Letter: The Council Is Playing A Double Game Over Proposed Housing at Wisley

Published on: 22 Jan, 2019
Updated on: 22 Jan, 2019

Former Wisley Airfield

From David Roberts

In response to: I Am Pleased Party Is Investigating Sir Paul’s Beresford’s Claims

Like Cllr Spooner, I don’t believe that the Three Farms Meadow (“former Wisley airfield”) proposal was ever removed from the draft Local Plan. It has been there all along, despite Guildford Borough Council’s refusal of planning permission.

If that refusal was sincere, the site would have been removed the moment the Secretary of State upheld the rejection of planning permission.

Instead, within 24 hours of that decision, the council submitted its final version of the Local Plan in which – surprise, surprise – the site still appeared as a suitable location for 2,000 new houses.

It is clear that the council is playing a double game here – rebuffing the developers’ first application as a sop to public outrage, while encouraging them via the Local Plan to re-submit an almost identical scheme for approval sometime in future as soon as politics permit.

The council will argue that I’m muddling up two different things: the Local Plan strategy on the one hand, and a specific planning permission application on the other. They would say it’s perfectly consistent to say Yes to the development in one context and No in the other. This would be more convincing were the chief spokesman for the developers, not a senior Tory councillor, albeit from another council.

Responses to Letter: The Council Is Playing A Double Game Over Proposed Housing at Wisley

Valerie Thompson Reply

January 23, 2019 at 8:47 am

Mr Roberts states that: “…within 24 hours of that decision, (the refusal by the Secretary of State of the appeal) the council submitted its final version of the Local Plan in which – surprise, surprise – the site still appeared as a suitable location for 2,000 new houses.”

This is what I said in a previous reply about Wisley development, but then was personally attacked by Cllr Spooner who said that actually the site was never removed, presumably so that GBC could give the owners yet more time to come up with a new plan, even though the site has been dismissed by GBC’s own councillors and objections lodged by the highways authorities, local residents, and Wisley Gardens.

One has to ask, who is more important, the Secretary of State as a representative of the government, or Mr Spooner and the GBC planners?
Ben Paton Reply

January 23, 2019 at 10:14 am

Having “double” jobs also seems in vogue at GBC, ie giving two jobs to the same person. That way the holder of one job does not have to consult someone else, only his conscience. Not an arrangement designed for transparency and absolute clarity.