Responses to Short Notice Given of Council Bid to Secure Government Funding for Wisley Development

1. Caroline Reeves Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 9:01 am

   It might be useful to have some facts in this article.

   This is a bid which may or may not be successful.

   If it is successful it could enable a much higher quality of design, much better infrastructure for the development and a higher level of attention to the many issues which meant that the previous application was refused by the planning committee and the Planning Inspector. But all of that is predicated on the site remaining in whatever final version we have of the Local Plan and the final planning application being approved.

   To scrutinise the decision to bid now would cause a delay that, effectively, rules out putting in a bid. If we have to include Wisley as a strategic site and we had lost an opportunity to do whatever we could to make the best of the site we could then be accused by some of having missed an opportunity to bid for the funding.

   There are many ifs on the way to the final conclusion and does not indicate the final planning application as being a done deal. It still has to go through the planning process like every other application.

   Caroline Reeves is the Lib Dem leader of the opposition at Guildford Borough Council
   • Ben Paton Reply

     October 30, 2018 at 11:33 am

     Cllr Reeves disregards the relevant facts:
     1. The Ministry issued its prospectus calling for bids for Garden Communities in August 2018. It can be read on this link:
     https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/garden-communities-prospectus

     2. GBC has had nearly three months to consider putting in a bid. The decision to delay putting this before the council until just over a week before the deadline for submission cannot have been an innocent mistake. It has the hallmarks of a deliberate plan to conceal the bid from the public and to prevent scrutiny and debate.

     3. This is a matter of public interest. There was a five-week Public Inquiry in 2017 to consider this very issue. Preventing public scrutiny and debate is not acting in the public interest.

     4. Cllr Reeves appears not to have attended any of the 2017 Public Inquiry. If she had, she would know that the site does not comply with the criteria for selection as a ‘Garden Community’.

     5. The Ministry’s key criteria are:
     Scale? Preferably 10,000 plus dwellings. The site is maxed out at c 2000.
     Strategic fit? Not consistent with the NPPF. Conflicts with Surrey Nature Partnership plans for protecting biodiversity and Highways England plans for the M25 and A3.
     Locally led? Elmbridge and Woking BCs objected at the Public Inquiry. Surrey Council has not volunteered any support
     Design? A very high-density urban extension many miles from any urban area. A remote, dormitory town without any local facilities.
     Transport? No direct walkable access to primary mass transit. Totally car dependent. Highways England has objected.
     Healthy living? Exposed to serious noise and air pollution from the A3 and M25
     Green space? Private SANG not open to public access. Increased human activity threatens the adjacent Special Protection Area.
     Legacy arrangements? Subsidy for local bus service wholly dependent on a contingent endowment from the developer that is unlikely to be sustainable in the long run, let alone in ‘perpetuity’.
     Future proofed? Site incapable of future expansion being hemmed in on all sides by the A3, the SPA and the M25, by Ockham Conservation Area and Elmbridge Green Belt.
     Deliverable? No homes may be occupied until the M25 J10 improvements are completed. No spare local sewage, fresh water, electricity, gas or telephone capacity. All utilities will need to be built from scratch. Very unlikely to be achieved in less than five years.

     The site does not meet the criteria. It has no hope of winning the competition. An application is a further waste of taxpayer’s money. A very sizeable amount of public money was expended on a Public Inquiry in 2017. The inspector concluded, inter alia, that “The appeal site is not in a sustainable location.” Has any new information come forward that alters the inspector’s conclusions? None.

     6. Against these facts, Cllr Reeve’s action is a perverse exercise of the discretion entrusted in her as chair of the overview & Scrutiny Committee.

     7. Lord Bingham in his book, The Rule of Law, explains that questions of this nature should be decided by application of the law and not by the exercise of discretion by one or a few individuals. Who is Cllr Reeve to put her discretion as chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee above the right of the members of that committee and other councillors to consider this matter?

     This project was refused at the front door. Now the GBC Executive, with the open complicity of Cllr Reeves, is trying to bring it back, this time down the chimney.

     There was an open and transparent way of approaching this. It was to put forward a proposal for a Garden Community a month ago, three months ago, or three years ago. The only proposal that has been produced, by a speculative offshore developer, has been carefully scrutinised by a Planning Inspector and by the Secretary of State. It was thrown out.
     So there is no justification for this last minute, opaque and underhand device to circumvent local public scrutiny.

     Cllr Reeves should resign as chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee.
     • Tom Hunt Reply

       October 30, 2018 at 8:56 pm

       For someone supposedly interested in the facts of this case, Mr Paton plays awfully fast and loose with them.

       1. The Garden communities prospectus was published on 15th August 2018, but the time between then and now seems to have been spent in preparing a submission. How else could the Executive be asked to authorise “the Director of Planning and Regeneration… to finalise and submit the bid”? Seeking such authorisation only a few days before the deadline for bids is perfectly normal.

       2. Whilst I am sure Mr Paton considers his own opinion to be of supreme importance, the crucial view of the GBC submission will be that of the evaluation committee within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is not for Mr Paton to judge whether the GBC submission qualifies for any award. If GBC believes the submission may result in a funding award, why would any rational person want to stop them?

       3. Cllr Reeves has made the point that the submission does not support the inclusion of Wisley Airfield in the local plan. Rather, it is simply a bid for additional funding (not a planning application), should the site remain in the final version of the Local Plan and a planning application be approved. Scrutiny is important (and I agree that the Tory Executive does not open itself to sufficient scrutiny), but what would be served by subjecting the GBC submission to public scrutiny, other than to prevent GBC from submitting within the published timescales and precluding the opportunity to obtain funding?

       4. Mr Paton has erroneously quoted Lord Bingham. It was A V Dicey, the constitutional theorist of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who argued that there was no place for the exercise of discretionary powers. Lord Bingham quoted Dicey in his excellent book, but he clearly has a more nuanced view than Dicey, accepting the fact that discretionary powers have a place within the rule of law. I sincerely hope that Mr Paton is not suggesting that Cllr Reeves has acted other than in accordance with the rule of law, or that any discretionary power she exercised was not hers to exercise. That would be a very serious accusation indeed.

       Rather than suggesting Cllr Reeves resign, and before responding to future articles, I suggest that Mr Paton does just a little more homework.
       • John Perkins Reply

         October 31, 2018 at 4:16 pm

         Mr. Hunt accuses Ben Paton of playing fast and loose with the facts, goes on to confirm some of what he wrote, but fails to provide any counter to all except an obscure legal reference.

         There is a supercilious, patronising and slightly threatening tone to this letter which does not accord with reasoned debate.
       • Ben Paton Reply

         November 2, 2018 at 10:22 am

         Mr Hunt makes some hair-splitting and pedantic points that disregard the substance of the matter, which is why Cllr Cross resigned from the Liberal Democratic whip in Guildford.

         1. There is no error of fact in giving the date of issue of the Prospectus as August, 2018. It was disclosed in the debate that GBC officials have been working on making a bid secretly without disclosure to councillors for several months. Far from justifying late disclosure to the council, that demonstrates how the Executive is pursuing its own agenda ‘in private’. Cllr Cross could see that.

         2. As a matter of fact, it is open to every citizen in this borough to have and express an opinion as to whether a new town in the middle of Ockham is likely to comply with the Ministry of Housing’s Prospectus tests. As a resident, I am entitled to criticise the council when it makes decisions that fly in the face of the facts. The Ministry of Housing is, as everyone knows, the ultimate marker of Guildford’s bid, not the Executive. Unlike Mr Hunt, I believe that the bid is a vain attempt by the Executive to shore up its broken Local Plan and is a waste of time and money at all levels of government.

         3. Cllr Reeves had a choice between supporting a bid that the Executive and officials had been working on in secret for months and thereby supporting a site allocation for which no exceptional circumstances exist or insisting on proper scrutiny. As Cllr Reeves said, she made her decision by balancing up the pros and cons. I agree with Cllr Cross that the manner of her evaluation and her conclusion were wrong. She was wrong not to consult her colleagues and the other opposition parties. And she was wrong to support the Executive’s covert activities to promote this site. If she had insisted on scrutiny a bid that has no chance of success might not have been submitted (although since they have been working on it for months it probably would have been). That would not have been any loss to anyone. And on the plus side, Cllr Reeves would have stood up for open and transparent governance at the council, which is long overdue.

         4. As for the late Lord Bingham, I cited but did not “quote” him. Lord Bingham broadly accepted the broad thrust of Dicey’s argument. To quote verbatim the last paragraph of Lord Bingham’s chapter on the subject, he stated:
         “The rule of law does not require that official or judicial decision-makers should be deprived of all discretion, but it does require that no discretion should be so unconstrained as to be potentially arbitrary. No discretion may be legally unfettered.”

         The exercise of discretion requires judgement based on the facts and on principles. In Cllr Cross’s opinion, Cllr Reeves made the wrong judgement. I agree with him. There is plenty of scope to abuse discretion by making arbitrary decisions in local government. The Local Plan shows that discretion has not been exercised with good judgement. After spending nearly £4 million and some six or more years, we still have a Local Plan that is unsound.

         So yes, Cllr Reeves should resign as the Oversight and Scrutiny Committee chairman. She has a track record of not holding the Executive to account. Look, for example, at the decision not to scrutinise the West Surrey Strategic Housing Market Assessment. The recent ONS statistics demonstrate why that was not in the public interest.

         Many suspect that the figures were not scrutinised in order to exaggerate housing need and thereby claim exceptional circumstances to support the Mansbrige/Juneja ‘trajectory’ in the green belt. There are other better-qualified councillors who would provide some much needed critical judgement.
   • S Callanan Reply

     October 30, 2018 at 12:32 pm

     Well, yes, but the prospectus was published on 15 August and had the report (which doesn’t look like it took two months to produce) been available earlier, then there would have been time for at least some scrutiny.

     Has the bid already been written up?

     I seem to recall – but would be happy to be corrected – that the new bridge decision had to be made in short order so as not to lose funding and that’s the kind of pressure the Executive could probably do without on this and any other similar occasion.
2. Jeff Hills Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 11:42 am

   Underhanded greed, what have certain councillors got to gain or is that also a top secret. They are trying to sneak it in before the elections when they might lose their seats.

   Hopefully, the public will turn up at the council meeting.
3. Adam Aaronson Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 11:46 am

   That’s not short notice. That’s no notice!
4. Kevin Allen Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 1:31 pm

   What a completely shambolic shower GBC are. They could not manage a… (well you know the rest).

   The sooner we get a majority of independent councillors in tune with residents views, the better.

   A bunch of wannabe “politicians” who act like kids in a sweetshop with public money- e.g. wailing about lack of social care funding whilst trying to ‘invest’ £81 million in unneeded student accommodation.
5. David J King Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 2:25 pm

   Ben Paton says it all. I heartily agree with his every word.

   It is high time that the electorate got shot of these incompetent, undemocratic councillors.

   A highly major proposal and just 24 hours notice before a crucial meeting. As a taxpayer (think of me as a shareholder speaking to the board of directors), I demand resignations for gross incompetence.
6. Tony Edwards Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 4:27 pm

   It is perhaps worth pointing out to the Executive, prior to their deliberations this evening, that the Wisley site fails to meet the criteria of the Prospectus. And that would render the Guildford bid totally unacceptable.

   But, once again, we have seen a particularly questionable absence of communications between the council and councillors – not to mention Guildford residents.

   Tony Edwards is the spokesperson for the Wisley Action Group (WAG)
7. Kristina Kenworthy Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 4:30 pm

   Both high handed and underhand – hardly conducive to bringing the community along with them. This behaviour is extraordinarily insensitive to a community that local government is meant to serve.

   One must hope that the MHCLG does not give any public funds to this ambitious bid for a new settlement at Wisley airfield – or open countryside in the green belt – which has no public support whatsoever.
8. Mike Packham Reply

   October 30, 2018 at 10:41 pm

   I was at Wisley Airfield a few weeks ago. Weeds coming up through concrete and kids tearing around on motorbikes. That’s not green belt.
9. Valerie Thompson Reply

   October 31, 2018 at 3:14 pm

   Mike Packham has obviously not read the three articles, published in The Dragon, regarding the history of the so-called Wisley Airfield. This is a war-time airstrip, left to rot and decay, which should have been returned to farmland after its demise. It is in the green belt. End of story.

   What GBC is going to get out of the development is open to question. Most locals thought that once it had been turned down by the whole council development would be abandoned, but no. GBC put it straight back in the emerging Local Plan.

   Then, when it was turned down by the Secretary of State we thought that would be the site’s death knell, but no. Mr Spooner is determined to wreck the area he undemocratically “governs.” Personally, I am fed up with his leadership which even some councillors describe as a “dictatorship” and hope, as do many others, that his reign will end soon.
10. Frank Phillipson Reply

    November 1, 2018 at 12:02 am

    I note that Tom Hunt is the Guildford Liberal Democrats vice-chair.

    Surely the preparation of a submission some two months ago would not have been commenced without the Executive, managing director or the director of planning giving the go-ahead for it? Or was that all done deliberately behind closed doors?

    I cannot understand how the recent proposal for housing on Wisley airfield can be turned down by Guildford Borough Council, then been taken to appeal and again refused on some fundamental points to then have the site included in the Local Plan with that reinforced by the application for funds as a “Garden Community”.

    I cannot see how some of those fundamental points can be resolved: –

    The Planning Inspector said that the housing development at Wisley would be inappropriate for the green belt and would result in a permanent loss of openness, would not assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment, might well result in a high level of car-dependency and was almost bound to result in harm to the character of the area, in which it is located, in the midst of a cluster of hamlets.

    Looking from the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the new settlement would be seen to impose itself on the landscape without regard to the established settlement pattern or form.

    The inspector also described the lack of adequate infrastructure as a major, and fatal, failing of the scheme. He also said that the development would have a severe impact on the northbound section of the A3 between the Ockham roundabout and the M25 and therefore it had not been shown that the development could be carried out without causing harm to highway safety.

    The inspector said that although the Wisley site was included in the proposed Local Plan that this only carried limited weight as there were still unresolved objections to the relevant policies.