Guildford Borough Council has allocated an extra 42 houses per annum to its revised Local Plan to help meet Woking’s unmet need. It has agreed to the Planning Inspector’s recommendations, just as Waverley has, which lead to the current Judicial Review. Guildford will now have to build 672 homes a year, up from the previous 654 planned last year.
The report (here) and annexe here goes to the Guildford Executive on 4th September for the recommendation, with a 6-week consultation to follow. The report explains that:
Woking’s unmet housing need is 225 homes a year
Waverley was directed to take 83 homes a year by the Inspector
Guildford will take an extra 42 houses a year
I feel like a wound-up Toy – But pray tell me – Why does Guildford get away with 20% ?? Is it anything to do with where SCC are?? Because the facts do not bear out the comments above from the Inspector. We are not only talking about Guildford Town/City (It wants to be a city sometimes!!!) but Borough wide as that is what they are comparing in terms of feasibility. I know in terms of Housing it is not a huge number – But surely it is the principal that is questionable?
“GUILDFORD
Located 27 miles (43 km) southwest of central London on the A3 trunk road midway between the capital and Portsmouth.The town has a population of about 80,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford which had an estimated 146,100 inhabitants in 2015……..Due to recent development running north from Guildford, and linking to the Woking area, Guildford now officially forms the southwestern tip of the Greater London Built-up Area, as defined by the Office for National Statistics……
WAVERLEY
The Borough of Waverley is a local government district with borough status in Surrey, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the borough was 121,572
Waverley borders the borough of Guildford to the north……., Waverley is a Wealden borough, bounded to the north by the Hog’s Back section of the North Downs and by the Greensand Ridge. It has the most green space in absolute terms in Surrey at 293.1 km² according to the central government-compiled Generalised Land Use database of January 2005, approximately half of which is woodland.”
I simply do NOT get it
We here believe the Government would be quite happy to join Waverley with Guildford, soon will if the Green Belt is breached at Aarons’ Hill in Godalming joining up with development proposed by Guildford BC on the boundary – and then join Guildford with Woking and then we will all be part of Greater London. But remember we must build on the green belt and the countryside to house the homeless before we build on brownfield sites.
A £200m Government fund to pay for more homes on industrial land has had the opposite effect it intended. Fewer homes have been constructed on brownfield land than before the initiative was set up. Wonder why?
Development on Green Belt in 2016-17 up by 4%. Development on brownfield land down by 4%.
We don’t get it either.
I think it is fairly obvious why Developers don’t want to build on Brownfield (and I mean REAL BROWNFIELD) it is due to the contamination and clear up costs – so much easier to build on Fresh Greenfields then have to dig up concrete and potential contamination. – We just have to remember the Developers are not here to do US a favour they are here to Make Money and the more they can make the better. There is a report on the WBC site regarding DP that states fairly clearly why DP is going to take so much longer to develop than an ordinary Greenfield site