Response to article in Surrey Voice magazine.

We were dismayed to read the misleading and one-sided article on ‘Saving Spelthorne’s Green Belt’ in the winter 20/21 issue of Surrey Voice.

Like all Surrey boroughs and districts, Spelthorne is under great pressure from Government to fit in enormous quantities of housing.  The problem is particularly acute here as we have almost no open space other than Green Belt.  The allocation of 603 homes per year for the next 15 years will have a severe adverse impact on the borough.  The site allocations in the emerging Local Plan are a careful attempt to spread the pain fairly across the borough, with high-rise flats in Staines and other towns, and less dense development in other places, including some areas of Green Belt independently assessed as weakly performing.  The same approach has been followed in Runnymede and probably in other boroughs, and been accepted as the least bad choice.

The local Green party then organised a petition to ‘Save the Green Belt’ without mentioning that this would push yet more housing into the towns.  Naturally, many people signed it – who would not sign, when the action is presented as having no consequences?  They also claimed that the planners had rejected ‘29 brownfield sites’, without mentioning that these sites are all occupied, many by facilities that residents would not wish to lose, such as the Leisure Centre and two major supermarkets.

The article in the Surrey Voice also omits any mention of the fundamental problem that those houses, wanted or not, have to go somewhere.  There is no explanation of why it may be necessary to take sites out of the Green Belt.  The reader, like the petition signers, is not able to make an informed choice based on the facts.

Fortunately the movement has not gained support in the borough council, and the Local Plan preparation is still on course, and being reviewed by the new administration.   The proposal for a borough-wide Residents’ Association has been rejected by the main existing residents’ groups as a political move.

There are no good choices in this situation forced upon us by the MHCLG (Minisdtry of Housing, Communities & Local Government).  Nobody wants to lose Green Belt, but nobody wants towns swamped by overdevelopment either.  Omitting one side of the argument does not help people to make a rational choice.