Letter: This Planning Appeal Decision Makes No Sense For Ash & Tongham

Published on: 2 Feb, 2018
Updated on: 2 Feb, 2018

From Sue Wyeth-Price

chair Ash Green Residents Association

Local residents in Ash South and Tongham are horrified at the decision of the Planning Inspector to allow an appeal to build 254 houses on a site at Manor Farm, off The Street, Tongham, following a planning appeal hearing in Guildford. This means the loss of the hop fields opposite the Hog’s Back Brewery and 500 cars trying to drive along narrow roads with very limited public transport services.

Five of those residents attended the hearing over two days in November. We presented our objections to the appeal before the inspector. The planning officers at Guildford Borough Council (GBC) had conceded all of the reasons for refusal of the application prior to the appeal hearing and it was ourselves alone, as interested parties, who continued with the objections to the planning application.

We presented comprehensive reasons to the appeal hearing against the refusal of the outline planning application. Our reasons for objection were focused on the poor pedestrian access to the site, distance to bus services, the lack of adequate local healthcare facilities, traffic congestion in The Street and the unsuitability of the SANG (Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace).

The SANG site is on the south side of the main A31 Hogs Back road, the opposite side to the development, with narrow footpaths, an ambulance station (soon to be transformed into a larger, area wide, “make ready” centre) and hardly attractive to people wishing to exercise with children, dogs or horses.

The original application was refused by Guildford Borough Planning Committee in August 2016, after the planning officer had recommended approval.  A second and similar application was submitted by the developers, Gleeson, and this was also recommended for approval by the planning officer.

Again the planning committee rejected this application, but for different reasons, the evidence for which had been provided by the residents due to the lack of investigation by the GBC planning team. Gleeson appealed against the refusal of the first application.

In the month between the refusal of the second application and the appeal hearing, the Guildford planning officers had been in communication with Gleeson’s planning consultant and conceded all the points of refusal without any obvious evidence of reference back to the planning committee or its members.   The officers also sought to have the appeal hearing cancelled, presumably to minimise the level of costs likely to be awarded against the council.

We are particularly disturbed by the GBC planning officer’s apparent failure to adequately verify the accuracy of the information relating to widths of footpaths and roads provided by Gleeson in their planning application, and to garner the views of both the appropriate Clinical Commissioning Groups in a timely manner.  The officers of GBC seem determined to recommend most of the new housing applications for approval in their enthusiasm to concrete over any remaining green fields in Tongham and Ash in order to comply with government housing targets.

I for one cannot understand a decision which says that The Street is restricted in width but formalised parking spaces with passing places are acceptable, that the narrow footway is not conducive to prams or wheelchairs, however upgrading it to modern standards is  impractical because the road is too narrow, but goes on to say a walk of 830 meters along this narrow road from the site to the schools or the bus stop is acceptable because the buses have wi-fi access!

Rather than rely on the evidence of the people who suffer this environment every day, or the evidence of their own eyes, the inspector appears, as do the planning officers, to rely only on the comments of the statutory consultees, Surrey Highways, who act as if total gridlock is the only way for Tongham.

The planning inspector’s nonsensical decision means that most of the available land in Tongham and Ash will be filled with new houses, transforming and overwhelming local facilities and creating much more traffic congestion on local roads.

What is being created in the west of Guildford Borough, by merging it with Farnham and Aldershot is effectively a moderate size new town. Worse it is being created in an ad hoc manner with little or no infrastructure.

GBC was invited to respond. 

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