To receive questions or statements from the public. As this is an extraordinary meeting, any questions or statements must relate only to the business for which the meeting has been convened.
Details of any questions (including a written response to them) or requests to make statements received from the public will be set out in the Order Paper which will be published on the day of the meeting.
Minutes:
The following persons addressed the Council meeting in respect of Minute No. CO119 below – Review of the Guildford Borough Local Plan: Strategy and Sites (2015-2034), and made the key points indicated below:
(1) Julia Osborn, Chair of Send Parish Council, stated that the Local Plan had adopted a spatial strategy of housing and industrial development that was characterised by a heavy concentration of development in the north-east corner of the borough, particularly the ward of Send and Lovelace.
Since the removal of the villages from the Green Belt, Send had also witnessed a huge spike in windfall applications. According to the sustainability appraisal, villages sat at tier 10 of the sequential hierarchy, which meant that they were the least sustainable position for development to take place. All villages should only account for 5% of total supply. However, since the adoption of the plan, 843 dwellings had been approved in Send alone, which was 8% of total supply of the plan in just one village. Furthermore, strategic sites had not been delivered in the timeframe expected and key road improvement infrastructure fundamental to the spatial approach of the plan had not been delivered.
The spatial strategy of the Local Plan was now not fit for purpose, and it never was. The continued reliance on windfall applications, without infrastructure in villages was a completely unsustainable approach. This update needed vision and leadership, to produce a new spatial strategy, with a town centre master plan at its core and allocated sites in villages that had not yet received approval must be removed from the plan, with immediate effect, to alleviate any further pressure on existing infrastructure. A new Green Belt and Countryside Study was also needed to reapply constraint to villages.
In response, the Lead Councillor for Planning, Councillor Fiona White stated that the Council was only being asked at this meeting to agree that the plan should be updated following the officer review. The matters to which the speaker had referred would be dealt with during the work to update the plan and the evidence that would be required as part of the update process. It was therefore not possible to respond to these matters at this stage. The Lead Councillor assured the speaker that the Council would liaise with parish councils, residents' associations and residents throughout the borough as part of this process.
(2) John Rigg, on behalf of the Guildford Vision Group stated that
many people in Guildford believed that the 2019 Local Plan was not fit for purpose, had huge gaps, with missing or bad policies. The glaring omission from the 2003 plan, the 2019 plan, and the officer’s report on the agenda was a lack of planning vision, with no reference to the town or the emerging town master plan. The report remained silent on the essential evidence assembled in Shaping Guildford's Future (SGF). Seventy percent of the borough’s population lived in the town, yet the Local Plan had no ambitions for flood remediation for height restrictions, density, delivering riverside homes and parks or to assist green belt protection. Its land allocations were incoherent and, as with North Street, often wrong. Thirty brownfield sites in the centre and 90 across the borough excluded due to flood risk. The Council appears to have abandoned and disregarded the emerging SGF.
In response, the Lead Councillor for Regeneration reiterated to the speaker that the Council at this meeting was only being asked to agree that the Local Plan should be updated, not to discuss the details of any future Plan. The Lead Councillor agreed that the evidence base needed to be reviewed, and reassured the speaker that the Council had no intention of discarding the work already completed through SGF. The regeneration team was already working with the planning policy team sharing the data that had been gathered during the SGF programme. The Lead Councillor emphasised that the flood alleviation scheme was essential to unlocking a wealth of opportunity within the town centre and that work was progressing.
(3) Alastair Smith, Chair of the Guildford Society, supported the Council initiating an update of the Local Plan. National planning policy was in turmoil with three significant updates to the NPPF over 18 months. The Guildford Local Plan needed to be robustly developed to cope with this turmoil. It was noted that a detailed plan and budget for the update was due to be prepared for approval. It was suggested that the following should be included in the plans:
· The evidence base needed to be fully updated, but must also include initiatives such as the economic strategy and the outputs from the Shaping Guildford Future programme.
· The revised local plan must lock in required infrastructure improvements particularly if the housing numbers increase.
· The Local Plan update was likely to take more than three years. The Lead Councillor had expressed caution on achieving a 30 month timescale proposed by central government. We cannot wait for three years. Alongside the Local Plan update, the Council must be prepared to draft and add extra policies on matters such as heights, which was a major concern to the Guildford Society and potentially, for selected site areas to guide development or policy in draft carried weight in the planning process. It was stated at the Executive meeting that the update should be viewed as an opportunity to address issues including town centre, riverside, brownfield sites, affordability, etc. The Society agreed, but also felt that design, quality and standards should be included.
In response, the Lead Councillor for Planning reiterated that the Council at this meeting was only being asked to agree to update the Local Plan and the speaker’s comments would be looked at as part of that update. The Lead Councillor thanked the speaker for sending the paper that he had submitted in respect of the heights policy, which had already been passed on to the Planning Policy Team. The Lead Councillor assured the speaker that the Council would not ignore any of those things as part of the update process.
(4) Malcolm Aish, Chair of Ockham Parish Council stated that the failure to deliver the infrastructure which underpinned the current Local Plan, should lead the Council to decide to proceed with an update of the Local Plan. The problems included the lack of delivery of the A3 improvements with the Burnt Common slip roads and other works around Guildford not proceeding. The works at junction 10 on the M25 were allegedly running two years late and the increase in residents had led to traffic queues and delays on the local road network. Optimistic plans for more cycling were not the answer.
The failure to upgrade the Ripley wastewater works meant that it could not cope with the numerous new homes already being built in Horsley and Send. The flood risk programme required much more work across the borough. Displacement is a problem across the Borough. The lack of evidence of a new Howard of Effingham School was putting a strain on school places, doctors' surgeries were refusing to take on new patients in this area, which would result in displaced residents looking further south for education and health needs. Guildford Borough Council's efforts to tackle climate change had not progressed, the take-up of electric vehicles had been slow and there were not enough charging points. The housing number forecast using the SHMA had been based on inflated ONS figures, which had grossly overstated the student population. This was expected to be demonstrated by the 2021 census data due to be published in 2025. These inflated figures were unlikely to lead to students wanting to live in the remote locations of the strategic sites. Students had been helped by the significant levels of purpose-built student accommodation and the possible reduced demand from the closure of the law school this year. The difficulties with the former Wisley Airfield as a strategic site may result in that not being available in an update of the plan. The brownfield sites in the centre of Guildford had reduced demand for retail and were available for residential development. The housing number had benefited from the large number of windfall units outside the plan and the huge demand for delivery materials had led to severe damage to local roads.
In response, the Lead Councillor for Planning, stated that the Council would take into account all the issues that had been raised on the assumption that the Council agreed to update the plan, but, unfortunately, she could not respond to any of the detail at this stage.
(5) Karen Stevens, on behalf of Compton Parish Council commented on the current uncertainty around whether the proposed widening of the A3, part of the critical infrastructure on which three of the current strategic sites depended. Studies had shown that it would do little, if anything, to alleviate local traffic; it would simply unlock thousands of out-of-town houses, all reliant on cars. The strategic sites could not all be delivered, and keeping them in the Local Plan served no other purpose than to keep the housing figures artificially high. This would inevitably risk aggressive development when the five-year supply was not met. In the case of Blackwell Farm, it was also preventing the land from being designated a National Landscape. Natural England had assessed Blackwell Farm as meriting AONB status and had said that it could be included within the extended Surrey Hills National Landscape, but only if the Council acknowledged that the site was undeliverable and removed it from the Local Plan. Compton Parish Council, whilst agreeing that an update was needed, felt that the Local Plan required a wholesale revision so that it delivered for Guildford. The current Plan was undemocratic, developer-led and bad for the environment. It ignored the views of thousands of residents, did not invest in the town centre or brownfield areas, but instead lazily built on countryside sites that relied on non-existent infrastructure and were anything but ‘strategic’.
In response, the Lead Councillor for Planning reiterated her earlier comments, but also pointed out that the current Local Plan would remain in force while the update of the plan was being carried out, and that any planning decisions would be made by reference to that current local plan during the update period.
(6) Amanda Mullarkey, on behalf of Guildford Residents Association, stated that a five-year housing supply based on the new formula would be required, but the Council was asked to plan the timetable wisely and to get some crucial things in place upfront. Firstly, a height supplementary planning document to sit alongside the heights policy for the plan. The SPD would inform site allocations for brownfield sites in the new plan, allow a plan-led approach and avoid excessive allocations for brownfield sites driving up heights. Secondly, development briefs for major brownfield sites linked to flood risk management and sustainable transport plans. Site briefs would make brownfield proposals credible and avoid housing figures for sites that bear no relationship to how a site could be developed. Thirdly, there was not a Community Infrastructure Levy plan to channel developer contributions from the current plan. We cannot afford to miss out that important part of the plan cycle. Effective means were required to secure developer contributions to infrastructure. Not only were there no A3 improvements, there was no sustainable movement corridor. Putting these three things in place would help to mitigate some of the big challenges that an update would trigger, for example, gaming of the system by developers who would have an incentive to talk down delivery of existing allocated sites in order to negotiate new supposedly deliverable sites, as happened in the run-up to the last plan. Another challenge would be Woking's unmet need, last time Guildford had to provide homes for Woking's unmet need under the duty to co-operate. This time, Woking's housing shortfall could be eye-watering, the Council would need excellent data in respect of constraints and on deliverable strategies for sustainable development of brownfield sites otherwise Guildford would again be asked to look for many more unsustainable greenfield sites.
In response, the Lead Councillor for Planning stated that none of the detail referred to by the speaker could be looked at until the Council had agreed to update the Local Plan and had commenced the update process, which had to be evidence led.