Latest on Tandridge Council’s Local Plan
Tandridge Council has launched a desperate last minute bid to save its local plan from rejection, a fate which would risk a development free-for-all in the district. Its move increases the chances that the controversial “garden village” in South Godstone’s Green Belt will never be built.
After an impassioned meeting of its Planning Policy Committee, it wrote the official Government inspector who, it is feared, is on the verge of scrapping the plan to suggest “a pragmatic alternative option”. This would shorten the length of time that the plan was in operation, so that it ran out in 2028 rather than 2033 as at present envisaged. That would effectively remove the 4,000-home garden village from the plan because, in practice, construction work could not begin before the end of this decade.
The council made the move because it had to inform the inspector, Philip Lewis, that it was missing a deadline he had imposed for showing that it could make the local plan comply with national policies, something that he had strongly suggested would cause him to throw it out altogether.
Ten months ago, as reported in these pages, Mr Lewis told the council that he could not give the plan the green light as it was “unsound”. He offered it a choice: it could scrap the plan, which had already cost £3m, and force it to start again at a similarly enormous added cost; or it could try to make it comply with Government policies, with no guarantee of success.
The biggest – but not the only – problem that he identified was the inability of Junction 6 on the M25 to cope with even present rush hour traffic, let alone the added amounts from planned extra housing, especially at the garden village.
The council set to work with Surrey County Council and Highways England to try to find an affordable way of improving the junction. The inspector gave it until the end of August to do so, strongly hinting that, if it could not meet that timescale, he would bin the plan.
As the deadline approached, the council thought it could devise “an interim mitigation scheme”,but then found that – while it would improve the junction’s roundabout – there would still be problems on the slip roads. This and other difficulties meant that it would not have a proposal to put to the inspector until November, at the earliest, leading to fears that his patience would be exhausted.
Catherine Sayer the leader of the council and chair of the committee, told members that they were “between a rock and a hard place”, but needed to save the plan to avoid the district being plunged into chaos”.
She was broadly supported by Chris Botten, Lib Dem leader on the council, who said that rejection of the plan could lead to a “catastrophe” where the district had “no protection whatsoever” against speculative development.
The strongest opposition to shortening the plan came from Jeremy Pursehouse, one of the three-strong Independent Group, who rejected “jiggering with the plan to try and save it”.
He spoke passionately of his fear that the move might lead to more houses being built in Warlingham, which he represents, but drew some fire from other councillors for concentrating on his own area when others were also at risk.
The debate also saw the first crack in hitherto united Conservative backing for the garden village with two Tory councillors – Taylor O’Driscoll and Lesley Steeds – coming out against the effect of its traffic on local roads. Coun. O’Driscoll called it “not fit for purpose”.
With the committee’s approval, the chief executive, David Ford, wrote the inspector, informing him of the Junction 6 delay, and suggesting the shortened lifetime of the plan, with a five-year review. David Hughes, Chairman of the Tandridge Lane Action group, praised this “pragmatic” approach.
The meeting also considered a stinging report by the Local Government Association’s Planning Advisory Service on the council’s planning performance which, not long ago, ranked 325 out of 338 in the Government league table.
There has since been some improvement and other measures are on their way but, together with the severe financial crisis reported here in July, the size of the task facing Mr Ford and the new council leadership is becoming increasingly clear.
By Geoffrey Lean
