Letter: So Much for the Guildford Local Plan Bringing Down Prices

Published on: 15 May, 2023
Updated on: 15 May, 2023

From: Lisa Wright

I’ve just seen an advert on my social media for the new houses at East Horsley built by Taylor Wimpey.

I followed the link and was surprised to see the two-bed terraced house is available for £580,000.

This is a ridiculous amount of money for a house which should be for first-time buyers and just shows what a myth it was to propose that building more houses under the Guildford Local Plan would bring prices down.

Responses to Letter: So Much for the Guildford Local Plan Bringing Down Prices

RWL Davies Reply

May 15, 2023 at 4:31 pm

No surprises there then.

No party for the past 50+ years has had a coherent strategy to “sort out housing”; it’s “too difficult” and short term considerations always take precedence.
Howard Smith Reply

May 15, 2023 at 5:57 pm

Hardly any of the sites allocated in the Local Plan have seen homes built on them yet (Gosden Hill, Blackwell Farm, Wisley). So, far from having the effect of reducing prices I think you would expect prices to continue to rise until they are.

Howard Smith is a Labour borough councillor for Westborough
- Harry Eve Reply
  
  May 16, 2023 at 5:50 pm
  
  I think Howard Smith is ignoring the effect of the virtually endless supply of well-off people, already on the housing ladder, moving into the borough from London and its outer suburbs where prices are even higher.
  
  It is difficult to see an answer to this and I cannot see it emerging under the current housing regime. Mr Smith might agree that regime needs to change.
- David Roberts Reply
  
  May 16, 2023 at 9:10 pm
  
  Cllr Smith needs to re-sit his GCSE economics. He is quite right that in a perfect market, increasing supply would reduce house prices. But housing in Guildford is nothing like a perfect market.
  
  New-built homes account for only a microscopic proportion of total housing stock, whose prices are not determined by how much gets built but by the fluctuating cost of credit, the infinite imported demand from London, overseas property investment (both clean and corrupt), a million unused planning permissions, 600,000 empty homes, market-distorting demand stimulus policies and a century of cramming national economic activity into the South East.
  
  Think of it this way: if abundant housing were the answer, London would have the cheapest homes in the country.
  
  The three strategic sites in the Guildford Local Plan that Cllr Smith wants built would cause environmental havoc, would have no impact on house prices and are not needed to meet local housing need anyway, as latest ONS population projections prove. Restoring top-down national housebuilding targets would be equally futile.
  
  I suggest Guildford Labour might try to show a little less contempt for the environment, fawning support for the Tory Local Plan and class hatred for the rural part of the borough. In the local elections, Labour got only three per cent of the vote in the three eastern wards. For a government-in-waiting that is a disgrace.
- Lisa Wright Reply
  
  May 17, 2023 at 2:50 pm
  
  Thousands have been built in Woking and prices haven’t come down so it’s unlikely that even with the major strategic sites built out fully that there will be even a very small change in pricing. The proof is already there.
Tony Edwards Reply

May 16, 2023 at 10:24 am

So-called “affordable housing” is the spoonful of sugar prescribed by Taylor Wimpey to sweeten the disastrous reality of their nightmare plans for Three Farms Meadows, the former Wisley airfield.

But they are unable or unwilling to confirm the price bracket for their affordable homes saying that they “have no control over the prices of affordable housing.”

So I recently asked them if they could indicate the cost of any affordable stock sold on behalf of Taylor Wimpey, anywhere in Surrey, during the past two years. They were unable to oblige, saying that “Taylor Wimpey doesn’t sell or rent affordable homes directly to customers and, therefore, doesn’t have information on the sales or rental prices.”

It seems illogical, therefore, that the company can’t or won’t provide details of any affordable housing, built by them in Surrey in the past two years, while at the same time promising 40 per cent affordable housing in their Wisley proposals.

Without a specific price point, any claim to affordable housing by Taylor Wimpey is totally meaningless.
Helena Townsend Reply

May 17, 2023 at 6:02 am

It’s common knowledge developers like this build homes and sell them on to RSLs [Residential Social Landlords] like Vivid and Clarion who will then sell them as affordable shared ownership or rent. Mr Edwards will be able to look on their websites to find several schemes nearby.

Southern Home Ownership has homes coming forward on the old Portsmouth Road in Guildford and at Ockford Park in Godalming. The numbers of these are very limited.

I think Taylor Wimpey has been very reasonable here, and I’m glad this is going to appeal. I really hope they get consent.
Stuart Barnes Reply

May 18, 2023 at 9:09 am

It hardly matters how many new houses are built each year. If the current pretend Conservative government continues to allow or encourage net migration of up to one million annually the prices will continue to rise and the green spaces continue to decline.