Opinion: How Did This Planning Disaster Occur?

Published on: 29 Jan, 2018
Updated on: 31 Jan, 2018

By Bill Stokoe

a director of the Guildford Vision Group (GVG)

The Solum and Network Rail planning appeal decision is undoubtedly a disaster for Guildford in so many respects – infrastructure, environment, ruined townscape, congestion, accidents, and pollution. There are clearly some benefits but all those and more were and remain available in GVG’s masterplan without the much more damaging aspects of the Solum scheme.

What surprises me and my GVG colleagues most is the widespread politicians’ shock at the Solum decision. We, and many others in the community, saw the situation clearly enough. We have to ask why didn’t they?

The Solum process started years ago. Over these years why did the council not prepare itself for the application, researching the rail and community needs of the station?

Why did it fail to put itself in a position to address the key issues, or to negotiate an agreement with the developer? Why did it fail to have in place appropriate planning rules to resist aspects of the application they disliked?

Then what happened when the reasons for refusal were being drafted? These led to the council having such a weak hand at the appeal.

Without the right planning controls and adopted policies in place, GBC was unlikely to win and was odds-on favourite to be the losers in this very expensive process.

Did the council receive a lawyer’s advice that it had a strong case? If not, why did it incur the costs of a hearing? If it did receive a lawyer’s encouragement to fight on then let’s see the advice.

It has been manifestly obvious to so many of us that, where a council fails to put in place up to date plans and policies, it will be at risk. They also need to be good plans. We have neither.

When it comes to rail stations a council needs to research the railway’s plans and services. For GBC to spend £300,000 now on a station survey may be better late than never but, in many respects, it is shutting the stable door after the Solum horse has bolted.

Our town centre is reaping the harvest of this poor quality of town planning over many years. This time it’s further exposed by government policy in favour of housing development under the NPPF rules and the actions of a government-owned rail network.

GVG and the Guildford Society offered to assist the leader, deputy leader and the planning team in the appeal process but our input was not wanted. Nevertheless, we represented ourselves and the community at the appeal hearing, a somewhat daunting and challenging week-long experience. We noticed only one councillor participate over the days of hearings.

What can be done now? The developer is partly owned by a government body. The Solum scheme has so many shortcomings we should still take this up at a higher level on key points. GVG would certainly provide support to the council in taking this action.

Meanwhile, the town centre traffic gets worse, the fatal accidents mount up and the pollution gets worse. The town’s congestion is among the worst in Britain, costing drivers £44 million per annum (Inrix survey). Commercial firms plan to exit Guildford because of all this.

The Solum scheme, with over 400 new homes plus supporting car parking, makes no contribution to improving this situation as Surrey County Council advised that there was insufficient impact from the Solum scheme for them to require changes to the road infrastructure. Can this be right?

The possible lifelines that Guildford Society professionals and GVG made available to the council to assist their case on the station development were rebuffed or ignored from early on. If these had been adopted there might possibly have been a different appeal outcome. Notwithstanding, we gave evidence as best we could without GBC’s help.

Planning controls to preserve historic towns and townscapes are available but they have to be put in place. It was embarrassing to hear Solum point out there were none in the 2003 Local Plan able to forestall their application. Despite millions spent on producing the new but long-delayed Local Plan, Solum argues successfully that there are still none.

So none of us should feel surprised at this appeal outcome, nor the resulting lawyers’ bills for ratepayers to pick up.

So to guide us in the future, it is surely important to question the past. Let’s examine the answers to these questions:

Why was there:

1. No suitable or adequate planning policy(ies) in place, eg rebuilding height or mass?
2. A failure of pre-application negotiations?
3. No settled position re regeneration of the station, ie what Guildford wants at the station including a detailed study of passenger needs?
4. Poor appreciation of Network Rail’s future network needs and impact on Solum, eg in respect of new platform locations?
5. No settled position re station as an integrated transport hub?
6. No settled position re the impact of station development on adjoining infrastructure?
7. A disregard of GVG’s east-west crossing proposals, at least as an option? These might have provided grounds for prematurity, as the appeal inspector acknowledged?
8. Poor liaison with Surrey County Council over the future sale of SCC station land (a possible bargaining chip?) to Solum?
9. No legal advice predicting the appeal outcome?

GVG is very much in favour of developing the station and new housing, as our masterplan shows, for the benefit of the town and the wider region. But not just in the interests of Network Rail’s and Solum’s cash flow.

And GVG stands ready to make a fresh start with GBC to plot an exciting and sustainable way forward for the town centre.

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