Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley MP) and Clare Curran (Bookham and Fetcham West County Councillor) have made a statement (below) regarding planning applications 21/P/01283 and 21/P/01306 to build an extra 110 homes on the Green Belt. The applications were submitted by Berkeley Homes as it claims that building the new Howard of Effingham School is financially unviable and more enabling homes are needed.
“In 2018, GBC did not have a local plan with sufficient allocated dwelling numbers but this is no longer the case and the local plan demonstrates more than sufficient new homes in the borough.
We appreciate the attraction of a new school but it is planned for 2000 students rather than the current 1600, at a time when there are places available for pupils in other nearby secondary schools. We want to see the claimed increase in building costs for a new school questioned by GBC including the justification for the increase in pupil numbers.
This new proposal is even more inappropriate development in the green belt and the buffer zone area. Overall it increases the number of dwelling houses in Effingham village by nearly 40%. We believe that the Very Special Circumstances that applied to the previous application in 2018 do not apply in this case and that these 110 additional homes would add further to the strain upon our road and traffic, drains and other essential infrastructure. This development would fundamentally change the character and environment of Effingham as a small village and threaten the fragile, wider local infrastructure.
We do not support this proposal and expect GBC to support the local community and our concerns by rejecting it.”
It’s good to see the local representatives expressing views which are in line with the majority of the residents who will be impacted by these developments. Democracy took a back seat when the original proposals were submitted and hopefully we will not see a repeat of that this time around.
Thank you Sir Paul and Mrs. Curran. It is good to see that you support the view of the majority of local residents.
I hope that you have each lodged objection on lines of your joint comment with Guildford Borough Council.
CPRE Surrey has written in support of both the Resident Association and Parish Council and objected to this sly hybrid application(s) attempting to include more greenfield Green Belt land in the scope of the original permission and rely on enabling development allowed under a very different set of very special circumstances back in 2018.
Delighted to see the MP and County Councillor stand by this ancient village and its residents.