Letter: When It Comes to Planning Decisions – We Reap What We Sow

Published on: 30 Mar, 2026
Updated on: 30 Mar, 2026

From John Rigg

former R4GV borough councillor

It seems a great shame that the opportunity has been lost to deliver a free school alongside much-needed new homes, in a sustainable location close to an existing settlement with a railway station.

It was a sensible proposal that was resisted for years, despite officer recommendations, so it was perhaps inevitable that sooner or later a recession would coincide with the eventual consent.

The result is a damaging outcome all round, with the loss of millions of pounds of investment for the school, and a decade of serious losses for the developers.

Sadly, this is becoming a familiar story. Effingham appears to have taken around ten years of abortive negotiations, while North Street took more than twenty years and nine failed schemes before councillors finally allowed a viable consent. Even that may now be vulnerable to the current property downturn affecting London and the South East.

At Effingham, it is a classic lose-lose scenario — except perhaps for those who consistently oppose such proposals on a simple “not in my back yard” basis, regardless of the wider public interest.

If the UK is serious about delivering the homes, infrastructure and economic growth, it so clearly needs, we must find a better way. A system that takes ten or twenty years to approve sustainable development is not planning for the future — it is planning for stagnation, sorry to say.

Either communities have a balanced role in deciding harm against benefit or their role will be reduced if not removed which is exactly what is happening now. We reap what we sow .

I now fear the quality of projects will be worse as a result but it can be said we had our chance.

Responses to Letter: When It Comes to Planning Decisions – We Reap What We Sow

Hazel Barker Reply

March 31, 2026 at 9:45 am

It’s said that the homes are much needed in Effingham but are they really? Going back some years now, a survey revealed, that there was a need for only 59 new homes, so what has changed?

I believe the birth rate has decreased, so are the new homes needed to move the migrants out of London? I’m hoping the whole project is aborted, it needs to be for a lot of reasons.
George Potter Reply

April 1, 2026 at 10:55 am

The thing about the former leading lights of R4GV is that they can always be relied upon to act as supine apologists for the very worst behaviours of developers, such as promising a school to justify building on the green belt, then using the cost of a school as an excuse to water down other commitments, before abandoning the promise of the school entirely.

Personally, I don’t think the Berkeley Group needs special pleading, or the victim-blaming of the residents of Effingham, but sadly this is what we must expect from remnants of R4GV and the little-mourned “Guildford Vision Group”.

George Potter is a Lib Dem county and borough councillor.
- Angela Richardson Reply
  
  April 1, 2026 at 3:07 pm
  
  Cllr Potter isn’t engaging with the statement “We must find a better way”. Cllr Potter has also not provided any alternative solutions. Cllr Potter has just continued in his quest to be the most uncivilised councillor in Guildford. In that, he can proudly say he is “winning here”.
  
  The Guildford Vision Group is an important voice in Guildford and John Rigg, who at least tried to achieve meaningful things for Guildford when in office, should keep going and ignore those who talk much and achieve very little.
  
  Angela Richardson is the former Conservative MP for Guildford.
- John Dee Reply
  
  April 4, 2026 at 1:15 pm
  
  Thoroughly unpleasant and needlessly personal from Cllr Potter, as ever.