Letter: R4GV Are Missing the Point or Making It For Me

Published on: 21 Mar, 2021
Updated on: 21 Mar, 2021

From Julie Iles

Conservative county councillor for The Horsleys

Cllr John Rigg claims that despite warnings the Conservatives exaggerated the number of homes required by the Local Plan. If that is true what possible reason could R4GV have for not reviewing it now? If the numbers were inflated then a review would surely bring them down.

Therefore, only one of two things can be true. Either R4GV candidates standing for election in 2019 made promises to amend the local plan knowing that they could not keep them. Or they have now decided not to keep them. Which is it?

Whilst they continue finger pointing at the previous Conservative council they are not doing anything to make a change.

Cllr Cross uses the excuse that this is a collaborative administration which has been in place for under six months. R4GV have actually had representation on the Executive since the elections in 2019. Surely he should know that given that he has represented both the Lib Dems and R4GV at Guildford Borough Council?

Cllr Nagaty points to the Guildford Greenbelt Group previously calling for a review of the Local Plan which was blocked following Lib Dem pressure. Hopefully, their councillors will vote for the motion this time then when it comes to full council in April.

Won’t it be interesting to see who delivers on their election promises?

Responses to Letter: R4GV Are Missing the Point or Making It For Me

Jim Allen Reply

March 21, 2021 at 8:51 pm

Promises are made to be broken! I would suggest perhaps read between the lines of all political propaganda would be the sage advice to all trying to make rational sense of this nonsense.
Jan Messinger Reply

March 21, 2021 at 9:11 pm

Sadly this political point-scoring is not doing any good. The residents of Guildford know the housing numbers were too high. They wanted to save their green belt and open spaces and wanted brownfield sites to be used for housing requirements of only the borough’s needs not everywhere else.

Then the previous GBC administration pushed the Local Plan through at the last minute. Why do you think people voted as they did?
Guildford wants change for the good. Now the current administration has to sort out all sorts. We have all read what has been going on via Guildford Dragon NEWS in our borough for a very long time. Many would say it has been going on for decades.

I hope all this political point-scoring stops. Let GBC councillors work for the good of all its residents in the borough.
The residents simply want a good place to live. It’s not just the Local Plan’s housing requirements it’s everything else that makes this borough a good place to live.

Remember in May we are voting for Surrey county councillors at the election, not borough councillors. I say vote for who you know will represent your village and what you want from your county councillor.

The residents know what is right and wrong.

To those standing, I say don’t go over the past. Instead, look to our future and what you can do to make where we live better.

I would actually like zero litter in the county but no one is going to achieve that in my lifetime, sadly.
Lisa Wright Reply

March 21, 2021 at 10:00 pm

Let’s just take a moment to reflect on the word review.

Just because someone promises a review, it doesn’t mean anything will change. A review could take five minutes, five hours, days or even years and still nothing needs to change.

I suspect that yet again this is a Conservative pledge which makes a very nice headline on a flier and nothing more. We’ve seen it before when empty promises of protecting our green belt and countryside were plastered all over Conservative election material only to find a Local Plan full of huge strategic developments across our fields, a 40 per cent uplift on the housing targets and a developer-led free for all in our villages.

Personally, I wouldn’t trust a single word they write now and I hope others will also consider what the Conservatives have actually done rather than what their glossy brochures promise before casting their votes this spring.
Fiona White Reply

March 22, 2021 at 1:55 pm

Conservative candidates put out literature in the run-up to the 2019 borough council elections saying that they would protect the Green Belt and then the Conservative group at Guildford Borough Council pushed through their Local Plan a week before polling day, including removing large areas of the borough from the Green Belt.

Now in the run-up to the 2021 polls they are calling for their own Local Plan to be reviewed ignoring the fact that these elections are for the county council which doesn’t have a Local Plan.

Is this a case of Let the Voters Beware?

Fiona White is the Lib Dem county councillor for Guildford West and borough councillor for Westborough
David Roberts Reply

March 22, 2021 at 7:28 pm

Julie Iles is a generally well-regarded councillor here in the Horsleys, but she is forfeiting electoral support by spearheading what most people see as cynical last-minute manoeuvring by the Tories to distance themselves from their most unpopular policies.

Time for her to join a different party, perhaps?