Tag: PoW

KA-POW!

paul_highcourt

In three short paragraphs, Waverley’s new Deputy Leader has put the kybosh on CPRE and POW’s fantasy of working with the new Waverley Dream Team in order to quash Waverley BC’s requirement to take a share of Woking BC’s unmet housing need.

In less than a month since taking over at Waverley, Councillor Paul Follows has met with Anthony Isaacs and Bob Lies, (CPRE & POW’s head honchos respectively), listened to their arguments, assessed their plan and found it wanting.

No surprises there then!

Whilst the Waverley Web entirely understands the New Broom’s desire to be seen to be listening to the voices of dissent, it didn’t take him long to detect and highlight the holes in the dastardly duo’s argument, which leaks like a colander.

No doubt Messrs Isaacs and Lies won’t take a blind bit of notice of Councillor Follow’s pithy assessment of the risks they are running. Why would they? After all, it’s not their money they’re frittering away on feckless and frivolous arguments. Not on your nelly! It’s ours – the poor, beleaguered Waverley Council Tax Payers’!

And for those of you who are still under the illusion that these bumbling buffoons only have the best interests of the residents of Waverley at heart, let us attempt to reset your perception:

• CPRE & POW claim they are seeking to remove the Woking unmet need number and not quash the whole of the Local Plan.

• The problem with that, as Councillor Follows pointed out in his recent letter to them, is that the Court is highly unlikely to get involved in setting housing numbers.

• The Court of Appeal’s task is simply to consider whether the Inspector and, subsequently, the High Court Judge erred in law in how they applied the Woking unmet need amount to Waverley.

• If the Court of Appeal decides that they did err, it will remit the decision back to an Inspector and the process will begin all over again!

Meanwhile, all reasonable and sensible advice leads to the conclusion that this high stakes strategy carries a very real risk of:

• increasing, not decreasing the future target
• strengthening the argument in favour of consenting the planning appeals against Waverley in the short term
• increasing the uncertainty that currently surrounds the draft Local Plan as a result of the appeals.

Of course most people – including councillors – are concerned about the housing targets and housing delivery in the Borough but the difference between them and CPRE and POW is that they aren’t engaged in a game of high stakes Russian roulette with other peoples’ money!

Suffice to say if Messrs Isaacs and Lies’ great gamble doesn’t pay off they are going to be as popular in Waverley as skunks that have rolled in fox poo!

The Deputy Waverley leader’s response ( below). 
The hearing on Monday 24th June will be webcast here, so pull up a chair and bring some biscuits! The background of the case is on the Court site here.

Screenshot 2019-06-20 at 10.08.36

 

Waverley has been sanctioned by the Government for under delivering its housing supply.

 No surprises there then that our borough council has been sanctioned by the Government for under delivering its housing supply.  – although one might argue that, given the sausage factory panache, with which Waverley’s planners have been banging out planning consents one might be forgiven for wondering WHY?

Well, here’s part of the answer:  Here we go, here we go, here we go Ooooh!

WAVERLEY IS ONE OF THE COUNCILS TO BE SANCTIONED BY THE GOVERNMENT UNDER THE NEW HOUSING DELIVERY TEST.

SO INSTEAD OF AN ADDITIONAL 5% BUFFER ADDED TO ITS HOUSING SUPPLY NUMBERS, THIS HAS BEEN INCREASED TO 20%! THAT’S ANOTHER 1500 HOUSES!!!

Q Q: Why?

A: Because of all the developments already consented in Waverley approximately 400/500 of 1800 that could, and should, have been built on a brownfield site at Dunsfold Aerodrome – NONE HAVE BEEN BUILT … yet.

All thanks to the antics of that troublesome twosome – Protect our Waverley (POW) and The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) – aided and abetted by the meddling Mistress Milton, and Jeremy SHUNT – who, shall henceforth be known as – ‘Waverley’s Old Buffers’ (WOB’s.’)  Together they were, and are,  dedicated to stopping development at Dunsfold Park so they can support building over the countryside! Had these unreconstructed NIMBYs bowed to the inevitable and accepted that the biggest brownfield site in the borough was the obvious place for housing, rather than trying to stop it by hook or by crook, housing development at the Aerodrome would now be well under way, thus enabling Waverley to demonstrate that it IS delivering on the planning consents it had granted.

housing_targets20.png

One-third of local authorities face a sanction under the government’s new housing delivery test this year and these include both WAVERLEY & GUILDFORD.

The delivery test was introduced in last July’s revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). It applies sanctions to all local planning authorities that, in the three years up to the preceding April, failed to meet 95% of their housing requirement, with the severity of the sanction varying according to the extent of the under-performance.

Under the test’s criteria, all local authorities delivering under 95% of their housing requirement must now produce an action plan detailing the reasons why they are under-delivering and how they will address it. 

Those under 85% of their requirement, which includes, Waverley and Guildford, must add a 20% buffer to their five-year housing land supply requirement, instead of the usual 5% buffer, and produce an – ACTION PLAN.

Meanwhile, the worst performers – those under 25% in November 2018, rising to 45% in November 2019 and 65% in November 2020 – face the NPPF’s presumption in favour of sustainable development.

SO WHAT’S WAVERLEY’S CUNNING ACTION PLAN? AND WHAT’S GUILDFORD’S?

Does that mean THAT THE LAND ADJACENT TO AARONS HILL in Godalming, in the borough of Guildford  COMES BACK ONLINE?

Fortunately, none have fallen under 25% which means no local authority faces the presumption penalty – this year. Which means that 66% of councils – exactly two-thirds – have escaped any penalty at all – this year. In comparison, research by Planning last November found that 120 local authorities – 62% – would be above the 95% threshold and face no delivery test sanction at all.

Research suggests our borough is among the 38% of councils would have to produce an action plan, and is also the 31% required to have a 20% buffer in their housing land supply to boost delivery.

Has POW and CPRE (WOB’s) learnt anything from their mistakes?

Have they hell!

Having secured yet another Judicial Review into Waverley’s Local Plan, which wastes shed loads more of Waverley taxpayer’s dosh. In the interim THE WOB’s cloak themselves in yet another cost protection order (the infamous Aahrus Convention enabling NIMBYs like CPRE and POW to play fast and loose at the expense of ordinary taxpayers’ money without fear of incurring prohibitive costs.) While they increase delays in housing delivery.

The upshot is. That even if they do manage to secure a so-called victory by reducing Waverley’s housing numbers, those housing numbers will now automatically increase because of the delays in delivery. You really couldn’t make it up!

 

 

 

Here we go, here we go, here we go Ooooh!

Screen Shot 2019-01-19 at 10.50.06

angry-judge2

HIGH COURT CHALLENGE ON WAVERLEY’S LOCAL PLAN

The fight to reduce the housing requirement for the whole of Waverley continues!  

So here goes another shedload of our council taxpayers’ money going down the proverbial legal eagle’s pan?

Out of the cupboard come all the Rollicking Rumpole’s wigs, as they measure their briefs by the metre in readiness for yet another High Court drama between the Campaign for The Preservation of Rural England,  Protect Our Waverley and ‘Your Waverley.’

Yesterday  CPRE/ POW were granted leave to appeal from the Court of Appeal against the judgment delivered in November concerning the housing requirement set in Waverley Borough Council’s Local Plan Part 1. That November judgement said that the housing requirement of 590 a year should be maintained, including 83 to cover Woking’s perceived “unmet need”.

So ‘YW’ may have to build 498 fewer homes and no doubt POW/CPRE hope that will rule out Phase 2 at Dunsfold, as it certainly won’t want to stop development on the countryside – will they?

The appeal centres on how a shortfall in housing provision – unmet need – in one borough is allocated to neighbouring boroughs. The clarification of this issue has implications not just for Waverley but for Guildford and across the country. The Right Honourable Lord Justice Singh said:

“I am persuaded by the Appellants skeleton arguments that there is a compelling reason why these two appeals should proceed, namely the general importance of the issues of principle raised.  It appears from those skeleton arguments that they have not been considered at the level of the Court of Appeal and it seems to me that they should be.”

This latest appeal comes against the background of two important changes. First, Woking Borough Council has declared that it now has no unmet need. Second, new demographic numbers recently released by the Office for National Statistics imply a much-reduced need for new housing.

Dunsfold resident Bob Lees said “This is great news! It provides Waverley Borough Council with a golden opportunity to significantly reduce the mandatory number of new houses to be built in the Borough over the next 14 years. POW fought against the housing requirement at the Examination of the Plan in the Council Chamber. POW fought again in the High Court. POW will fight in the Court of Appeal.

POW is fighting to protect our Waverley against unneeded development of our towns, of our villages and in our beautiful countryside.”

Well – if you believe that you will believe in fairies! Because this has nothing to do with protecting Waverley – it is all about preventing development on the largest brownfield site in the borough close to the home of Bob Lies, and his running-mate Little Britton who both spitting distance from  Dunsfold Park. A development which was .given the go-ahead by the High Court in November. POW is still smarting from this decision

Dunsfold Park is now preparing its Masterplan – which includes 1,800 homes. The First Phase of the total of 2,300 in the Waverley Local Plan.

 

HANG ON TO YOUR WIG YOUR HONOUR. WAVERLEY COUNCIL WILL BE BACK IN COURT TO FIGHT YET ANOTHER DAY TO SAVE ITS LOCAL PLAN.

supremejudgepow.jpg
If you don’t at first succeed try, try, try, and try, again and again?  Protect our Waverley and the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England hope to persuade yet another Judge in the Court of Appeal to grant them leave to appeal. Then no doubt next time .. to the Supreme Court, the Pope and then Th Almighty?!

‘The battle to stop the development of Dunsfold Aerodrome is over,’ claims POW. But, the war with Waverley is not over yet.

Says POW:

‘there is nothing further we can do to prevent this controversial housing development after losing our legal challenge in the High Court.’

Capt’n Bob Lies, Chairman of the motley crew, claims,

‘It will be a huge disappointment to residents in the Eastern villages and in Guildford and Godalming that the approval for the development of Dunsfold Aerodrome will proceed.’

Typical POW. Typical Capt’n Bob. Utterly graceless in defeat!

Having poured over the Alfold Parish Council’s accounts, one curious regular reader did a spot of maths and sent us the following:

At the last census, Waverley Borough had a population of circa 123,000 and, as we all know, POW likes to boast ad nauseum that it ‘represents a very large and continually growing number of concerned local residents.’

Like hell it does! According to Crystal Tipps Weddells’ cash books. She banked

99 donations…

for POW’s campaign during 2017/18.  If you discount a single, measly donation by POW themselves and nine contributions from the Parishes – which came from their Precepts, not the voting public – that goes down to…

just 89 donations from members of the Waverley public.

Now, correct us if we are wrong, but surely that means…

… a mere 0.07% of Waverley residents dipped into their pockets to support POW and its aims? 

So much for POW claiming to represent ‘a very large and continually growing number of concerned local residents’ … laugh, We nearly peed our pants when our readers’ calculator spewed out …

0.07%!!!

So having wasted shed-loads of Taxpayer funds on behalf of 0.07% of Waverley residents it doesn’t even have the humility to offer the other 99.3% of local residents an apology for the many hundreds of thousands of pounds it has cost them, at a time when local services are being cut to the bone.

Adding  insult to injury, these publically funded wastrels have the cheek to announce in the same breath that it will join the CPRE in seeking leave to appeal in the Court of Appeal against the High Court’s decision that Waverley’s housing requirement, as set out in its Local Plan Part 1 for 590 houses per annum should be maintained, including 83 to cover Woking’s perceived unmet need!

Screen Shot 2018-07-14 at 00.58.39Brace yourselves! Here comes another major legal challenge that, if given the go-ahead will cost the Waverley taxpayer (yes, that’s you!) another shed load of money!

Our suggestion for POW: pack it in and concentrate on an argument you stand a chance of winning: the erection of a bloody great hanger on a green field outside the Aerodrome you so detest.

Or better still,  for all our sakes sod off and give this borough a break.

Screen Shot 2018-11-27 at 23.32.55.png