Letter: The Council Appears To Have Changed Its Mind About Chapel Street

Published on: 1 Aug, 2018
Updated on: 23 Aug, 2018

From Gordon Bridger

hon alderman and former Mayor of Guildford

According to correspondence, I have seen from Cllr Adrian Chandler, Guildford Borough Council (GBC) has changed its plan for Chapel Street. Cllr Chandler [Con, Onslow] states: “We [the council] are not proposing to remove the setts. We are proposing as with the High Street to re-lay them and the historic cart slabs.”

Last week when I spoke to retailers in Chapel Street they insisted that at the meeting at the Guildhall, which I assume had been called by GBC (with Experience Guildford support), it was proposed to extend the Tunsgate surface to Chapel and Castle Street.

They were told this would reduce the accidents from people falling over pavements and be easier for prams. When I saw Cllr Chandler’s email I went back again and was told quite emphatically that they were told that the Tunsgate surface style was to be extended to the other streets.

In view of this radical change and claim that improvement was what was proposed, I checked this with a committee member of Experience Guildford committee and she also confirmed it.

The Conservation Officer had previously told Gillian Cameron of the Guildford Society that she had not been consulted and I would like to know whether the Lead Member for Heritage approved the scheme? Holy Trinity ward councillors seemed unaware.

It appears that thanks to the publicity about the initiative in The Guildford Dragon and the following letters and comments from readers the council has, thankfully, changed its mind.

It is important not only to protect the town’s heritage and character but for economic ones too. For Guildford to remain an attractive, commercially successful town it needs to retain its historic core. It’s up to those responsible for “Heritage” to see this is done.

What is disturbing is that too many decisions are taken which are not properly discussed and evaluated are bringing the borough council and our system of local government into disrepute.

By the way, an examination of the current new incongruous coloured setts in Tunsgate shows a good deal of tyre marks as lorries turn into the toilet siding.

Is this not likely to occur to a much larger degree with hundreds of vehicles that use Castle Street every day? Can we be assured this £875k (or more) investment is not going to become a soiled dirty looking road in due course?

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