I have had a number of comments about the way in which I used my casting vote on the North Street planning application on 11th January. I think it may help if I could explain why I decided not to support the proposal.
This was very much an ‘on balance’ decision. I agree with everyone who has said that the North Street part of Guildford is in urgent need of regeneration. As I said during the meeting, there are a lot of positive elements to the application including the building available to the NHS for community health care, pedestrianisation of North Street, the planning gain contributions and the energy and sustainability elements of the plan.
I had some serious concerns about the application purely on planning policy grounds. The first of them is that it does not comply with our Guildford Local Plan policy which states that the council will seek at least 40% affordable homes on developments providing 11 or more homes. The North Street development was for 473 units, a much bigger number. There is provision that the council can accept a lower number on viability grounds but my view that there was not sufficient evidence to justify a reduction from 189 affordable homes to 20. We constantly hear that many of the people we rely on such as nurses, teachers, council workers and social care workers can’t afford to live here. Along with other councillors, I have often been told on the doorsteps about a children still having to live at home well into their adulthood because they have no other choices. There is an urgent need for affordable homes in Guildford and particularly in the town centre where people can walk to shops or work without needing to rely on cars or public transport. There were suggestions during the meeting that affordable housing could be built elsewhere but often that means it is a long way from shops or work and in places with poor public transport meaning that people have to rely on car ownership.
Surrey County Council objected to the arrangements for the refurbished bus station. They are the local transport authority and planning committee members are often reminded that we have to give weight to their views. As Chairman of the Planning Committee, I have frequently heard councillors argue that an application should be turned down on highways grounds only to be advised by officers that we would lose any appeal because Surrey County Council have not objected on highways grounds. They stated their policy grounds for their objections. Having checked what they were saying, I shared their view that the application was not compliant. I found it concerning that Guildford Borough Council had commissioned not one but two transport reports to dispute Surrey’s objections. However, having read the reports, I came to the conclusion that Surrey is right in this instance. There are major concerns about air quality in the centre of Guildford and one way of countering that is to make using public transport more attractive. Reducing the number of bays in the bus station and increasing the journey times would have the opposite effect.
My third concern was about the height and scale of the development which I felt did not fit in well to the townscape and surrounding area of the building and this is contrary to a number of our local plan policies as well as the National Planning Policy Framework. The North Street site is very close to the conservation area and a number of historic buildings. If we do not protect them, their importance in the landscape will be substantially reduced.
It is not the role of Planning Committee members to simply endorse officer recommendations. We are there to consider their report very carefully against planning policy and to come to our own decisions as individual members.
I hope that St Edwards will take another look at the site and submit a further application taking into account the concerns which I and other members raised at the meeting so that we can get a development in the centre of town which we can all support.