Letter: Tory Talk of ‘Surrender to Developer Interests’ is Pure Hypocrisy

Published on: 13 Aug, 2022
Updated on: 13 Aug, 2022

From: David Roberts

In response to: GBC’s Poor Performance on Social Housing Is An Abject Betrayal

I read in Mr Mills’s letter an early attempt by the Conservatives to steal the clothes of the other parties in the run-up to the May 2023 borough elections.

Presumably, they will soon be calling for a review of the Local Plan that has unleashed a developer’s free-for-all across Guildford’s villages.

Voters beware: these are the same Conservatives, under the same stale local leaders, who forced the Local Plan through the council on the eve of their defeat in 2019. Their talk of “abject betrayal” and “surrender to developer interests and market pressure” is pure hypocrisy.

I also wonder how their sudden advocacy of social housing squares with the free-market, right-wing policies of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Have Guildford Conservatives suddenly gone socialist, or is this like their broken promise to save the green belt in the 2015 local elections?

If, on the other hand, the message is supposed to be that the Conservatives would simply provide more competent administration, their national record is unlikely to inspire much confidence.

Responses to Letter: Tory Talk of ‘Surrender to Developer Interests’ is Pure Hypocrisy

Ben Paton Reply

August 15, 2022 at 10:40 am

The Guildford Conservative Party is not even an entertaining distraction. Readers will get more reliable social commentary from reading the Beano and following the antics of Dennis the Menace – at the same time as being entertained – than from transparent nonsense written by the so-called Conservatives in Guildford.
Richard Mills Reply

August 15, 2022 at 11:20 am

‘Conservatives stealing the Labour Party’s clothes on social housing……’ Where has David Roberts been for the last seven years?

If that is the right way to portray the matter Guildford Conservatives began doing it during their 2015-19 administration when, unlike their R4GV/Liberal successors, they developed and started to deliver a social housing programme as large as any Labour Party supporter could realistically hope.

And yes, I have little doubt that at the appropriate time an incoming Conservative council will review the Local Plan.

Richard Mills is the chair of Guildford’s Town Centre Conservatives
Jules Cranwell Reply

August 16, 2022 at 6:17 am

It wasn’t R4GV or the Liberals who accepted considerable, albeit declared, hospitality from developers during the creation of a Local Plan which is nothing but a bonanza for those developers. It was the Tory leadership.