Council Row over Bedford Road planning application

A row has broken out over Guildford Borough Council's proposal to submit a planning application for a block of 142 flats to be built on council-owned land at Bedford Road. Lib Dem councillors Gordon Bridger and Vivienne Johnson accused the Council's Conservative Executive at last night's full Council meeting of breaching the council's own draft policies on parking standards and affordable housing. The Bedford Road land is due to be sold to help finance the Council's redevelopment of the Civic Hall, and the Council is seeking planning permission to enhance the value of the land.

The proposed plans offer just 67 parking spaces for 142 flats. Cllr Bridger (Lib Dem, Holy Trinity) said "Only last month the Executive agreed to recommend a new planning document requiring one space per flat in the town centre, and here they are proposing to rush through a plan offering less than half of that. Town centre residents are fed up with parking pushed onto our streets because developers don't want to provide sufficient parking on site. And here we have the Council proposing to act like the most unscrupulous developer on its own land. It doesn't even make economic sense - surely flats would sell at a higher value if they all have their own parking space."

The council's proposed plans suggest just 31% of the homes should be affordable, i.e. provided by housing associations for rent or shared ownership. Yet as Cllr Vivienne Johnson (Lib Dem, Christchurch) pointed out, the council's Conservative administration has made great play of wanting higher percentages of affordable homes, and the Council's draft Supplementary Planning Document recently agreed for public consultation proposes at least 35% affordable homes on all new housing developments.

Cllr Johnson said "This council has a moral obligation to consider the needs of the community in the use of its own land. In a few months time we expect to have planning documents in place that would require developers to deliver 35% affordable housing and one parking space per home. The Tory Executive should not rush through plans that avoid these requirements. The Planning Committee does not accept economic excuses from others and should not be asked to consider a council proposal that looks so hypocritical."

As recently reported in the Surrey Advertiser, a competing planning application for a hotel on the Bedford Road land is expected to be submitted soon by local businessman Michel Harper.

Many members of the Council were obliged to absent themselves from this discussion at last night's meeting, because they were members of the Planning Committee that would have to decide the application. Cllrs Bridger and Johnson were able to take part in the discussion because they are members of the Council's Civic Hall working group and will not be present for the Planning Committee decision.