Open Letter: Questions for GBC Councillors

Published on: 23 Jul, 2019
Updated on: 23 Jul, 2019

From Karen Stevens

Save Hogs Back campaigner

Karen Stevens is circulating a letter to all GBC councillors regarding the Judicial Reviews of the Local Plan

As I am sure you are aware, Compton Parish Council (CPC) has been given permission to take its challenge of the Local Plan (and specifically the Blackwell Farm site allocation) to the High Court. This means the judge believes the PC has a case to argue.

Save Hogs Back fully supports CPC’s action, and would like to ask the councillors four questions before voting tomorrow evening on the motion to determine the extent to which GBC should defend its Local Plan in the High Court.

i) Does anyone on the council really believe that providing 4,000 homes above the borough’s objectively assessed housing need is an “exceptional circumstance” for building on the green belt and (in the case of Blackwell Farm) for building a road through the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)? Because this is what your QC will be arguing.

ii) Does anyone really think that a road through an AONB, up a steep hill on the flank of the iconic Hogs Back, is not major development?  Because this is what your QC will be arguing.

iii) Do you seriously believe that the privately-owned, single-lane, tree-lined track that currently serves the dozen or so residents of Down Place and Blackwell Farm, might be suitable as a main access to 1,800 homes, two schools, shops and an extended business park? Because this is what your QC has already argued in your defence.

iv) Finally, does anyone believe that it is worth spending tens of thousands of pounds of public money to defend a Local Plan, which includes development sites that are not needed and cannot realistically be built during the Plan period? Should you go against the wishes of Guildford residents who you represent by taking land out of green belt just to line the pockets of developers?

It is not so long ago that the Guildford Borough Council took Surrey CC to the High Court in order to prevent building at Gosden Hill. You have the opportunity to remove at least two strategic sites, without revisiting the whole Plan.

The people of Guildford are looking to you to act in their best interests and to reconsider the decision to defend the Local Plan as adopted by the previous administration, rather than taking the easy (but expensive option) of defending a Plan to suit the developers.

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