

4) We would happily take you through our plan but we would need to identify you and we can’t. We have offered to meet you before. Please contact us if you wish to meet via action@guildfordvisiongroup.com.

6) Any chosen plan for the town centre need not be ours but it should be at least as good as ours in addressing the town’s 17 issues. At least we are trying to come up with ideas – we would be interested in yours.

7) Saying the plan is continuously developing is appropriate for any good plan. As we receive good ideas from the public we try to take them on board. Are you happy that happens in Millmead?

8) We note your comment that our 105-page document, our artists’ impressions, our fly-through video and public meetings are, “not really a format to allow detailed examination and evaluation”.

The plan is designed to be accurate to about 15 centimetres across a considerable area of the town centre. That’s not bad for volunteers. It’s beyond anything else you can find for our town.

Please point out another resident group across the U.K. that has done so much work covering a town, and in such detail, gratis in the interests of good town planning.

We accept we may well have been wasting our time, especially in the face of an unenthusiastic authority. But at least we’ve tried and we continue to try very hard.

We are currently revamping our website and hope to publish most, if not all, of our plan on it. In the meantime, our current site – guildfordvisiongroup.com – certainly gives most people more than enough flavour of what we have set out to achieve.

Responses to Letter: Over Five Years’ Work Went into Our Plan

Jim Allen Reply

March 20, 2018 at 3:13 pm

There is only one concern I have for the Guildford Vision Group.

Their expertise is well know. However, I simply cannot understand why they didn’t go down the ‘forum’ route and become a statutory body.

Their plan would then hold some weight within the Local Plan, which itself is a disaster.

We need neighbourhood plans to put it right. I would add the Burpham Forum works for free in the interest of good planning, albeit with less money and a smaller area.
Martin Elliott Reply

March 20, 2018 at 4:38 pm

Bill,

What a pity you have wasted your time in defensive statements at imagined slights.

My complaint has always been that you have been saying for over a year a (105 page) document of your plan exists. That has never been made available to residents in full. I have never demanded a particular format (ie paper hard document) and as I’ve mentioned its non-appearance on your website, I would have thought that indicated a typical format as PDF.

1) “The plan is published and is available”. No, it isn’t. As a resident, I have personally asked GVG for the document several times and been refused each time. I am a resident and my only significant connection to GBC is payment of council tax. I have never indicated anything else.

2) No, it’s not a sin and I’m not sure who has suggested it is. I am very grateful GVG has taken the interest. It’s just a pity you won’t let residents have what you have stated is available.

3) An interesting observation that I would like to test. Unfortunately, as you won’t release your full plan except to GBC, it’s impossible to verify.

4) Why do you need to identify me? You have my name and email which is more than GBC require to download full documents from their website. If you can explain why you need further personal information, and it’s reasonable, I will supply it. However, it seems no point to me in meeting to discuss a few overview descriptions/wishes and a video.

5) ???

6) Why do I have to supply my ideas on the town centre? I am very interested in your ideas that you say you want to share until asked for them.

7) Again, that observation, though interesting is entirely specious, to me. Yes, any project develops, but it must also be frozen at certain stages such as presentation to the residents. That’s why such documents are controlled by version and revision!

I am very glad you are coming up with ideas for all residents and would like to see them as a resident.

8) I made no reference to a 105-page document. I’m certainly not aware of one available on your download webpage. Is that an admission that even superficial consideration of your ideas requires a document to be published?

As a retired chartered engineer, I am well aware of how multi-million pound projects are continuously developed as (7).

You have commissioned videos and held public meetings over a year ago, and it now seems presented hard copies of the plan to GBC. Yet you consistently refuse to issue an electronic copy to the residents who you say you are doing this voluntary work for. There is something questionable about working for, but refusing to engage in a sensible and open format with, residents.
Paul Spooner, leader of Guildford Borough Council Reply

March 22, 2018 at 6:54 am

It is interesting that Mr Stokoe seems to think that criticism of his pressure group’s plan must in some way be linked to the council.

I can assure Mr Stokoe that is not the case here. Can I also remind him that there is a Guildford Town Centre Masterplan produced by Allies & Morrison and endorsed by the elected council representing the town and borough and therefore his point 3 is totally incorrect.

The council welcomes input from all sources including GVG and hence officers and members have previously met and received presentations from GVG and received copies of their own basic master plan.
Andrew Whitby-Collins Reply

March 24, 2018 at 12:00 am

Mr Stokoe’s response prompts two questions:

1. Does GVG have a conflicts of interest policy and a register of interests of those involved? It is not simply a matter of having no property interests, but also whether any of those behind the plan have clients or other professional or personal connections that stand to benefit. I am not aware that GVG has ever answered this point.

2. Why is Mr Stokoe seeking selection as a Conservative candidate for the next Guildford Borough Council elections and not standing on a GVG platform?
Bill Stokoe - Director, Vision for Guildford Ltd Reply

March 31, 2018 at 12:56 pm

In response to Martin Elliott, the GVG MasterPlan is available in the register of Solum Appeal docs on the GBC website. See the entry for 5 March 2018:
http://www2.guildford.gov.uk/publicaccess/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=_GUILD_DCAPR_157038
(the file is to large to attach to this response).

To help his comparison, GBC offers the unadopted but approved aspirational Jan 2017 Town Centre Regeneration Strategy:
https://www.guildford.gov.uk/article/20314/Town-Centre-Regeneration-Strategy

The TCRS is underpinned by the equally aspirational Oct 2015 Allies & Morrison TCMP:
https://www.guildford.gov.uk/tcmp
Bill Stokoe - Director, Vision for Guildford Ltd Reply

April 21, 2018 at 1:57 pm

In response to Andrew Whitby-Collins:

1. The majority of the GVG Steering Group are retired professionals, from a variety of backgrounds not just property. None have any vested interests. Where in the very few instances a Steering group member may still have a professional interest in property matters and/or is active with clients, he/she has always actively avoided conflicts within or around the town centre. The one member still in full-time employment recuses himself whenever Guildford interests arise especially if there is ever any discussion with his firm’s clients or its properties, with GVG or the Guildford Society.

The involvement some of the steering group members have had historically with developers and consultants has led to GVG having a grounded and pragmatic approach to its attempts to revitalise and reclaim large parts of the town centre for the recreational enjoyment of its residents and visitors.
PS The full GVG Plan can now be found in the download section of the website http://www.guildfordvisiongroup.com

2. GVG members are from all sides of the political landscape and do not see this debate as party political. Personally, I have long been of a conservative persuasion.

So from a personal point of view I concluded that now is the time to try and achieve a democratic mandate. Indeed GVG has been challenged by the current council leadership that it lacks such a mandate. Thus I successfully applied to become an approved Local Conservative Association Central List candidate.

As a Holy Trinity Ward resident of some 30+ years, I (and three other new candidates, I believe) then responded to a call for candidates for selection by the Holy Trinity Branch (formerly Guildford South Branch) of the Guildford Conservative Association for the May 2019 elections. Unfortunately none of us were given an opportunity to state our case alongside the three sitting councillors, nor notified of the time of any such process, and the latter have all been re-selected. The same sequence of events was recorded in Christchurch Ward, for which I also applied. That is my situation so far.