Letter: Will Tory Councillors Do The Honourable Thing?

Published on: 24 May, 2016
Updated on: 24 May, 2016

From George Dokimakis

The revised Local Plan is being debated this evening (May 24), at a full Guildford Borough Council meeting. A vote will be taken to decide if it should go forward for public consultation.

The question is, will the Conservative councillors vote for it?

The Local Plan includes proposals to build on the green belt. During the 2015 borough election the Conservatives ran on a campaign to protect the green belt. Now they are planning to build on it and change boundaries and demarcations to make it easier to do so. That is not protecting it.

Cllr Spooner was the Deputy Leader of the GBC Executive Committee during during the 2015 election campaign and was undoubtedly aware of of the election commitment.

The housing situation was already critical a year ago. So why didn’t they campaign honestly, revealing their real green belt plans?

Now the Conservative councillors have a dilemma. Do they accept that the Local Plan goes against their main pledge in their 2015 manifesto – and vote against it? Or, will they vote in favour and accept that they misled Guildford Borough’s residents in 2015?

In my view, any Conservative councillor that is happy with the revised Local Plan in its current form and votes for it to proceed should resign. Their position would be irreconcilable with their manifesto. Let us hope they still have enough honour to do the right thing.

George Dokimakis is the vice-chair of the Guildford Labour Party.

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