The Planning Inspector, Jonathan Bore, has written on 25 September, to Guildford Borough Council inviting them to comment on the latest version of the housing projections. The Guildford Dragon has written an article on Revised Population Forecast Leads to Calls for Review of Local Plan Housing Numbers
Effingham’s Borough Councillor, Liz Hogger, has written to the Guildford Dragon stating that Guildford Liberal Democrats say the Local Plan should be halted. There is some confusion, as the letter is not from the leader of the Guildford Liberal Democrats, Caroline Reeves.
It should be noted that without a current Local Plan with a five year housing supply, it is difficult to control development as Effingham residents have discovered.
There should be no confusion that I was stating the Lib Dem position in my letter to the Dragon. As Lib Dem leader Caroline Reeves has now commented on the Dragon:
“As Liz Hogger’s letter clearly states, she is our planning spokesperson and has commented as such with the full support of the group. That is the way the Lib Dem group works. We have always acknowledged that we are obliged to follow the government’s prescriptive methodology for housing numbers if we want our plan to be found sound. We have seen others fail because they have chosen not to do this. Our point now is that with new ONS figures we should look again at the site allocations in the emerging Local Plan.”
However I see that government housing minister Kit Malthouse has just told the Tory Party Conference: “”We are hoping to make a rapid announcement about that because [councils] are doing the maths and saying ‘I’m off the hook.’
“But my message [to local authorities] is: don’t take your foot off the accelerator.”
So I suspect the government intends to change the calculation method to get the answer on housing targets they want. So much for their claims to be protecting the green belt.