Letter: Well Done to the Independents

Published on: 21 Jan, 2019
Updated on: 19 Jan, 2019

From Ben Paton

Well done the organisers. Well done the candidates. Well done the audience.

Objectively the leadership of GBC has let residents down. They have not applied the principles of sustainability to the Local Plan. They have not produced an objective evidence base. They have ignored 90,000 comments on it.

Eber Kington from Epsom & Ewell made a great speech and gave irrefutable proof that there is a better way.

In response to an FoI request I made in 2015 the council disclosed this: “The Council started the current Local Plan Project in 2009.”

“The [costs] …of developing the current Local Plan up to the issue of the draft plan for consultation in June 2014 were £1.3 million as outlined in the Council Agenda Report on the draft plan in June 2014. The expenditure incurred since June 2014 on the consultation and other works to 31 December 2014 is £400,000.” The budget they disclosed to March 2017 was another £853k.

That means they spent and planned to spend some £2.55m just to the end of March 2017. £900k went to external consultants just to the end of September 2014. If you make a guess of what they have spent in the last two years and add it on they may have spent some £4 million.

For what? A plan that comprises a series of ribbon developments along the A3 that defies all the principles of sustainable development. This is what residents got in exchange for ten years and some £4 million.

Malfeasance takes many forms. Intellectual dishonesty and the abuse of discretion, evident in this Local Plan, are some of them.

Responses to Letter: Well Done to the Independents

Gordon Bridger Reply

January 23, 2019 at 10:52 am

An impressive piece of research. Two vital reports which were available to planners and the Planning Committee were the 2009 report on the economy of Guildford which was a very competent piece of work but ignored by planners as it gave priority to housing and congestion and showed that retail only employed 10% of the labour force.

The next report was an excellent University of Surrey report which worked out the gross value added of various employment activities (in 2012/3) which clearly showed that our economy was booming thanks to high tech services around a cluster of activities around the University and Research Park, of which planners should have been aware.

But what does our Local Plan come up with? A huge 40% increase in retail in an overcrowded centre, based on a seriously flawed report by retail experts. Now six years later, as the retail market crumbles in front of them, they say how clever they are to make housing a priority.

But it gets worse – the Local Plan submitted to the Inspector which included the 41,000 sq metres of retail – has been accepted in principle but has now been radically changed making housing a priority in the town. The failure of the inspector to take into account this significant change is a serious flaw which needs to be challenged as it makes a vital difference to the spatial allocation of housing. In my view, the inspector is in the wrong in approving such a flawed plan.