Letter: We Can Provide Homes and Protect Our Environment

Published on: 15 Jul, 2024
Updated on: 15 Jul, 2024

A CPRE map showing the green belt around Guildford and the designated strategic development sites with the 2019 Local Plan.

From: Roland Dunster

In response to: Guildford and Housing – We Must Act

As a passionate supporter of our wonderful local and national countryside, rivers, seas and wildlife, I am absolutely dismayed at the prospect of any further loss of the green belt and the industrialisation of our beautiful landscapes with onshore wind and solar “farms”.

This baby out with the bathwater approach is all the more baffling and frustrating when the research and actions of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Royal Society for thr Protection of Birds, National Trust, wildlife Trusts and the BBC reveal:

housing demand and housing need are not one and the same;
being houseless and being homeless are not one and the same;
there are 113,000 families or individuals living in temporary accommodation in England but there are 261,0000 existing empty homes;
there is sufficient existing brownfield land in England for 1.2 million homes;
existing rooftop and car park-solar has the potential to produce energy equivalent to 10 nuclear power stations; and
nature-friendly farming, climate solutions and re-naturing work and are profitable.

We can provide the homes and energy we actually need whilst still protecting, enhancing and connecting our landscapes, countryside, seas and wildlife.

Let’s please save the baby!

Responses to Letter: We Can Provide Homes and Protect Our Environment

Jim Allen Reply

July 15, 2024 at 11:59 am

Excellent article but fails to identify two serious and virtually insurmountable problems.

1/ Electrical supply connections to the National Grid are booked up until post 2035 at the earliest, so any increase in generation supply in the short term is simply absent. Note: 2,500 insulators on 50 plus pylons needed to upgrade Guildford’s powers supply.

2/ Water supply. When the question was asked of WRAS (water resources in the South East) “in 20 years is there enough water to meet predicted demand?”. The response was: “If you don’t mind (mother) nature dying!”

The Hog’s Back Brewery raised this water shortage problem before the Tongham estate was given planning permission. Some homes are now suffering little to no water pressure even before all homes have been occupied.

3/ The majority of sewage treatment plants in the UK are exceeding their treatment capacity and it takes 10 years plus to increase such capacity.
Ramsey Nagaty Reply

July 15, 2024 at 1:33 pm

Roland makes some good points.

I had hoped we had moved away from grand standing and government ministers and the Prime Minister making headline grabbing statements.

Sadly, we see the same diktat on housing feeding the greed of developers which is highly unlikely to achieve the types of homes we need in the right places, at the right price supported by sufficient infrastructure.

Ramsey Nagaty is a former GGG borough councillor.