CPRE Newsletter February 2014.qxd - CPRE Surrey

SURREY VOICE The newsletter of the Surrey branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England February 2014

VILLAGES IN THE FRONT LINE

Green Belt land under threat of development in West Horsley

The Green Belt is under threat throughout Surrey, but nowhere more so than in Guildford, where alarming proposals to remove protection from swathes of the district’s countryside have featured in the borough council’s “Issues & Options” consultation. The case put forward for shrinking the Green Belt hinges on meeting “need” for housing for the local community, but in reality is all about a much wider “market demand” and associated aspirations for “economic growth”. It is estimated that upwards of two thirds of the new houses

proposed to be built on Guildford’s green fields will be for newcomers from outside Surrey with no local connections. How is this justifiable when our existing infrastructure and public services are already chronically overstretched? Do we really need more housing on the scale envisaged when you consider the extent of traffic congestion we have and the loss of our countryside heritage which would result? Judging from the 19,000 responses received to this consultation, which are now being analysed by the council, many ... continued on page 2

Dates for your Diary > Friday 9th May – CPRE Surrey Annual Meeting – The Institute, Leatherhead Monday 26th May – Surrey County Show – Stoke Park, Guildford

Follow us on Twitter @CPRESurrey Visit our website www.cpresurrey.org.uk Email: [email protected]

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Surrey Voice – February 2014

Blackwell Farm on the Hogs Back, Guildford. Current proposals for housing development would result in the loss of this precious Surrey countryside.

... continued from page 1 people do not like the look of the issues and options proposed. Hopefully, the council will take note when preparing the draft Local Plan for consultation. CPRE has made clear from the outset that we consider much of the evidence is flawed in the “Green Belt & Countryside Study” prepared by consultants Pegasus for Guildford Borough Council. We will be submitting examples of our reservations to the council’s scrutiny committee, which is to meet soon as a result of a motion passed at a special meeting of the council called to consider two petitions of objection presented on behalf of the Horsleys and the Hogs Back. Petitions of this kind have proved remarkably effective in obtaining Guildford Council’s attention and opening up debate. A similar meeting of the council has already taken place to consider Wisley Airfield, and other debates are due to be held soon on proposed development in Effingham and East Chilworth. Now, GBC has published its “Strategic Housing Market Assessment” or SHMA which is talking about a “need” for Guildford of up to 800 houses being required per annum. Admittedly, this is before outward commuting and constraints on building are considered, but CPRE believes that this figure is far too high. We maintain that the council should be planning for just over 300 new homes per year. After all the approved figure for the neighbouring borough of Woking is 292. Guildford councillors must take account of “realistic” and “proportionate” need and not be influenced to accept virtually limitless “market demand” as their guide. The Metropolitan Green Belt – “London’s green lung” – has been a hugely successful planning tool and has saved the best of our countryside from urban sprawl, ribbon development and suburbanisation over many years. Now there is a very real and immediate threat to withdraw its protection from 16 villages in the Guildford area whilst allowing 8 to continue to be “washed over” by it. These villages are as a result, all of a sudden, in the front line, under threat of over-development through what is called “insetting” and the extension of their settlement boundaries. It seems to us that there has never been such a serious challenge to the heritage, character and beauty of these Surrey communities. But it is not only the Green Belt villages that are threatened but also plans for potential new development at the Hogs Back and Wisley airfield where it is proposed new communities could be built regardless of the access problems involved from the A31 and A3. Development to the

North of the Hogs Back would require encroachment onto the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and an Area of Great Landscape Value. Building at Wisley would destroy farmland, harm the openness of the Green Belt, and intensify existing road congestion in all directions. It would also undermine the attractive village of Ockham, much of which is a Conservation Area. Development growth in many other communities in the borough, and not forgetting those outside the Green Belt, is liable to cause additional encroachment into the countryside, suburbanisation and linear development along overcrowded roads. The housing need figures included in the SHMA have to be reassessed and the guidelines used checked and where necessary corrected. It is extraordinary how much the Surrey countryside is appreciated by not only its residents but also the hundreds of thousands of visitors from London and elsewhere who are looking for fresh air, tranquillity, healthy outdoor recreation and natural surroundings in a beautiful rural environment. The Green Belt is part of our heritage and we have a responsibility to protect it for the sake of not only ourselves but for our children and future generations to come. A characteristic of the Green Belt is its permanence. It has been put in place for good reasons which we should not forget. We do not wish to be a party to its piecemeal destruction through embracing development and short term material gain. Visitors come to Surrey because they know that the water still runs clean and clear in the Tillingbourne stream and that they will find watercress beds and trout farms there. They walk and ride along the wealth of footpaths and bridleways in Surrey with its Pilgrims Way, long distance trails, and sunken lanes. They celebrate our heritage by exploring our country villages and market towns from whose high streets we can see the Surrey Hills as a backdrop. They visit the country estates that have done so much over the centuries to protect our landscape. Once the Green Belt is gone, it is lost forever. If you are concerned about our rural environment, please make your voice heard now, before it is too late. Consultation on the draft Guildford Local Plan will begin in May and June. We cannot afford to reduce our efforts or relax our vigilance. Please give us your support in whatever way you can, whether as a volunteer, a campaigner, or by making a donation to CPRE’s Save Surrey’s Countryside appeal. We have only just begun a journey towards our Local Plan which is scheduled to be adopted in Autumn 2015. We must make sure that it is drafted correctly and that it properly reflects our views! Tim Harrold – CPRE Guildford


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A VIEW FROM THE CHAIR

Our glorious countryside – once lost, it is gone forever!

Surrey’s beautiful countryside – Green Belt and non-Green Belt – is today threatened to an extent unknown since comprehensive planning laws were introduced after the Second World War. Why? The root cause is that successive governments have insisted that it is only in London and the South East of England that growth and development can take place at a sufficient rate to pull the country out of its economic and financial malaise. Whilst vast tracks of land lie fallow in Midlands and Northern cities and towns, counties such as Surrey are expected to accommodate not only the sons and daughters of local people but also large numbers of in-migrants from London, elsewhere in this country and beyond. Most Surrey councillors and their officers have no wish to lose Green Belt land to development and on this they are, apparently, backed by David Cameron. Last March the Prime Minister wrote to one of our local MPs saying that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the relatively new planning “bible”, while making clear that there is now a presumption in favour of sustainable development, does not apply if specific policies, such as those protecting Green Belt, indicate that development should be restricted. Mr Cameron wrote that the sustainable development presumption does not “trump” Green Belt policy. Green Belts are meant to be permanent. As the NPPF (Paragraph 79) says: “The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open; the essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness and their permanence.” However, in practice, Government Planning Inspectors, at public hearing after public hearing, are saying that, based on Housing Market Assessments – normally undertaken by property and planning specialists and

which are not allowed to take account of environmental constraints – the demand for housing in Surrey is so great that it represents a very special circumstance which, in practice, does indeed trump Green Belt policy. Why is this? The problem is that the NPPF simply does not take account of the particular circumstances of a county such as Surrey. We do not have cities or towns large enough to contain large areas of brownfield land which can accommodate substantial housing numbers. Eighty five percent of our countryside is Green Belt and the remainder is, typically, relatively remote and poorly served by infrastructure. If substantial amounts of housing are to be provided in Surrey, on the scale the developers – and the Government – desire, it is inevitable that there would have to be significant loss of Green Belt. We look to all our members and supporters to work with CPRE Surrey to prevent this from happening. Tim Murphy – Chair, CPRE Surrey

Redhill Aerodrome Inquiry Proposals for an increase in business flights at Redhill Aerodrome and the construction of a hard runway have come under intense scrutiny at a public inquiry in the town. CPRE’s Gillian Hein and Reigate MP Crispin Blunt were among those who gave evidence to the inquiry. Both Reigate & Banstead Borough Council and Tandridge District oppose the aerodrome’s expansion plans, as do local parish councils and community groups. CPRE argues that the development is inappropriate in the Green Belt and would bring a substantial increase in traffic, noise and air pollution, and that there is in any case no need for additional flights at Redhill as other airports in the region have spare capacity.

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CHERKLEY: THE BATTLE CONTINUES As reported in the last issue of Surrey Voice, the Judicial Review of Mole Valley District Council’s decision to grant planning permission for a golf and leisure development at Cherkley Court resulted in a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave who concluded that the council’s decision to allow this development was both unlawful and irrational. Despite a storm of protests from local people across the district, Mole Valley councillors voted to roll the dice again and appeal the High Court ruling. So there is to be a two-day hearing in the Court of Appeal on 10th-11th March at the Royal Courts of Justice. The Cherkley Campaign, the local action group supported by CPRE, will be defending Mr Justice Haddon-Cave’s judgment and the order to quash Longshot’s planning permission to commercially develop Cherkley Court. The costs of last year’s High Court action were awarded in our favour. MVDC’s controversial decision to pursue the action in the Court of Appeal could be as much about their aversion to paying those costs, as it is about their desire to see the Leatherhead Downs turned into yet another Surrey golf course. When judgment was handed down last August, the High Court judge refused the defendants leave to appeal on the basis that they would have to succeed on all three grounds in order to reverse

Haddon-Cave’s judgment. The Court of Appeal, however, did grant leave, possibly because MVDC asked for clarification on the extent of their “saved policies” (from the previous Local Plan) and on councillors’ planning judgment. An article in a September edition of the property magazine, Estates Gazette, headlined “A Judicial Hole in One” , explained that although planning officers advise while democratically elected councillors decide, this does not give councillors a completely free hand. They depart from the recommendations of their expert advisers at their peril and only if it is justifiable to do so. The nine councillors who rejected the advice of their own officers were criticised by the High Court judge for failing to identify even one “very special circumstance” necessary to allow a major development in the Green Belt. With the Metropolitan Green Belt currently under threat it is essential that councillors properly interpret the planning policy when considering development proposals in the Green Belt. Haddon-Cave said that the case concerned the conflict between private developers and public campaigners and engaged fundamental principles of planning law through which the golden thread of public interest is woven. The Law

Society Gazette hailed this as a “landmark planning judgment” and we are in no doubt that there is great interest in our case and much rides on our continued success. Meanwhile, people have been shocked by the acres of exposed chalk that are visible from the highways and public footpaths around Cherkley and from the various viewpoints across the valley. Longshot, the developers, insisted on commencing construction of the golf course in April 2013 despite our pending Judicial Review. They were adamant that we would lose and they had to get going in order to satisfy the expectations of their investors and bankers. However, before the bulk earthworks could be started, Longshot gave a financial undertaking to the High Court that the landscape would be reinstated to its original contours and 140 acres of wildflower meadows re-seeded if they, the developers, lost the case. The long wait before the judgment was handed down meant that extensive earthmoving works took place on Cherkley’s former farmland and paddocks before construction was eventually called to a halt in late August. Far from “safeguarding and enhancing” the landscape, as the developers claimed, the permission for a golf course has had further harmful consequences. A report commissioned by Surrey County Council, in preparation for Natural England’s long anticipated boundary review of the Surrey Hills AONB, recommended that golf courses, even long established ones like neighbouring Tyrrell’s Wood and nearby Walton Heath, cannot be regarded as “naturally beautiful” countryside. Existing golf courses are therefore considered unsuitable for inclusion in the AONB, and Cherkley has been removed as a candidate area. However, it is reasonable to expect that

Cherkley’s Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV) will be included in the AONB boundary extension if the appeal is dismissed. This would raise the status of the whole of the Cherkley Estate to that of a nationally important protected landscape as part of the Surrey Hills AONB. Such long-term protection of an important stretch of the North Downs is surely worth fighting for. Longshot have said that if they are prevented from going ahead with the development they will put the Cherkley Estate back on the residential property market. When they bought Cherkley Court in 2011, the house was in “immaculate condition” having been restored, along with its estate, to its former glory by the Beaverbrook Foundation. Longshot outbid two private buyers and paid over the asking price of £20 million. Savills will no doubt be eager to re-sell this rural estate, together with the six-bedroomed Garden House, childhood home of the current Lord Beaverbrook until 1984. Also there are three/four further cottages and the estate workers’ homes at Mickleham Downs Courtyard, which together provide much-needed and sought after residential accommodation in Mole Valley’s Green Belt. With the case about to go back to court as a result of MVDC’s appeal, funds are urgently needed for this next (and hopefully final) phase of our campaign. Please send donations to the CPRE office in Leatherhead, payable to “CPRE Surrey” but clearing marked as being for the Cherkley campaign. Or you can give money, anonymously if preferred, via MyDonate at https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/cherkleycampaign. Kristina Kenworthy – Cherkley Campaign

This scarred chalk grassland is the result of construction work carried out before planning permission was revoked last August. The developers have been ordered by the High Court to reinstate the landscape and re-seed these meadows. CPRE and the Cherkley Campaign will ensure that Cherkley’s landscape is restored to its natural beauty.

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SAY “NO” TO A NEW TOWN AT WISLEY

A significant of countryside at risk from development is the former Wisley Airfield, within the borough of Guildford. The story of this site, now known as Three Farms Meadows, began in 1943 when a grassy stretch of Wisley farmland was requisitioned by the government to make way for a wartime airstrip – with assurances that it would be returned to agriculture at the end of the war. However, it was more than four decades before the site was fully restored and footpaths were reinstated for public use. Three Farms Meadows is now extensively used by walkers and riders. Two thirds of the site is prime agricultural land; it is a Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI) and is home to three species of RSPB “Red List” birds, as well as to badgers, bats, adders and other protected species. How can it be justifiable for a site like this to be given up for housing?

Mole Valley Housing Plan Consultation on Mole Valley District Council’s Housing and Traveller Sites Plan (a.k.a. Green Belt boundary review) runs until 7th March so if you live in the Mole Valley area there is still time to make your views known to MVDC. The council maintains that to meet housing targets it must provide a further 1,100 new homes by 2026, the great majority of which will have to be on sites that are currently within the Green Belt. The consultation document and supporting information can be viewed on-line at www.molevalley.gov.uk by following the links from the home page. Alternatively, you can see all the documentation at the MVDC offices at Pippbrook, Dorking, and at the HelpShop in Leatherhead Library. The council is also running a series of “drop-in” sessions for members of the public at locations around the district. Details are on the Mole Valley website. CPRE Surrey is currently preparing a comprehensive response to the council’s Housing and Traveller Sites Plan. This will be published on our website in due course, and copies will be available on request from the CPRE office in Leatherhead. Our Branch Chair, Tim Murphy, will be speaking at a public meeting at Dorking Halls on the evening of Monday 24th February. For full details please contact the Branch Director, Andy Smith, at the CPRE Leatherhead office.

Wisley meadows – earmarked for 2,500 houses

Reigate & Banstead’s Core Strategy – Nearly There! Third time lucky! After two false starts and following an Examination in Public (EIP) held in May and December last year, it looks as if Reigate & Banstead Council may soon have an adopted Core Strategy (Local Plan). The Inspector has reported to the Council that subject to some modifications, most of which were considered at the EIP, he is satisfied that the Plan is sound. Unfortunately there are likely to be incursions into the countryside near Horley and into the Green Belt near Redhill and Reigate, if the Council is unable to show it has a five-year supply of housing sites available, based on 460 units a year. CPRE, along with others, including local MP Crispin Blunt, fought for a smaller annual housing figure based on lower inward migration and a higher allowance for windfalls. This would have avoided development in the Green Belt altogether. However, although the outcome is disappointing, there was heavy pressure all along from developers and landowners who wanted considerably more development, and the annual target could have been even higher. The Inspector recognised that there were “environmental constraints, capacity considerations and deliverability issues”. The resulting figure of 460 should accommodate the housing needs generated by the existing population but cater for only about 40% of the inward migration demand calculated in the objectively assessed housing need. The Council is to be congratulated on the outcome and perhaps the Inspector’s acceptance of the environmental constraints will assist those other local authorities in Surrey that are still working towards an up-to-date Local Plan. Gillian Hein – CPRE Reigate & Banstead


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VICTORY FOR HINCHLEY WOOD RESIDENTS Hinchley Wood Residents are celebrating a major victory after an Inspector dismissed an appeal by Surbiton High School on a proposal for a large sports complex on Green Belt land. The proposal had been to demolish the modestly sized sports pavilion on the school’s playing fields off Manor Road South, Hinchley Wood, and replace it with a huge two-storey indoor sports complex. Elmbridge Borough Council initially refused the application on Green Belt grounds, but withdrew their opposition after receiving a legal opinion on the case, and backed out of the public inquiry. However, local residents decided that they would continue to fight the proposal. At the two-day inquiry a number of local residents and councillors gave evidence emphasising the Green Belt status of the playing fields, and the harm that the proposed development would cause to the local environment, including the extra traffic that would be generated. They stressed that there were no “very special circumstances” that would override the presumption against development in this Green Belt location. In December the Inspector in her decision letter agreed with the residents and dismissed the appeal. This is an important victory for those who value the Green Belt.

SOLAR FARM REFUSED Guildford Borough Council have refused an application for a “solar farm” on 34 acres (14 hectares) of good (Grade 3) arable land in the Green Belt, in an Area of Great Landscape Value and close to the boundary of the AONB. The site is also within the historic Eashing Park which dates from the early 18th Century. CPRE and local residents had opposed this commercial development in the Green Belt. GBC’s decision is entirely consistent with Government policy on renewable and low carbon energy. Ministerial guidance issued in November emphasised the need for Planners to “give proper weight to environmental considerations such as landscape and visual impact, heritage and local amenity”. CPRE welcomes this decision and does not believe that, having given proper weight to environmental considerations, there are any “very special circumstances” which could justify a grant of planning consent.

Incinerator Plan Withdrawn An appeal against refusal of permission for an incinerator at Redhill Road, Cobham, due to be heard in March, has been withdrawn by the applicant. This brings to an end a five-year battle in which a tenacious campaign has been fought by local residents to stop the development. The campaign has been spearheaded by Ben Ruddock and the Surrey Environmental Guardians group (SEG), supported by CPRE, and Ben is to be warmly congratulated on the successful outcome of this fight. SEG have agreed to work proactively to find an acceptable alternative use for the Redhill Road site which would make a genuine contribution to enhancing the area.

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SAVE SURREY’S COUNTRYSIDE! This is an incredibly busy time for CPRE Surrey Branch – fighting to protect Surrey’s countryside. As you will read in this issue of Surrey Voice, never has our local countryside been under such immense pressure. Every week seems to bring fresh threats to our Green Belt and rural character. In every district the developers are circling – and local authorities either give in to development pressure or find themselves backed into a corner, unable or unwilling to resist. That is why CPRE’s work is absolutely crucial if we are to save Surrey’s countryside. CPRE, at county branch and district level, is extremely active – responding to planning applications, taking part in local authority consultations, speaking up for the countryside at planning enquiries and campaigning to drum up support in local communities and local media, and making our case for protection of the countryside in a compelling and persuasive way to politicians and officials.

We need your help. We need more volunteers for our district groups. We need help with campaigning and publicity at the county branch level. And we need more funds! You can help CPRE now by making a donation to our special “Save Surrey’s Countryside” appeal, using the enclosed donation form. And you can help us in the longer term by leaving a legacy to CPRE Surrey Branch in your will, so that the branch can continue its work for many years more – preserving our countryside for the sake of future generations of Surrey residents. Although we are affiliated to the national Campaign to Protect Rural England, and play an active role within the nationwide organisation, CPRE Surrey is an independent charity in its own right, and we are entirely reliant on voluntary donations and subscriptions to the branch. If you would like to volunteer to become more actively involved in the branch, or if you would like information on leaving a legacy to CPRE Surrey, please contact the Branch Director, Andy Smith, at the Leatherhead office (details below).

GREEN BELT “NOT NEGOTIABLE” It was standing-room only at CPRE’s Green Belt seminar in Dorking. The title for the meeting was “The Green Belt: Negotiable or not?” and the answer to that question from the overwhelming majority of those taking part in the debate was a resounding “No”! In his keynote speech, CPRE Chief Executive Shaun Spiers said that development pressures in Surrey are now so big that what Surrey needs is “sheer bloody-minded defence” of the Green Belt. He argued that development should be spread more evenly across the country. “Why is the north of England being neglected? Why is so much of the development being pushed into the South East and especially here in Surrey?” Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, said he would “fight to the death” for the Green Belt. Districts such as Mole Valley and Reigate & Banstead face excessive housebuilding

targets which have “cascaded down from above”. The housing numbers, he said, “have come out of thin air” and they have nothing to do with real local housing needs. Protection of the Green Belt “has to trump the housing figures”, he told the meeting. Mr Blunt, who had earlier in the day attended a conference organised jointly by CPRE and the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), said that “the elephant in the room” is Gatwick Airport. He warned that a go-ahead for the construction of a second runway at Gatwick in the near future would mean pressure to build a further 30-40,000 new houses in Surrey and West Sussex for all the new workers needed, in addition to the other housing targets being imposed on the area. The prospect of an expanded Gatwick “sends shivers down my spine”, he said.

CPRE Surrey Branch The Institute, 67 High Street, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 8AH. Tel: 01372 362720 Email: [email protected]

www.cpresurrey.org.uk

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