Another Surrey borough’s Local Plan agony
More than 800 homes will be built on Surrey green belt land as part of a 15 year plan for 9,270 new properties in the north of the county.
It comes after Spelthorne Borough Council agreed, last week, to reinstate 13 green belt sites it had removed from its local plan in February.
Opponents have said delays to the borough’s planning bible, which sets out where and the types of development that can go ahead for the next 15 years, has turned Spelthorne into “clarion” to be picked off by “vultures”.
The council said it changed its position in order to get its housing plan approved under lower targets of 618 a year versus potentially the 700 plus that could come in under national changes to planning law.
Councillor Darren Clarke (Conservative, Laleham and Shepperton Green) spoke out against the hold ups saying residents were “sold a pup” and councillors unable to stop unwanted development.
He said: “The lack of a local plan means that we don’t have a five year housing supply.
“This tilts decisions in favour of development, and away from not developing so when we are lobbied by residents to oppose builds we are told by officers that we have no reasons to object.
“We can reject it as the committee and do because we know what good looks like, however the planners can and do apply those with the most money know they will win and we need to pay their expensive legal costs as well
“So we not only end up with buildings which we do not want, lived in by people from potentially outside the borough, hindering, not helping the borough but also a legal bill for us and them, and who pays this, yes the residents.
“We are in a time of planning approval by appeal with developer vultures circling looking at us like carrion.
“What this short sighted administration has done is harm the borough make us look like a laughing stock and cost the residents in hard pounds.
‘It’s been almost fingers in ears and la la la”
His speech was rebutted by borough leader, Cllr Joanne Sexton who said the so called “pathetic excuse” to delay the local plan had been to protect residents from flooding rather than any quarrels over green belt.
She told the meeting that she was proud and delighted with the work that had gone in to ensure “that now have a statement of common ground with the Environment Agency, who is a key stakeholder, and knows exactly what it is that they needed from us, and I am extremely proud today to be here to be able to take this forward.”
Officially the council paused the inspector’s examination of its local plan in December 2023 “to allow for training of newly elected councillors” and to consider potential changes to national planning policy.
In February 2024, the council asked the inspector to remove all green belt allocations, with the exception of the two sites for Gypsy, Traveller and Travelling Showpeople.
The council has now decided to return the 13 protected green belt sites back into the plan so they can be used for housing – before going back to the planning inspector with any proposed changes.
The saga dates back even further with the Secretary of State ordering the council to not pause its plan in September 2023 after councillors asked for a hiatus in June – just a month after examination hearings had started at the end of May.
In all, there will be 855 new homes built on Spelthorne’s green belt, of which 438 will be affordable.
Spelthorne Borough Council offices in Knowle Green, Staines. Credit: Emily Coady-Stemp
