Millmead Views: If You Were Planning A Kitchen… Or A Car Park…

Published on: 8 Oct, 2012
Updated on: 12 Oct, 2012

An occasional column written normally by our local GBC councillors, but this time by one of our County Councillors…

By Fiona White (Lib Dem, Guildford West)

If you were a husband, wife or partner who wanted to install a new kitchen in your home what would you do? Scuttle off alone and draw up a plan with someone at Homebase or B & Q without telling anyone, or consult with the rest of the family and take their views on board? Chances are it would be the second. You don’t want a row. Others use the kitchen and, well, they might have some good ideas too.

Cllr Fiona White (left) chairing the public meeting where the public were able to give their views on the Park & Ride

A resident makes his point about the the proposed Park & Ride scheme

So it follows that when a council intends to invest millions of pounds on a large public facility, the public it will affect must be properly consulted. This is what should have happened with the planned Onslow Park & Ride set to cost taxpayers £8.5m. But no one had talked about the people who live in that part of Guildford and the problems they currently have. One major part of the equation was left out.

When approached by The Park Barn and Westborough Community Association I was very happy to agree to chair a public meeting they were organising to discuss the project. The meeting highlighted the need for both councils to involve everyone in these big decisions.

The presentation to residents talked about the need to reduce the amount of traffic going into Guildford town centre: we would all agree on that. We were also told about the time it takes for people on Surrey Research Park and the Royal Surrey County Hospital to get out onto the road system, as if we didn’t already know. Some of our local journeys are severely affected too.

But residents should know that their comments and wishes have really been listened to even if they cannot all be acted upon. We cannot all agree on everything of course but we do need to feel that our right to comment our right to have our say has been properly respected and that the views are properly assessed and weighed against others properly affecting the outcome and decisions.

Guildford Borough Council has to draw up a new plan to show how development should take place in the whole borough for the foreseeable future, which will be the planning bible against which all applications will be decided. It is especially important that everyone has a chance to take part in putting that ‘master’ plan together. There will need to be decisions on the town centre but they will affect all the surrounding areas not just the part of Guildford within the town boundaries.

An important part of the plan will be the number of housing units which need to be built and whether they will be achieved by increasing the housing density in already heavily developed parts of the urban areas of the borough, whether more housing could go into parts where there are large houses in big gardens and whether the green belt boundaries should be reviewed.

Some of these decisions will be contentious and the plan will be used to decide how Guildford will change over the next few years. They will affect the people living here now and their children. Most people will have a point of view. If we are to get it right there has to be a proper debate over the whole of Guildford Borough because the only way it will work in the long term is if it has the support of people living, working or running businesses within the council’s area.