Opinion: GGG Fighting Threat To Thousand-Year History Of Our Villages

Published on: 22 Apr, 2021
Updated on: 25 Apr, 2021

Continuing our series of Opinion pieces by the parties standing in the Surrey County Council elections on May 6…

By Ramsey Nagaty

GBC councillor for Shalford and leader of the Guildford Greenbelt Group

The Guildford Greenbelt Group are not fighting a proxy general election. As local people putting local concerns first, we are led by local need, not business greed.

Guida Esteves, GGG candidate for the GBC by-election in Send.

We are fielding two candidates on May 6, Guida Esteves for the borough council by-election in Send (after the sad death of GGG’s Patrick Sheard) and Julia Osborn for Shere on Surrey County Council (covering Abinger, Shere, Chilworth, West Clandon and Send).

GGG councillors are selected for quality and lead by hard work and example. In Guildford, we outnumber Labour and the Green Party. By common consent, we punch above our weight on the full range of council business, always taking an independent approach.

Other parties field paper candidates. The Greens first said they wouldn’t stand in Send but are now poaching GGG local policies to hide their fixation with national social causes.

Julia Osborn, GGG candidate for the Shere ward in the SCC election.

The Tories are relying on voter inertia and think an ex-MP from five prime ministers ago is an appropriate candidate for 2020s Surrey. They have grasped at impossible gimmicks, such as extending the Surrey Hills AONB to Send, instead of returning our villages to the green belt.

In 2019, Guildford residents voted to kick national politics out of local government, ending Tory one-party rule.

After decades of complacency and cronyism, the same must now happen on Surrey County Council, which needs to represent residents, not failed/wannabe national politicians and their property developer pals.

Even the former Conservative MP Anne Milton now endorses a local independent party for SCC in her division.

Only a stronger local voice can stand up to central government and big-party bullying. Local public service is a privilege and not a playground for national ideologies or a stepping-stone to national office.

Our grassroots origins put collaboration with parishes, volunteers and residents’ groups centre-stage, unlike the rigged local democracy we are used to.

GGG supports building the right homes in the right places, including more low-cost, urban homes for local people, not fake “affordable” ones.

The pandemic is an opportunity to build back a greener Surrey, creating a sustainable future for our communities. We want balanced progress, putting modern, human-scale living above old-fashioned growth-at-all-costs.

Preserving the countryside is the biggest thing we can do to regenerate our crumbling towns, by forcing developers to build homes where people, especially the young, working people, want to live, and where infrastructure already exists.

The countryside is not just useless empty space. The green belt is a covenant between generations, entrenched in law. Our children’s birth-right is not for councils to flog off for short-term gain.

As the recent Dasgupta report highlights, nature has an existential value that is barely starting to be measured. Local planning needs to catch up with what science is telling us.

Under the Tory Local Plan, the bulldozers are already here. Woods have been felled and village streets are choked with construction traffic.

The thousand-year history of Guildford’s villages as rural communities is at an end unless this mindless urbanisation stops now.

The Local Plan must be radically rethought. It takes no account of latest population data, lower immigration and overseas student numbers, the economic impact of Brexit and Covid or the government’s “levelling-up” agenda for left-behind regions.

The required review of the Plan must start immediately. It can be meaningful only if its explicit objective is to bring house-building targets down now, into line with environmental and infrastructure constraints.

By completely ignoring our poisoned air and traffic gridlock, our councils are failing in their statutory duty.

But first, residents need to get out and vote. Change can happen if you vote for GGG, the party that has proved itself to be an effective local force.