Letter: Tory Independents Demand R4GV Clarifies Position On Local Plan

Published on: 28 Aug, 2020
Updated on: 31 Aug, 2020

From: Paul Spooner

Member of the Guildford Borough Council Conservative “independent” Group

In response to Opinion: R4GV Sees Chance To Challenge Local Plan In White Paper.

If the new methodology is adopted through legislation then the revised minimum housing number for Guildford would be 733 instead of the 562 in the adopted Local Plan, even after the penalties for previous failure to meet five year supply were applied to reach 562.

How would R4GV keep all residents happy in determining new sites for the 733 houses per annum? Whatever mechanism is used, many residents will be upset.

If the intention is to remove all greenfield or rural development and place 16,000 houses in Guildford town centre then perhaps R4GV could be clear in their position, as Ash and Tongham are now already full of development due to years of delays in the Local Plan process prior to April 2019.

Responses to Letter: Tory Independents Demand R4GV Clarifies Position On Local Plan

Jim Allen Reply

August 28, 2020 at 11:40 pm

733 houses per annum! Thames Water will be so upset; they believe they have capacity until 2026 with the 3,000 headroom that was available in October 2015, with 1,000 already allocated.

That means they will be under capacity before 2024. What will we do with the effluent from these verbal and lavatorial decisions?

Personally I do not believe 350 are needed and only 200 of them will actually house people for any given year in the next 10! Because there will be no one with the finances to actually pay for them.
John Perkins Reply

August 29, 2020 at 10:23 am

The exam results fiasco ought to have convinced the Tories of the danger of using algorithms instead of brains.

Yet here they are again: “computer says 733”.
Jules Cranwell Reply

August 29, 2020 at 10:46 am

I guess Spooner doesn’t realise the irony in this. He has the nerve to criticize R4GV for listening to residents, something he so signally refused to do over the local plan.
- Paul Spooner Reply
  
  August 29, 2020 at 12:26 pm
  
  There was extensive consultation Mr Cranwell, and the same process is being followed through the latest Local Plan stage under the new administration.
  
  There is no solution that would satisfy all residents. Looking back, you made many claims in the media that were proven incorrect, perhaps you could propose a solution that would make everyone happy and satisfy Government requirements and be legal?
  
  I would definitely support that!
  - John Perkins Reply
    
    August 29, 2020 at 6:16 pm
    
    Extensive consultation which the Conservative administration ignored.
    
    It’s probably true that no solution would satisfy all residents, though none other than its own would satisfy the government, and “legal” is an empty term coming from a party which made the law to suit its purpose.
  - Jim Allen Reply
    
    August 29, 2020 at 8:59 pm
    
    A consultation of 80,000 ignored educated observations, a calculation on HMA numbers hidden from the public, no observations of reduction by mitigating factors, no maximum number but only approximate numbers on each site, providing a 20% increase in housing numbers. Moving a sewage treatment works onto made contaminated land with all the implications. What was wrong leaving it in the best place possible?
    
    Yes there were solutions which would have satisfied the majority. Sadly the then executive lived in a pre-covid bubble of invisible deafness to reality.