Letter: We Need the Wisley Housing Development

Published on: 30 Dec, 2022
Updated on: 30 Dec, 2022

From: David Smith

If you open the report link in Chris Campbell’s letter: M25 J10 Woodland Decimation Shows What Happens If Wisley Development Goes Ahead, the list mentioned is actually three years old and therefore completely out of date.

In terms of brownfield sites in Guildford, when we exclude North Street (likely to get consent in January) Guildford Park, Debenhams, Guildford Plaza (currently under construction), the cathedral site and the railway station, what other brownfield sites are there?

Most of Walnut Tree Close has been sold out to student housing developers (possibly indicating the lack of demand for private apartment schemes), so the Wisley site is much needed to deliver essential housing, especially when Gosden Hill and Blackwell Farm are so behind.

I can’t see how anyone can demonstrate that the housing numbers for Guildford are too high. From what I can see there is an acute shortage of homes (and I’m taking houses not flats).

Responses to Letter: We Need the Wisley Housing Development

John Perkins Reply

December 30, 2022 at 2:49 pm

David Smith implies that Wisley is a brownfield site. A small part of it remains under concrete despite the government’s promise to return it to farmland after the Second World War.

To describe it as brownfield is utterly misleading as there is no infrastructure of any kind. It is more properly greenfield.

Perhaps if Mr Smith used its correct name of Three Farm Meadows he wouldn’t make such an elementary mistake.
Daniel Hill Reply

December 31, 2022 at 11:59 am

John Perkins point is very interesting. I have often wondered why GBC thought a small strip of concrete magically turned all the surrounding green fields into a brownfield site.

If David Smith is looking for alternative development land he should not forget the four-acre brownfield site at Stoney Castle, near Pirbright. It is walking distance from a doctor’s surgery and the village School.