Conservation group's plan for defeating housing proposals

Welcome to 'Bookham Fields'

"Helpful decision" supports MVDC planners

Inspector kicks out developer's tree-destruction plan

Lower Shott latest

Tatham: A Bookham Lidl 'would not be a large store'

Residents' association unimpressed by MVDC's explanation

Council sticks to its old line

July BRA meeting

Planning process isn't working, says BRA

'Consultation should mean what it says'

The report by the planning officer, in this case Aidan Gardner, "was drafted mid-way through the consultation period, so he did not have representations either from Bookham Residents' Association or from the planning consultant who was representing the residents of Yeomans Croft," said Pagella.

Each of the three applications confirms this. Gardner has written, "The expiration period for representations falls on 25 June 2009. Any further views will be reported at the meeting."

When the time came, said Pagella, he listed the comments from the BRA and the Yeomans Croft residents but didn't address them. "He had already made his mind up."

In the case of the non-Grange application from "Mrs S Ranchod," (understood to be a proxy for Patel) not only did Gardner write his report before the end of the consultation period, but he ignored the objections of Mole Valley's own tree officer. His concern was to protect a mature horse-chestnut tree not on the site but next to it, in the back garden of 19 Post House Lane.

The tree, 15m tall with a trunk half a metre wide, is protected by a tree preservation order. The tree officer calls it "a significant specimen of good amenity value." Both gardens of the two proposed semis, "would be completely dominated by the tree… There would be significant pressure to fell or severely lop this tree from future occupiers."

The tree officer's report was ignored. The planning officers "were there in force,"said Pagella. Mole Valley corporate head of planning service Andrew Bircher had not attended a planning meeting for some time. "So the impression one had was that , for whatever reason, these particular applications were going to be approved."

The local community is left with the distinct impression, says Pagella, that when, for whatever reason, the planning department has decided that an application has got to go through, then the process can be managed effectively so that residents' objections can be sidelined. "They very politely listened and then got on with doing what they were going to do anyway."

Pagella has some harsh words for the development committee's councillors. His guess was that two thirds of them would rather be somewhere else on a warm evening. The rest, including Janette Purkiss, "did their best, but… I don't think… that the process actually reflected any credit at all on the way that Mole Valley managed the consultation process."

Public consultation should mean what it says. What objectors say should be listened to and taken into account, he told councillors: "I'm not asking [the DCC] to agree with us, I'm just asking that you take note of what we say, and if you disagree with us explain why you disagree with us."

COMMENT
None of the above will be strange news to anyone familiar with the way Mole Valley's planning officers steamrollered the development of the National Trust's car park at Polesden Lacy in 2006. On that occasion, however, the BRA was happy to go along with officers' determination to make sure this pet project of local Tories went ahead.

Neither the knowledge that the BRA now knows how it feels, nor the particularly poignant likely sacrifice of yet another mature chestnut tree is any consolation whatever for this latest evidence that the planning process in Mole Valley is a sham and a disgrace.

There is no suggestion whatever that MV's officers have done anything wrong or illegal here. They make their decisions according to planning policy, not according to what local people think of a particular proposal. That said, if they're going to have a consultation period, it should be there for a reason, not just as window-dressing.

This applies to Mole Valley officials beyond planning. The Bugle has been trying for six months now to get the council to explain where the £2.3 million it has set aside for its 'business process review' is going. The officers, aware perhaps that the queue for Freedom of Information commission rulings is well over 18 months long, have refused to tell us.

It's easy to blame the officers. But we should also note that they could not get away with any of this without the spineless collusion of our elected members. Most of them, with honourable exceptions, are asleep at the wheel.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Curran softens line on social housing development

Middlemead development 'a good thing'

July BRA meeting

Middlemead development 'epitome of infill', says Curran

Development devil or deep blue sea?

Bookham can't avoid tough decisions over housing provision

CPRE document

MANIFESTO FOR SURREY

July BRA meeting

Mole Valley needs a plan of its own for Lower Shott, says BRA

Nuisance of the month

Another spin for the Merrylands Road roundabout

Inspector supports locals against threat to local amenity

May 11, 2009: Locals have been delighted by a planning inspector's decision not to allow a bungalow to be built on open land (right) in Eastwick Park Avenue.

Mole Valley refused outline planning permission to build the bungalow on land in front of numbers 2 to 8 there in February 2008. The developer, P Hickman of, variously, Cambridge Road Property and Gillenden Development in West Byfleet, appealed the decision.

The inspector, Richard Maile, of the government's Bristol-based planning inspectorate, met local residents when he visited the site on April 1 this year. His decision, published on May 11, was to dismiss the appeal.

John Pagella, who chairs the planning subcommittee of the Bookham Residents' Association, told the Bugle it was an important decision because it gave Mole Valley encouragement to refuse developments which damaged the local environment: "The grounds on which the Inspector rejected the appeal were comprehensive and decisive reflecting the value of this area as open space of importance to the community. We must hope that this will bring to an end uncertainty over the future of this land as far as local people are concerned."

In his ruling the inspector noted that the plot the developer targeted was put there to provide an open space in a built up area. Policy ENV21 of the Mole Valley local plan says "development of such open spaces will not normally be permitted where the land makes a significant contribution to the character, environemental quality and amenity of the area." Maile also noted that another policy, ENV 22, requires development "to respect the character and appearance of the locality."

He said Policy SE4 of the Surrey Structure Plan and national guidance statements PPS1 and PPS3 also supported Mole Valley's stance.

"This small area of open space is an important feature at a focal point where Eastwick Park Avenue is subject to changes in its alignment. "The mature protected trees on the site, together with the hedge and sycamore trees to the east of the site create a pleasant visual relief from otherwise continuous development. It makes a significant contribution to the character, environmental quality and amenity of the surrounding area and is obviously much appreciated by the adjoining residents who wrote in response to the appeal, several of whom were present at the site visit."

Such a development, "would appear incongruous and out of keeping with the form of adjacent development."

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Long service award – and a new job – for retiring planning head

February 19, 2009: Clive Smith, the retiring head of planning at Mole Valley District Council (MVDC), has begun a part time position as planning adviser to the board of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). He will be setting up a planning advisory service to the Surrey district councils to consider planning applications in that and other AONBs.

As the Bugle exclusively revealed, Smith was made redundant in September last year. The council then offered him a further six month contract which finishes at the end of April.

Smith has already started his two-day-a-week job for the AONB. He spoke of it as council chairman Derrick Burt (LibDem, Dorking North) presented him with a long service award for 34 years with MVDC. Smith will use the money (amount undisclosed) to invest in a painting of Mole Valley.

Smith's tenure as head of planning includes MVDC's decision two years ago to agree the construction of a car park on a hill near Bookham - despite its location in the Green Belt, in an AONB and an Area of Outstanding Landscape Value (AOLV). His officers' report on the proposal recommended accepting the development despite strong local opposition.

Smith's successor in the new post of development control manager is Gary Rhoades-Brown (01306 879240), who forced the Polesden Lacey car park decision through. The new look of the department can be seen here.

MVDC pats itself on the back

Meanwhile, in a statement earlier this month MVDC says the message from recent rulings by government inspectors on proposed developments in Bookham and Fetcham is that the developers can be defeated. Perhaps that's not the whole story.

MVDC says that in March 2008 it refused permission for six detached dwellings at 81, 83 (pictured) and 85 Lower Road.

The following month, MVDC turned down an application to demolish a house at 34 Gatesden Road, Fetcham and build four detached homes there and on land behind numbers 34 to 40 Gatesden Road.

The council also refused two separate proposals to build a detached house in Nutcroft Grove, Fetcham, and further applications in Hazel Way, Fetcham.

The applicants launched appeals against each of these decisions, but earlier this month the council issued a statement on behalf of its development control committee saying that government inspectors acting for the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions had dismissed them. Some of the decisions were made before Christmas.

The inspector said of the proposed Lower Road development that, "The layout would be cramped such that it would not sit comfortably in its spacious setting, to the detriment of the area's character and in conflict with the Council's policies and national guidance...."

Cllr Malcolm Johnson (Con, Leith Hill), Chairman of Mole Valley's Development Control Committee said: "Only a small minority of applications are allowed on appeal, and our performance is above the national average."

In a statement MVDC noted these "interesting decisions" by the inspectors: "There are huge concerns amongst residents, particularly in areas such as Fetcham and Bookham, about backland development and infilling. This is a powerful message from the government inspectors – over-development will not be allowed."

Former MVDC head of planning Clive Smith (above) has always said the planner can be defeated if objectors put up a strong enough case.

In his retirement message to the council, Smith said he believed that, with the exception of Waverley, the environment in Mole Valley had fared better than in other Surrey districts.

People may think that Mole Valley is over-developed, Smith said, but they don't see what Mole Valley would have been like without the work of the planning department, nor do they see the original proposals for developments that are allowed: "People would be astonished at some of the plans and proposals that are presented to us in the planning department. Our job is either to say, 'no, go away', or to try and improve it. We're not just there rubber stamping things, 'yes we like it', 'no we don't'. A lot of our time is taken trying to improve proposals."

Comment:None of this means Bookham's and Fetcham's 'reprieved' sites will remain undeveloped. In the Lower Road case, for example, a new, less "cramped" plan might have succeeded. If house prices rise again to the point where fewer dwellings bring in the same return, the developers will be back.

For more about these or other individual decisions see the planning section of MVDC's website. Minutes and agendas for the Development Control Committee which meets at the beginning of each month can also be viewed on the council website.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

'Continuing infill will destroy the village', pressure group says

January 30, 2009: The Bookham Residents' Association has written to householders near the proposed Guildford Road housing development site to reassure them that "nothing may happen for some time."

The letter, delivered in the last two weeks, offers the council hard choices about where inevitable new development can go, and insists that planners have to take greater heed of the need for the infrastructure to support all Bookham's developments – infill or grand scale.

As reported, Mole Valley District Council has identified Green Belt land west of The Lorne and behind the Lower Recreation Ground as a possible site for a future housing development.

In the letter, BRA deputy chairman and director of planning John Pagella sets out how Mole Valley carries out its planning responsibilities within central government rules and regulations and the constraints of the existing Mole Valley Plan.

The Plan, says Pagella, will make way for a series of documents called the Local Development Framework (LDF). The first of these is the Core Strategy, just published, which will guide the Council in planning housing, infrastructure needs, the local economy, transport, flood prevention and recreation.

"Housing plays a large part in the Core Strategy," says Pagella. Central government uses the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to make all Councils show how they will provide land for extra housing. "In the case of Mole Valley, 2,992 new dwellings of all kinds – flats, social housing, and so on – must be made available over the period from now until 2026. Mole Valley has broken this down to units for each main conurbation, and here in Bookham our share is 526 dwellings."

Of these, 351 will be in the existing built up area and 175 – " all in the nine hectares behind the Lorne" - on Green Belt land. But Pagella adds that, "These numbers do not imply that Mole Valley has granted planning permission, or indeed that anything will happen for some time."

'Daughter' documents crucial

The principle of the Core Strategy, says Pagella, is to meet Government housing targets by putting development in "the existing urban areas." If that doesn't meet the housing need, says Pagella, the strategy considers encroachment into the Green Belt.

"As a principle," says Pagella, "it is hard to see how this can be contested." The Lorne is one of a number of Green Belt possibilities the Council has examined. These will all be looked at in more detail in other "daughter" documents Mole Valley will publish over the next two years which will examine the practicalities of each new development. "At that stage," he says, "it is possible that the land here could be removed from the list of available sites."

In the next stage, says Pagella, "The present Core Strategy document now goes forward to a Government Inspector. Mole Valley tell us that without sound detail in this document suggesting that they have identified sufficient land for new dwellings the Government would step in and direct where new development should go."

No infrastructure, no new housing

"Of key importance," says Pagella, "is the provision of sufficient infrastructure capacity such as schools, health provision, roads, drainage, and utilities to support what will amount to another 1,000 people coming into the village if this plan goes ahead."

Under the existing local plan, Mole Valley has allowed more than the 162 new dwellings a year required by the existing Local Plan, says Pagella. Most have been provided by infilling and 'windfall' developments, though the recession has recently cut these numbers. "If things return to normal," says Pagella, "it may be that [infill developments] will meet housing requirements. If that happens, the need to extend in the Green Belt may not arise."

Pagella says the BRA tells Mole Valley regularly that, "We do not want to see any extension onto Green Belt land other than as a last resort, and then only on a modest scale."

But the pressure group also insists that if the pace of infill construction continues, Bookham's character will be destroyed because its infrastructure hasn't kept up. "We all are aware of the lack of places for secondary education at The Howard, and the pressure on the primary schools too. We have failed to get reliable information from the relevant Health authorities on the future of Epsom and Leatherhead hospitals. Congested roads and excess water run off following heavy rain are other consequences of continued infill development," warns Pagella, adding that the BRA will continue to press this view on the district council.

More information is available from the BRA website (click here), BRA chairman Peter Seaward (01372 452532), its secretary Iden Coleman (01372 454105), or Pagella himself (01372 456956).

For more BRA news, click here

Council 'no longer reluctant' to build on Green Belt

January 13, 2009: The BRA has flagged up its concerns about the proposed Lower Shott supermarket development and the possible development of a housing estate behind the Lower Road recreation ground. It warned of what it sees as flaws in these proposals earlier this month in its comments on the 'core strategy' document in Mole Valley's Local Development Framework (LDF).

As reported, the core strategy, published last November, set out the district council's suggested guidelines for local development. The strategy, which will be submitted to the government next month, cannot now be amended. But comments on it made before the Friday, January 9 deadline will be taken into account in subsequent hearings on the proposals. The timetable is set out on this page on the MVDC's website.

Lower Shott development
The BRA's comments on the Lower Shott proposal are those the pressure group set out at last year's public meetings, that any development that threatened the vitality of Bookham High Street would be opposed. Mole Valley has long accepted this guideline.

John Howarth chairs the economic work group of the Leatherhead Health Check Company (LHC), which drew up a 'town plan' for Leatherhead just as Bookham Vision is now doing for the village. Howarth says the LHC has also objected to the Bookham supermarket plan on the grounds that it would damage trade in Leatherhead.

Guildford Road development
BRA deputy chairman John Pagella, who chairs the BRA's planning subcommittee, told the January 5 meeting of the BRA comittee that Mole Valley's strategy for providing new housing was to permit infilling in the north of the district, including Bookham and Fetcham. At an earlier stage, said Pagella, "We drew their attention to the fact that you cannot simply go on forever infilling within a district while paying lip service to a policy which says that you are respecting the character of the district, because [its] character is progressively eroded through infilling."

If the government insisted that Mole Valley had to provide more houses than infilling can provide, it was "inescapable," said Pagella, that the district would have to build on the green belt. One possible site already identified is the Guildford Road site (pictured right) behind the Lower Road recreation ground.

The trouble, said Pagella, is that Mole Valley has moved from accepting this reluctantly to identifying detailed individual sites, including the rear of the Lorne and the Lower Road recreation ground.

"It's complete nonsense to argue that it is a sustainable form of development to propose the number of houses that they're intending to put into the Green Belt there, completely divorced from the infrastructure consequences of doing it," he said.

MVDC had reassured Pagella that the Lorne and other sites are "just conceptual" and the actual locations of Green Belt developments will be revealed in so-called 'daughter documents' in a year or two.

But Pagella, a former development consultant, added that, "I've been round long enough to know that, even if you put a little, faint green line round an area, that area gathers credibility regardless." That would happen to this site even though, in earlier documents, the MVDC had one explained in some detail why it would be unsuitable for development.

The BRA is preparing an information letter to be sent to all the occupiers in the Lorne and surrounding roads (see item above).

Objections backed by Campaign to Protect Rural England

December 26, 2008: The Leatherhead and District Countryside Protection Society (LDCPS) has weighed in to save the Guildford Road site in Bookham from housing development.

As reported, the site behind the Lower Road recreation ground is being earmarked for 200 new houses as part of Mole Valley's effort to meet central government housing targets.

The LDCPS has mounted a door-to-door campaign to make Bookham residents aware of the proposals. Houses near the site have been given plans of the proposed development (right), first revealed in the Bugle, and an explanation of what the development might mean in a letter from LDCPS chairman and local Conservative activist Mike Easun.

The LDCPS opposes the proposal because:

[] The whole site is within the Green Belt. "[This] requires that there are very special circumstances for any development to be approved. The main purpose of the Green Belt is to prevent urban sprawl which leads to communities merging, in this case The Bookhams and Effingham."

[] The land south of the A246 the land is part of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB): "Again there are policies which protect such areas, including inappropriate adjacent developments. The proposed 195 dwellings would be clearly seen from and detract from the character of that area."

[] The woodland east of the site needs to be retained as a screen between the Green Belt and the houses in The Lorne, Hawkwood Rise and Swan Meadow. And the copse in the middle of the site has an amenity value.

[] "Given the expected building of 526 new houses in Bookham through to year 2026, the area [behind] the Recreation Ground should to be retained as an open space to meet the future needs for additional recreational facilities in the absence of alternative available land."

[] These fields, "are regularly used by local dog walkers who do not come by car and this space is also popular with children for cycling and other healthy pursuits."

[] The forecast extra 260 vehicles from the 195 houses would have to enter and leave the new estate by Lower Road: "This could cause congestion at busy times of the day."

[] "There is some history of flooding at the Lower Road end of the site, which can only be made more likely by such an intense development of houses and access road."

[] "Local people are already frustrated at being refused places for their children at the Howard of Effingham School. This development would make matters worse."

The LDCPS suggests that objectors ask for a representation form from The Planning Policy Team at MVDC on 01306 8792 81, or by email at ldf@molevalley.gov.uk. All representations must be received at MVDC by 9 January 2009.

More information from Mike Easun on 01372 452483.

Mole Valley is holding a meeting in Fetcham on Monday, January 12 to allow residents to discuss both the council budget and backyard development in Bookham and Fetcham.

The meeting will be held at St Mary’s Church Hall, 10A The Ridgeway, Fetcham KT22 9AZ at 7:00pm.

More information from Simon Trevaskis, coordinator for democratic services for the Bookham and Fetcham area, on 01306 879384 or email simon.trevaskis@molevalley.gov.uk.

Comment

The intervention of the Leatherhead & District Countryside Protection Society, affiliated as it is with the influential Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), is most welcome, even if the Bugle does have reservations about both organisations.

The Bugle was founded in part because, when the National Trust submitted 2005 plans to build a car park at the top of a hill, in the Green Belt, in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and an Area of Outstanding Landscape Value (AOLV), objectors sought the support of the Bookham Residents' Association (BRA) and the CPRE to defeat this ridiculous development. They were ignored by both.

Perhaps that’s because the local CPRE representative was Colin Langley, chairman of 'Leatherhead Tomorrow' and a member and former chairman of the LDCPS. Then, as now, the LDCPS was affiliated to the National Trust as well as to the CPRE. When phoned by one of the NT objectors to ask for help in protecting Polesden's chestnut meadow Langley was curt to the point of rudeness.

Today the LDCPS's treasurer is Brian Granger, who in 2005 was head of the BRA's planning committee. He refused to communicate with objectors, and thought they had no right even to ask what the BRA's stance on the NT development would be. When a BRA rule change opened BRA committee meetings to the great unwashed, Granger resigned. He's the sort who thinks the rot started with the abolition of the slave trade.

We badly need both the CPRE and the LDCPS. But we'd like to think they will do what they say on the tin and take up the cudgels against all incursions on our fast-disappearing countryside, not just those that don't conflict with the provisions of the Old Pals Act.

These organisations' intervention does little to diminish the risk that, in fighting the plans for a housing estate, we forget the original source of concern about development in Bookham – the threat to the shops in the Grove.

To make things worse, the local council faces a funding crisis that forces it to make money wherever it can. All in all, even without an economic crisis, Bookham and its residents face a torrid 2009.

Lib Dems vote down proposal they thought they'd helped draft

November 19, 2008: Local politicians have failed to react to news of a new housing estate in Bookham. Perhaps that's because they were too busy having a row over the future of Mole Valley's Dorking offices.

The council's Pippbrook site, first occupied in 1984, is at the end of the list of sites included for development consideration in the Local Development Framework (LDF). The timeframe offered is more vague than any other in the list: "at some stage in the future". And as the latest MV News, the council's newsletter, notes, the building's reception area is being refurbished at a cost, according to the Leatherhead Advertiser, of £250,000.

The casual observer could be forgiven for confusion about the cause of the row, which concerns Liberal Democrat councillors' decision to vote against the LDF at the end of last month even though it was drafted by an all-party committee of Conservatives, LibDems and Independents.

According to Cllr Chris Hunt (Con, Ashtead Village), the committee's task was "about setting the overall theme for the future of planning in Mole Valley. It was not about allocating individual sites." But his statement continues that Pippbrook was included because, "We are required to put forward sites for new houses…"

The LibDems say they thought the committee had agreed most of the plan, including potential sites for housing development. "Then out of the blue the Conservative Administration produced a new proposal to include the Mole Valley Council Offices at Pippbrook in the plan as a potential site," says their statement.

Such a move would destroy the Council Offices, mean "unacceptable changes to the pleasant green area that surrounds the buildings," and the loss of car parking for Dorking Halls and the town centre.

Councillor Stephen Cooksey said the tories were already seeking to provide potential housing sites on green belt land. This decision would help turn the centre of Dorking into one huge housing estate": “Liberal Democrats oppose both the Pippbrook proposals and housing development in the green belt."

Pippbrook's future has been in doubt ever since Mole Valley handed its social housing to the Mole Valley Housing Association. Housing is now dealt with in offices near Dorking Station. There's also a cloud hanging over the whole council. MVDC may disappear in a local government reorganisation that replaces it with a unitary authority. Mole Valley residents would be ruled by a single authority, Surrey County Council in Kingston/

Pippbrook was built in the grounds of Pippbrook House, a listed building Mole Valley now leases to Surrey County Council for Dorking library. SCC's lease expires in 2010 and the house may be converted into flats. No-one seems to have noticed that no plans exist for a replacement library.

The LDF also includes the possible redevelopment of the nearby magistrates court, which, according to the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), which identifies potential housing sites, "will be available for development within the next five years."

What do you think? Tell the editor.

If you wish to object to this or any other aspect of the LDF you must do so by January 9. Click here to go to the relevant page on the Mole Valley website.

Article updated December 26, 2008

Bookham earmarked for Mole Valley's biggest new housing estate

November 19, 2008: Bookham and Fetcham will probably have to take a quarter of the new homes Mole Valley has to build within 20 years if it's to meet central government housing targets. One third of the sites Mole Valley has identified for new housing in the two villages are in the Green Belt. And Bookham looks likely to get a new 200-house estate in Green Belt land on the Guildford Road

Mole Valley's proposals are among a raft of documents the council proposes to submit to central government in February (see box). Mole Valley's Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) identifies sites with housing potential, assesses that potential, and estimates when they are likely to be developed.

In the somewhat exaggerated view of the Leatherhead Advertiser, if the plans go ahead, the urban sprawl will invade the Green Belt to such an extent that Leatherhead and Dorking will merge as 'Dorkhead'.

The five Bookham sites the SHLAA identifies include: Crossways and Corner Cottage, opposite Hylands Garage on the A246, which could be developed within five years; Danby Croft and Little Shepherds, on the A246 opposite Norbury Way (within five years); the replacement, already known, of 'defective housing' in the Middlemead estate with up to 102 affordable mixed houses and flats (by 2012); and Little Meads in Eastwick Road (within five years).

The Fetcham sites include a number along Lower Road – numbers 1, 85, and 96 – plus the Elmer Works on Hawks Hill and the River Lane pumping station. There is also a proposal to build a medical centre on the School Lane premises of the Surrey association for the visually impaired (SAVI).

Prize site

But the prize site is undoubtedly the nine hectares earmarked for 195 houses on fields behind the Lower Road recreation ground (above right). This new housing estate would bridge Great Bookham and Little Bookham from the rec to the Guildford Road.

Surrey County Council, which is responsible for local highways, says access on to the Guildford Road itself would be unacceptable. So the estate's inhabitants would drive in and out of the estate from Lower Road along a new road cutting through what is now a wood next to the skateboard park, and emerging opposite Childs Hall Road.

Until the consultation this summer, the council had ruled the Guildford Road site out as too "isolated and detached from the settlement of Bookham" to have potential for future housing. The site joined others regarded as unavailable or unsuitable, including land to the left of the railway bridge to Bookham Common, west of the station; land next to the Old Rectory in Rectory Lane; and land at Woodlands Road.

Now Mole Valley has moved the site, submitted for consideration by 'a housebuilder', back into the list of possible sites on the grounds that it isn't as isolated as they thought. The site is slap in the Green Belt. So if the houses were given the go-ahead, says Mole Valley, the Green Belt boundary would have to be moved! That aside, "it is believed that there is a reasonable prospect of the site being developed in the future and is therefore considered as developable [within] 6-10 years."

The Core Strategy and its supporting documents make clear that inclusion in the SHLAA list does NOT mean development of all or any of these sites is certain. Mole Valley's planning office stressed to the Bugle that, for the purpose of compiling the list of sites, the planners disregarded Green Belt and all other planning constraints and considered only their suitability for development. As the SHLAA main document's prominent disclaimer puts it: "The SHLAA only identifies sites with future development potential. It does not allocate sites to be developed. The allocation of sites for future housing development will not take place until the Land Allocations Development Plan Document (DPD) which is programmed for adoption by the end of 2010.

"The identification of potential housing sites within the SHLAA does not imply that the Council would necessarily grant planning permission for residential development. All planning applications incorporating residential development will continue to be considered against the appropriate policies in the South East Plan and the Mole Valley Local Plan and having regard to any other material considerations."

Again, the SHLAA page on Mole Valley's website declares: "The SHLAA does not make decisions about which sites should be allocated for development in the Local Development Framework. Rather, it provides evidence about the potential sites the Council can choose from… The SHLAA… does not allocate land. However, the SHLAA helps to inform choices as to which sites should be selected in due course as part of the preparation of the Land Allocations DPD."

All that said, it so happens that the Guildford Road development alone matches exactly the Bookham Green Belt housing target. The rest of the village's quota could be made up, as now, from infill and brownfield development, plus the 76 permissions already granted but not so far acted on.

And it's no good local politicians saying that pinpointing this site for future housing is alarmist. If the presence of Pippbrook (below) on the same list is worth making a song and dance about, so is this.

COMMENT
The Bugle's guest commentator on this issue is Bookham Residents' Association deputy chairman John Pagella:

The dilemma is all too clear. If there is a necessity for Bookham to accept further housing to meet Government targets it must either be located within the existing built area – and we have all seen what that has meant for the character of the village in recent years - or within surrounding areas.

Bookham is located within an area of mainly open countryside which is of landscape value, and it is designated as Green Belt. Much of it of course is owned by the National Trust. The 'cost' in terms of impact on the local environment of looking at open land is potentially in the case of Bookham particularly high.

The problem we have as a community is that housing targets are set by the Government without at the initial stage looking at problems at this level of local detail. A frequent planning problem is that people accept there is a need for more housing, but always want it somewhere other than where they live. In fact we do need housing, although perhaps not more of what we have been getting recently. Whichever way it goes we face difficult choices.

If you wish to object to this or any other aspect of the LDF you must do so by January 9. Click here to go to the relevant page on the Mole Valley website.

The main LDF page is here.

The page giving access to the SHLAA and its related documents is here. Go to the bottom of that page to see the lists of sites Mole Valley has included and excluded from development consideration.

If you wish to download appendix 4a, which lists the possible development sites with maps, it's an 8Mb document which you can download by clicking here.

And this Bugle article explains why the pressure for new housing is so intense.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Article updated 27 November, 2008

MVDC rejects amendment to Local Development Framework

November 19, 2008: Would-be Lower Shott redeveloper Blueland has failed to persuade Mole Valley to soften its line on the future shape of shopping in Bookham.

As Bookham Residents' Association deputy chairman John Pagella (pictured right) told the public meetings about the proposed supermarket at Grove Corner, Lower Shott, this summer, Mole Valley would not allow any development which detracted from the village's "vitality and viability."

Also during the summer Mole Valley had invited comment on the 'revised preferred options' it proposed to incorporate into the Local Development Framework, now published. Blueland, whose comments are available in full on this page, complained that the council could not meet its sustainability goals unless more local people shopped locally instead of travelling to Leatherhead and other places to buy.

Blueland argued that everything anyone in Bookham could want should be available locally: "The Council should meet all the need, including that currently lost to centres beyond… Therefore Blueland considers that the Preferred Option for Bookham should provide for a new foodstore to strengthen local shopping facilities and redress current deficiencies…"

Bookham should be treated as a District Centre, said Blueland. The report Mole Valley commissioned from consultants Roger Tym and Partners last year* said Bookham had many of the features of a district centre but added that it had ‘no development opportunities’ available. Blueland, however, told Mole Valley, "there is an opportunity to provide a new foodstore on a site at the southern end of the High Street, known as The Grove and the Lower Shott [c]ar Park. The car park site is located adjoining the High Street and therefore ideal… to meet this need."

So far, Mole Valley has stuck to its guns. The Core Strategy document for the LDF repeats its original message: "The existing retail role and function of Bookham village will be safeguarded and consolidated. Proposals which would harm or alter [our italics] the retail function of the centre or detract from its vitality and viability will not be permitted."

Pagella told November's committee meeting of the Bookham Residents' Association that had Blueland's submission been accepted it, "would have been exceedingly damaging to the argument that we need to look pretty critically at any proposal for Lower Shott."

Though Mole Valley had decided not to accept Blueland's view, said Pagella, "Let's be clear. It doesn't prevent Blueland from making a planning application. But it means that, when that application is made, it will find itself faced with the task of answering Mole Valley's planning policy, which says that, if what you propose will damage Bookham High Street, then you will not get planning permission."

* The Tym report (5Mb) can be downloaded in full by clicking here.

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Drains, guttering and paintwork have seen no attention for at least three years

31 October, 2008: Shopkeepers at Lower Shott's Grove Corner say Mole Valley District Council's (MVDC's) failure to carry out essential repairs may put the council in breach of its tenancy agreement. The shopkeepers say the council has done no maintenance work for at least three years.

As reported, the MVDC-owned Grove Corner site is at the centre of a heated controversy about a proposal to build a supermarket there, against much local opposition.

The shopkeepers have become increasingly concerned about the Grove's appearance and state of repair. As The Bugle's photographs (this page) show, a tour of the site reveals drains which have completely silted up, guttering filled with soil in which plants have taken root, and paintwork damaged by flooding because of the blocked drains. Weeds have invaded paths and brickwork.

The traders say the shabbiness deters shoppers, and that visitors will assume that the apparent neglect is their fault. They are also suspicious that MVDC is either deliberately running down the site to attract speculative interest or unwilling to spend money on a site that it has already decided to sell to developers.

Work promised 'in the near future'

Michael Durrant, a qualified chartered surveyor and development consultant who has advised Grove fishmonger Ron Fowler in his dealings with MVDC, says MVDC's agreement with its retail tenants is an internal repairing lease.

This means the tenants must keep their own properties in good repair. But their obligation to carry out external maintenance is limited to maintaining their shop fronts by painting them at least every two years. The lease obliges the council to carry out all other external repairs and maintain drains and other essential services to the site.

Durrant says MVDC principal estates surveyor John Burgess was unaware of the state of the Grove until he toured the site on August 12 at the invitation of Grove fishmonger Ron Fowler. Ten days later Burgess wrote to him and the other shopkeepers promising to carry out a programme of work "in the near future." Burgess said the work would be carried out, "as soon as we can arrange to get a specification prepared and the works tendered." He expected this would be in "the early autumn".

Earlier today, however, Burgess told The Bugle that the council had started neither the specification nor the tendering process.

Background:

None of this is a new concern. Two years ago Alec Garnham of the Bookham Residents' Association wrote to MVDC area housing manager Julie Beach to complain about the council's neglect of the area. The council then owned both the shops and the flats above them. The flats were transferred to Mole Valley Housing Association (MVHA) when Mole Valley offloaded its social housing stock in October last year. Beach said that, though "there were some overgrown areas," her inspection had shown no "areas of particular poor maintenance."

In his August letter, however, Burgess agrees that, "There appears to be a backlog of maintenance," and apologises "for the drop in maintenance standards" at Grove Corner. He describes a detailed maintenance plan of work the council plans to carry out "in the near future." MVDC will:
[] Clean out and overhaul gutters,
[] Clean out gullies and drains,
[] Renew main block flat roof coverings and flashings,
[] Repair upper walkway,
[] Repair asphalt surface to yard,
[] Replace infill panels to south staircase,
[] Rake out and repoint defective mortar joints in brickwork to main building and garages,
[] Clean off efflorescence and moss growth to brickwork to stairwells
[] Replace spalled bricks, and
[] Carry out repairs to concrete plinth and rendered areas.

Council has £15,000 budget for the work

Asked about the failure to carry out any of this work, Burgess told The Bugle earlier today that his department had discovered since the transfer of housing stock that the housing department had not spent anything on Grove Corner for three years: "We're now having to pick up on [that].

"There is something in excess of £15,000 worth of work that we've identified needs doing fairly immediately," says Burgess. MVDC needs "to get specifications put together so that the work can be put out to tender... I would have liked to have seen it pushed along a bit quicker than it has been," he adds. But, "It's not budget. We've managed to sort out some money for this. It's a question of actually finding the time to programme in the work."

He says he is now concerned that the work might fall back into the winter, when the weather is poor for doing external decoration.

Fowler's and the other leases expire in about six years. Durrant asked Burgess on August 12 whether he would consider granting a reversionary lease. This could start when the current leases expired but could be negotiated without waiting for that. It would provide Fowler and other tenants with a guarantee of renewal.

Durrant says Burgess was in no position to make such a binding commitment on the council, especially since it would rule out any opportunity to make money on the site within the six remaining years the leases have left to run.

"I don't think there's any doubt they won't be the owner in six years' time because the market will come back, the interest in that site will come back… My hunch is that before the end of the leases Mole Valley will sell their interest in this." The only question, says Durrant, is whether that site is more profitable for housing or shops.

'No intention to run Grove down'

For the moment, Durrant has no doubt that John Burgess, whom he describes as "a good officer", has no other interest than to maintain the properties. But he can see that politicians might take another view – that there's little to be gained from spending money maintaining property they won't own in six years or less.

Durrant says that, in his opinion, Burgess has no intention of deliberately running down Grove Corner to attract speculators. Burgess's job is to look after the council's large property portfolio, says Durrant: "He's never had any conversations with Blueland. He's not involved in it."

Asked about the future ownership of the site, Burgess would only say: "I'm not commenting on that at the moment. There's too much uncertainty here about what may or may not happen and I've made no commitment to what the council might do.

"There's a lot of speculative interest [in Grove Corner]. Whether the current economic climate will change all that I don't know. But we can't ignore the fact that there is speculative interest in these properties. Unfortunately the wider interests of the community have to be considered.

"Much as I'd like to be able to give clear answers to our tenants down there as to what's happening, I'm afraid it's very difficult when something like this crops up."

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OUR COUNCILLORS WON'T DECIDE THE ISSUE

Talk to local councillors and other activists, and the threat of the supermarket in Lower Shott is on hold until Bookham has drawn up its Village Plan.

Talk to anyone in the development camp, however, and you find that the proposal could be revived at any minute. You also learn that Bookham faces a tough and expensive road ahead if it is to see off the proposed redevelopment at Lower Shott. Villagers who were eager to attend recent public meetings need to dust off their collecting tins!

You also discover that the village has little or no chance of curtailing local 'infill' development, and that local councillors of all parties are indulging in ineffective posturing on both issues.

In this special report, The Bugle talks to a development consultant and to Mole Valley's former chief planning officer about what planning law actually means. And it sets out what Bookham needs to do if its campaigns against over-development are to succeed.

October 5, 2008: Local councillors, senior members of the Bookham Residents' Association and campaigners have made much of Mole Valley District Council's supposed decision, first reported on this website, not to consider any proposals for a development in Lower Shott until Bookham has completed its village plan in a year to 18 months's time.

But Roger Hutton, a Bookham resident who has been a development consultant since 1982, describes local councillors' assertions that the matter can be delayed until the completion of the village plan as "totally fatuous."

Although the council, as the Lower Shott landowner, can influence the implementation of a development, says Hutton, "the idea that the council can control the timetable is a nonsense. They can't actually do anything about the timing of an application. That's entirely in the gift of the applicant."

If the developer had any sense, says Hutton, "he'd be putting the application in tomorrow. He can see which way the wind's blowing amongst all the residents and he could steal a march on them by getting the application in quickly."

You can apply for planning permission on someone else's land if you serve notice on them, says Hutton. As a planning authority Mole Valley would then have to deal with it.

Neighbours have no veto

A former electrical engineer who turned to property development only after the successful development and sale of his recruiting agency, Hutton is frustrated that so few residents and councillors seem to understand the planning system. His firm claims to have won planning permission for over 90% of the projects it has handled in the last six years.

Before and since the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act (TCPA), Hutton says, property owners have had the right to do what they like on their own land. All the TCPA did was to take control of these rights to make sure that private landlords's developments didn't conflict with 'the public interest'.

Most opposition to developments come from neighbours, says Hutton, but planning law isn't there to protect property owners from the ambitions of the man next door for his own land. "The average neighbour thinks he has a right to tell his neighbour what his neighbour should do with his land, and that isn't the position."

It's also "enshrined in planning law," says Hutton, "that you don't have a right to a view over land which is in someone else's ownership."

Councillors used to representing their constituents have a different role when sitting on planning committees, says Hutton. They are not there to give voice to the neighbour's objections, says Hutton. They're there to make a decision based on planning policy, "in the wider community interest. And the wider community interest may well be, we actually need more housing in Bookham, or Fetcham or wherever it happens to be."

If councillors ignore planning officers' advice their decision may be overturned on appeal. Hutton suspects a lot of councillors know this, and vote down valid planning applications so that they can show clean hands to their voters. That’s why central government has delegated more planning decisions to be taken by officers. Councillors now only take decisions on controversial proposals.

Hutton says there's little to prevent councillors siding with residents. Costs are rarely awarded against councils in appeals unless the council can be shown to have acted unreasonably, "You can always dress these things up as a difference of opinion."

Clive Smith, Mole Valley's head of planning until the end of last month, agrees that it's not always the case that he and his fellow planning officers recommend accepting a proposal because, if it's rejected, the decision will be overturned on appeal. If there are no grounds for rejecting a proposal his recommendation will use strong words to say so. The language will be less forthright if the application's merits aren't so clear.

Need to show harm

Often, says Smith, the acceptability or otherwise of a planning application is based on 'intangibles' – subjective interpretation of policies, the particular circumstances of the proposal. In many cases, he says, "one can argue it either way."

To reject a proposal, says Smith, the planning authority has to show that harm will result from granting permission. It's not a matter of the burden of proof being on the objectors to show why the proposal shouldn't go ahead: "It's really just for the objectors to say why it is that they think permission shouldn't be granted. What harm is being caused by giving permission? And if they can express that in their own words, that's much more powerful than trying to get over-clever about it.

The 'harm' doesn't need to have a money value attached: "Monetary factors don't come into it. They can't say, 'it's going to knock value off my house'. But what they can say is that it's going to spoil the character of the locality."

Though Hutton and other developers complain about how planning committees behave, Hutton agrees that planning law is weighted against merely preserving the status quo. The presumption is still, Hutton insists, that "as a landowner [you] are perfectly entitled to put forward proposals about what you want to do on your own land and it then has to be judged as to whether it's contrary to the public interest or not." So it's up to objectors to say what harm will result if the development is allowed to go ahead.

No strength in numbers

Objectors should also realise that their number, though not irrelevant, doesn't carry much weight. "When we get a planning application," says Smith, "we notify people who we feel are directly could be adversely affected – then in that we set out things what we consider to be material planning considerations and which are not."

Smith defines 'material planning considerations' as, "things that we have to take into account in weighing up whether planning permission should be refused or not." Objections are material but not decisive: "It's not always necessarily the case that just because we've got objections that we're right to refuse permission. We take a balanced view of it."

Note too that the number of objections affects the councillors, perhaps even the planning officers, but won't affect a planning inspector when it goes to appeal. As Hutton puts it: "I always say 300 people making a bad point still leaves you with a bad point."

Need to raise money

In the Lower Shott case, Hutton points out, the developer will undoubtedly put forward a consultants' retail impact study in support of the planning application. The retail impact study will include measures for demand, drive distances and catchment areas.

"If the local community want to do anything about this application then they've got to work on the basis of evidence, which means probably they've got to hire their own retail consultant to produce their own report and see if they can make their case that it will have the effect that they fear. There's no need to rattle collecting tins until the developer makes the application, says Hutton, "but people have got to be prepared."

Evidence matters far more than numbers of objectors, Hutton insists: "It's simply not going to be good enough to turn up either at the committee at local level or at the appeal and say, 'we think it's going to kill the fishmongers'. It ain't going to work. You have got to evidence it, and on the other side you'll find that they're evidencing everything that they assert. "

Village Plan may not help

What local councillors do or say about any Lower Shott proposal is almost irrelevant: "This is not a decision that is actually going to be finally decided by the council, this is going to be decided at appeal, absolutely for certain. The politics won't permit it. And there's probably plenty that the officers and the committee can hang their hat on in terms of a reasonable reason for trying to refuse it.

"It's no good turning up and trying to intimidate the committee. It might work and they might get it through for refusal. But it's going to be decided at appeal and an inspector won't be intimidated by 200 people in the room."

As for the village plan itself, Hutton says that at recent public meetings councillors have given residents the idea that all they have to do to defeat the supermarket proposal is develop a village plan that says Bookham doesn't want any more shops: "That was wrong entirely," he says.

Even when the village plan is written, says Hutton, it won't be a formal development plan document like the local plan, the structure plan or the south east plan. "It will be a material consideration. Which means the council are obliged to take note of it." The more evidence the village plan produces that more shopping's not needed, and of the detrimental impact it has, the more notice the council will take of it, "But it's not statutory, it doesn't have to be slavishly followed."

'We all benefit from infill'

Hutton, who has made most of his money from infill developments for clients, mounts a robust defence of the practice. "Most people recognise we need houses. Most people have already benefited from the planning system themselves, by a planning decision taken, which is why they've got a house. So it's not really moral to say 'but I want to prevent anybody else having the same benefit'."

For the last 15 years central government policy has been to develop brownfield sites before greenfield sites, and to push housing densities up so that developers would build more small houses instead of concentrating on executive developments. The next step was to reclassify all previously-developed land – including gardens – as brownfield land.

Once government started doing that, says Hutton, there was bound to be more resistance: "When you start developing gardens you've got houses in closer proximity, outlook issues, noise and disturbance issues and so on. But it's a necessary consequence of a policy which was trying to preserve greenfield developments."

Smith says it's not true that government has given planning authorities targets for brownfield development: "We have the one target – the numbers of houses to be granted permission each year, whether it's a brownfield site or it's not a brownfield site."

But, he adds, the government's PPS3 document on housing encourages planners to "make the best use of lands within built-up areas for housing."

Article updated October 8, 2008

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READERS RESPOND:

From John Pagella, deputy chairman of the Bookham Residents' Association

Thank you for publishing Roger Hutton's comments. I agree with much of what he says. Indeed I made many of the same points during the question and answer sessions which we held at The Old Barn Hall.

My only disagreement is over what can constructively be done at this time. The Village Plan is not a planning document as such, and it is perfectly true that it will not direct either the Council or a Planning Inspector to decide whether or not planning permission should be granted if a planning application is made.

However it is a powerful way for the whole community to express a view about the way in which Bookham should be responding to the challenge posed by the pressures for change which will occur whether we like it or not both generally, and in relation to this site.

Planning is not about preventing change. It is about managing it in a way which provides for community needs. Some of those needs arise from within the community ie the need for more social and affordable housing, others are prompted by external factors such as the need to reduce the environmental costs associated with modern life styles.

If the Village Plan concludes that the community supports planning policies in a particular area whether it be shopping, housing or whatever that will strengthen the resolve of those who are responsible for seeing that developments where they are permitted are consistent with planning policy.

In the case of Lower Shott planning policy in both the Local Plan and the emerging LDF is clear. Nothing will be permitted if the result would be damage to the High Street. The all important question in planning terms will be whether what is proposed would be damaging, and we will not know the answer to that until we know what is proposed.

In the meantime we must make sure that if there is a local view it is expressed in a way which the planning process recognises. We may be cynical about public consultation, but it does have a part to play – even if we may suspect that, in the end, it is only taken note of if the outcome confirms support for what the Government or Local Authority intended all along.

We already know that the way in which local people chose to shop will form much of the debate. So far evidence for the journeys local people make for weekly food shoppingis narrowly based as a result of telephone surveys.

If, and it is a big if, the more detailed work being carried out through the Village Plan casts doubt on the conclusions reached through those earlier limited surveys it could be of considerable importance. The Village Plan is not of course about Lower Shott as such, but it will I hope inform us all in more detail about some of the factors with which that development will be concerned.

John Pagella was formerly a partner in the property consultancy Montagu Evans. The firm has provided a variety of planning, investment, valuation and other services to a range of clients, including B&Q, Boots, Tesco and other retail chains, and the developers of residential schemes in Docklands and other UK locations.

Shock move follows reorganisation into bigger department

September 26, 2008: Mole Valley's head of planning, Clive Smith, has been made redundant. His removal is part of a cull of department heads and the merging of some functions. He leaves this week.

Smith told the Bugle that, though he had expected the reorganisation, he had not expected it to take effect so soon. His departure is a shock not just for him but for Mole Valley's planning process. Planning in the district has become increasingly controversial as the battle between developers and residents has intensified.

Smith was widely respected as a steady hand on the tiller in these turbulent waters. John Pagella, head of the Bookham Residents' Association's planning subcommittee, said, "He had a difficult task balanciing strong local views with planning policy from a Government which seems indifferent to what local people think as it consults more while listening less."

In one recent case, the Lower Road development, the development meeting turned into a shouting match between local residents in the gallery and planning officers in the council chamber. "It was quite vitriolic," says Cllr Malcolm Johnson (Con, Leith Hill), who chairs Mole Valley's Development Control Committee, "and Clive handled it very well."

Johnson told the Bugle the job change was part of a "shrinkage of service department heads." As part of the process, which began "some time ago," the heads of department had to reapply for new jobs.

No other job losses are involved. Smith headed a large department of over 30, including separate north, south and district-wide teams for development control and building control, and another team for planning policy.

A temporary head of planning will take over until the new appointment, from outside Mole Valley, can take up a new role which, says Johnson, "is going to be wider than just head of planning." He adds that he learned of the changes in a 'round robin' email yesterday (Thursday).

Smith will return to the council in November in a consultancy role. No further details are available.

Update: In a statement issued on Friday the MVDC press office said, '"There is not a programme of redundancies currently in place at Mole Valley District Council and we are unable to comment on the particular question you raise as it concerns the personal affairs of aIn a member of staff."

Article updated September 29, 2008.

Third-time-lucky Biles wins approval for bungalows

September 12, 2008: Mole Valley planners this month approved two back-garden housing developments despite widespread opposition from local people. And a developer's appeal against Mole Valley's rejection of a third 'garden-grabbing' plan has every chance of success.

The first two developments, on the Bookham-Fetcham border, show how difficult local people find it to mount effective defences against what they regard as intrusive developments on their own doorsteps.

Biles & Co, a builder based variously in Downs View Road and Church Road, Bookham, and Headley Road, Leatherhead, has won permission, at the third attempt, to build four detached bungalows behind 136-142 Lower Road, opposite Amey Drive, despite 50 letters of objection (see Mole Valley website).

The objectors were mainly from Richmond Close and Wells Close, whose residents said the new development would overlook their properties and pose new drainage hazards. The development control committee meeting decided on Wednesday, September 3, to accept a revised application after the developer lowered roof heights and proposed a two-metre high boundary fence.

At the same meeting the committee approved a plan by LPD Projects of Church Court, Church Road, Bookham, to replace one house in Browning Road, Fetcham, with five homes there and in the back gardens of houses facing Leatherhead Road.

The Mole Valley website shows five earlier refusals for this or similar plans at the same location. At various times the developer has proposed three, four, even eight detached houses by knocking down 39 Browning Road, pictured right, and or Camilla House, Leatherhead Road, and building there and on parts of the gardens of St Gerrans, Hendford and Silver Birches, also on Leatherhead Road.

Altogether, says September 5's Surrey Advertiser, these two proposals attracted objections from 100 residents. But they're just the tip of an iceberg. In March, the website of the Bookham Residents' Association (BRA) pressure group (Current issues>Planning Sub-Committee) had commented that, "The never ending succession of proposals involving the demolition of older houses in large gardens to be followed by new houses and flats at an increased density continues unabated. This is quite apart from infilling where parts of back gardens are sold off. In fact at the beginning of February there were a total of nine schemes of this nature spread across Great and Little Bookham being considered. [The] consequences for local communities of the progressive loss of open areas seems to have escaped the notice of those who are required to decide on what can happen, and what should not be permitted."

A more recent BRA meeting noted that the number of applications has collapsed since the 'credit crunch' took hold early in the summer, but there are still plenty of planning applications outstanding. Two more on last week's list:
[] Craddockwood Homes, for example, wants to demolish 150 Cobham Road, Fetcham and erect three pairs of semis – with parking.
[] Another development on the same list, by Woodlands Country Homes, seeks to put up 10 two-bedroom flats at 17A & 18A, Barnett Close, Leatherhead. This is well beyond Bookham but another sign of the pressure the locality is under.
[] Biles is also behind a third infill proposal, reported in the Surrey Advertiser this week, for four five-bedroom detached houses behind 34 and 40, Gatesden Road, Fetcham, which would destroy 28 trees. Planning officers approved the proposal in April, but the development control committee threw it out. The developer has now appealed. The development attracted 60 letters of protest and an 80-signature petition. Residents held a meeting in the village hall earlier this month to expess their concerns. The plan now goes to the planning inspectorate, and objections must be submitted in writing before October 1.

The planning officers seem powerless. They say they had assessed the Biles Lower Road plan "against Surrey Structure Plan policies LO1 and SE4, and Mole Valley Local Plan policies ENV22, ENV23, ENV24, and material considerations, including third party representations." In their view, "the development, subject to the conditions imposed, would accord with the development plan and there are no other material considerations to justify a refusal of permission."

Had they refused permission, the developer would have appealed, Mole Valley head of planning Clive Smith told the meeting. This means the Council and its taxpayers would have had to fund a hefty legal bill for, in the end, exactly the same result. At the very least, Biles & Co was likely to seek costs if the application had met a third refusal.

Comment

These cases show the low value planning law gives to the views of local residents – no matter how many signatures or letters of objection they collect. That's an important lesson for those objecting to the current proposals for Lower Shott (see below). Nor does the developer's track record appear to carry any weight. Biles, for example, was fined a total of £7,000 plus costs at Guildford Magistrates court in January last year for breaches of health and safety law and construction regulations.

Perhaps these cases also show that developers would make less headway without the collaboration of equally greedy householders with big gardens and beckoning piles of cruise brochures.

As reported here, until the credit crunch pulled the rug from under the housing market, business was pressing the government to build more housing in the south east to ease skills shortages. Despite the credit crunch, according to a survey last month by the Institution of Engineering & Technology, skills are as scarce as ever.

A double-page spread in this week's Surrey Advertiserexplains how Surrey has to find room for 59,000 homes over the next 18 years. Local authorities are also obliged under Policy Planning Guideline 3 (PPG3) to build where possible on brownfield sites but had been finding it difficult to meet their brownfield quotas. Since gardens count as 'brownfield sites' for planning purposes, granting planning permissions for garden infill helps local authorities meet both new housing and 'building on brownfield site' targets.

As long ago as 2005 the Tories' local government spokeswoman, Caroline Spelman MP (Con, Meriden), began a campaign not just against concreting over the southeast of England in general but against garden infill developments in particular. It led to a debate in the House of Commons at the beginning of last year and further pressure in the form of a private members' billto end garden-grabbing.

Local Tory MP Sir Paul Beresford has been vociferous on the issue and (see also this link) the local conservative association has also been vocal . Local Lib Dem councillor Cllr Anne Howarth (Lib Dem, Bookham South) was reported in the Surrey Advertiser as saying: "Brick by brick, house by house, the character of the village is being destroyed. "

The extent of concern among ordinary voters is evident in articles and letters in the local press. But so far none of this – nor, apparently, the collapse in house prices – has made the slightest difference to the rate at which gardens are disappearing under bricks. It makes you wonder what grounds there are now left for resisting a persistent developer with deep pockets. The Conservatives' figures last year showed that the number of homes built on former gardens has risen by a third since 1997, and building on green belt by 60 per cent since Labour came to power.

If there are no grounds for resisting planning applications simply on the grounds that local people find them inappropriate, or because they overcrowd the local environment or will overload local amenities, what point is there in having a planning system at all? And behind all the froth and spin, what are our concillors actually doing about it?

The BRA has published the minutes of the two recent public meetings about the Lower Shott proposals, on July 21 and August 18. Go to the BRA website and follow Current Issues>Lower Shott meeting Aug or Jul.


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Article updated September 12, 2008

Disclosure would be 'against Blueland's commercial interests'

August 10, 2008: Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) has refused to disclose its correspondence with property developer Blueland (Bookham), the company promoting the so far undisclosed plan to redevelop Lower Shott to build a supermarket. According to the Council, "its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of Blueland."

The Bugle made a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) for copies of any correspondence between MVDC and Blueland or its directors, Steve Finch and Michael Varley. MVDC's head of legal services, Robert Burn, told us that, though the council's planning department has had no correspondence with Blueland, "There has been some limited correspondence between the Council's Estates Surveyor and Blueland."

MVDC's estates surveyor is responsible for the general management of the Council property holdings, including issuing and re-negotiating leases with the Council's commercial tenants, including Lower Shott's shopkeepers.

MVDC will not disclose this correspondence, claiming that it is exempt under the FoI's Section 43(2) as prejudicial to Blueland's commercial interests. "In the Council's opinion," Burn continues, "the public interest in maintaining this exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information."

Burn told the Bugle there may also be correspondence between MVDC's former Housing Department and Blueland or the individuals mentioned above, but these files are now held by Mole Valley Housing Association (MVHA). MVHA now owns MVDC's council housing, including the tenancies in the Grove estate of which Lower Shott is part. MVHA has refused a second FoI request from the Bugle on the grounds that it is not subject to the Act

In a further email, Burn said he and he alone had made the decision and elaborated his reasons for making it: "When Parliament enacted the FOI Act it allowed various exemptions to the general right of access to information held by public authorities. In this case the 'commercial interests exemption' applies as I outlined in my response to your earlier request.

"The reason why the Council came to the conclusion it did is that it is not considered to be in the public interest to disclose confidential details of a potential commercial transaction at a point in time when neither party has agreed to anything and which may not happen.

"As the press statement issued by the Council stated, 'the proposal is at too early a stage to be discussed by the Executive of the Council'. The public is aware of the general nature of the proposal and is already engaged in a debate about it."

Comment
Most English people, most of the time, would say we live in a fair, open democracy. This seems especially evident in a stable, prosperous, Conservative-voting county like Surrey. Now, in its tiny-minded way, MVDC's response to the Bugle's Freedom of Information (FoI) request has helpfully revealed the sham behind local government's pretence to be on the side of ordinary people.

The Bugle simply wanted to find out exactly what MVDC knows about what Blueland proposes and to disclose this information to those affected by it – something MVDC and its councillors should have had the decency to do long ago.

Now, the big question for every Bookham resident is: What, exactly, is the nature of the commercial transaction MVDC has discussed with Blueland that it is so afraid to disclose? And why, exactly, does it feel entitled to treat those of us who live here, and pay MVDC's council tax, with so much less consideration than a property company with offices in London and Maidenhead?

With the greatest respect to the Council's legal officer, Robert Burn, his reasons for refusing the Bugle's request are nonsensical.

If "neither party has agreed to anything and [a commercial transaction] may not happen," how, precisely, can there be "confidential details of [this non-existent] potential commercial transaction"?

We warned in our May 15 editorial that secrecy makes politicians and officials feel powerful, and that their excuse is always "commercial confidentiality."

So it has proved. The Council could have waived the FoI's Old Pals Clause in favour of commercial interests. Instead, faced with a choice between protecting developers' commercial interests and safeguarding those of the people whose lives they blight, the Council has favoured secrecy, even though the assets in question belong, indirectly, to the taxpayer.

You could find no better example of the way that many of the freedoms we thought defined English life have been trashed on the altar of money making:

[] Bookham's people have freedom of speech. But it matters little if they have no information on which to base what they say.

[] We have freedom of assembly. But no public meeting has any worth if it has no power to demand developers and planning officials to attend and explain themselves.

[] Above all, the law gives every resident, whether tenant or owner occupier, the right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property – until the instant, that is, that any Armani-clad huckster with a plausible manner takes it into his or her head that that property might make a rather nice spot for a supermarket.

From then on politicians and officials fall over themselves to ease the developers' path – without even telling those whose lives will be deeply affected by the proposals what the developer has in mind. No rights, no freedoms, no thoughts about residents' peace of mind "outweigh", as MVDC puts it, the carpet-baggers' right to prosper. The smooth course of their bloated ambitions trumps every other concern, no matter how much distress it causes to those in the firing line.

In effect, MVDC, and every other local authority you can think of, is being run for the developers' benefit. Should a squatter turn up on your sofa with nothing more in mind than getting out of the rain, the might of the state will be mobilised to evict the miscreant. But should a developer threaten – however faintly – to demolish your house or business in the name of turning a penny, the state lines up behind the invader.

Article updated September 7, 2008

Show of hands reveals not a single supermarket supporter

July 27, 2008: Disagreement still rages about Bookham's public meeting last Monday. Was it 500, 800 or, as one resident told The Bugle, 1,000 villagers who tried to pack into the Barn Hall to hear about plans for a supermarket development in Lower Shott?

Fire regulations limit admission to the Barn Hall to 200 or so. "When we arrived," said Esther Phillips-Constans, who went with husband Matthew, "we couldn't get into the village hall. Apparently the queue went up to the High Street."

A 'second sitting' hastily arranged for 9.30pm was also full. On top of that, Bookham Residents' Association chairman Peter Seaward told the Leatherhead Advertiser, another 400 or 500 still couldn't get in. That meant a record attendance at a Royal Oak barbecue for which prizewinning local butcher Keith Weston of Rawlings & Kensett had donated a large side of beef. But so many left the meeting disappointed that another meeting has been called for August 18. There are unconfirmed reports that, to prevent another overcrowding fiasco, this meeting will be held at the Dorking Halls. This sounds unlikely. The Halls would be expensive and, in any case, may not be available at such short notice.

BRA committee member John Allen is telephoning about 400 people who were not able to get in to either of the 2 sessions at the earlier meeting but gave the BRA their contact details to let them know the arrangements for the 18th August meeting. "The numbers we are dealing with mean that once again there will have to be two sessions," says BRA deputy chairman John Pagella.

Villagers united in opposition to supermarket idea

But there was no disagreement about what villagers think of the still-secret supermarket plans. A show of hands at the first sitting revealed not a single supporter for a supermarket development. The Surrey Advertiser quoted one resident, Gordon Jenner, who has lived in the village for 50 years. He said: "As an architect I have a lot of experience working with developers and I can tell you all they are interested in is making money. They couldn't care less if they destroyed this village."

The meetings, and a new statement from Cllr Anne Howarth (below), have confirmed The Bugle's July 9 report that Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) will not consider any proposals for a development in Lower Shott until Bookham has completed a village plan, in a year to 18 months.

John Pagella told the meeting that villagers could best make their views known by involving themselves in the development of the plan. (The next meeting on the plan will be held on Monday, July 28.) Pagella added that it was difficult for villagers to oppose a development in Lower Shott in any other way when no planning application for Lower Shott or The Grove had yet been made to the MVDC.

Lower Shott's would-be developer, Blueland (Bookham) Ltd, wasn't there on July 21. But John Pagella told each meeting that Blueland director Steve Finch had set out his firm's intention to turn the area into a supermarket. According to the Surrey Advertiser, Finch said in his statement: "I think we all acknowledge that The Grove is looking old and tired. It's possible, but unlikely, that The Grove can carry on in its current configuration.

"It's tempting, when faced with complex decisions about the future, simply to leave things as they are until the inevitable arrives [but,] in our opinion, The Grove presents an exciting opportunity to bring forward a high quality mixed use redevelopment which will enhance Bookham as a retail centre."

Cllr Janette Purkiss (Con, Bookham North) told the meeting that MVDC would need to decide Lower Shott's future by the time its leases expired in five or six years' time. But she agreed that residents and retailers had already shown "that there is little support for an additional supermarket in Bookham."

The view from the floor seemed to be that waiting for retail impact studies and village plans was a waste of time when villagers already knew what damage a large supermarket would do. As Gordon Jenner put it, "There is no point looking at detailed plans because a supermarket in Lower Shott would destroy this village."

Answers to unanswered questions

Meanwhile, the day after the public meeting, Cllr Anne Howarth (Lib Dem, Bookham South), whose ward includes Lower Shott, said she had now had replies to letters she had written as a result of the cancellation of July's MVDC executive meeting about the supermarket development (See Bugle report, July 9 – below).

Cllr Howarth noted statements from MVDC in May and early June which, "indicated that the Council Executive was interested in taking this [development] forward. The developer had issued a statement that they had 'made substantial progress in our discussions with the Council, which broadly supports what we are trying to achieve'."

Cllr Howarth said she had intended to go to an MVDC executive meeting in early July "to ask some relevant questions" about the proposed development. As the Bugle reported (July 9, below), this meeting was cancelled.

"Subsequently," said Cllr Howarth's statement, "I wrote to the Council Leader, the Chief Executive and the Director of Resources with my questions, which were:

"What was the trigger that revived this proposal this year and gave the developers the impression that the Council broadly supported what they were trying to achieve? Did the Council administration approach the developers or did the developers make the first approach earlier this year?
Reply: The developers approached the Council and not the other way round. I don’t know what led the developers to approach the Council this year.

"Is it now the intention of the Executive to await the completion of the Village Plan and take account of its findings before giving any further consideration to ideas for development of the Lower Shott site?
Reply: The Administration does plan to await the outcome of the Village Plan before taking the matter further. It is our view that any possible development of the site will be a long term prospect."

Cllr Howarth's statement gives further detail about the opinion survey she conducted. "I was overwhelmed not only with the high level of return but the very spirited comments expressing deep regard for the character and amenities of Bookham – our views about our village and our values."

She had received 1,920 survey forms of which 98.9% have declared themselves against any such development and 1.1% for. There was one “don’t know”.

"No final decision can be taken until more detail [about the plans] is known," she says. "Nor can it be decided in isolation. I am strongly of the view that the proposal should only be considered as part of the discussions on the Village Plan and it is essential to have the maximum public participation in these discussions."

Blueland and the Housing Association

In another statement Cllr Howarth reveals her understanding of Mole Valley Housing Association's (MVHA's) contact with the developer. MVHA took over the tenancies of in Lower Shott itself and the wider Grove estate when MVDC sold them with effect from last October. MVHA is now the leaseholder of four of the flats above the existing shops and owns the nearby garage site which forms part of the proposed development site.

Cllr Howarth says the developer approached MVHA managing director David Searle in April and held a short meeting to explain the proposed development. At that time, she says, the developer had not discussed planning matters with the Council.

"It was explained by the developer that the development could include some new affordable housing (flats) and initial discussions have taken place as to the type and size of flats which could be provided. This is the full extent, to date, of discussions with the developer."

Cllr Howarth says that, though the provision of additional affordable housing is a key priority for MVHA, "In considering any proposal, the Housing Association would need to take into account the views of the existing tenants – not only on the site itself, but also in the surrounding area – and the local community as a whole.

"The implications for the garage site would also need to be considered carefully." She adds.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Article updated 28 July, 2008

Suddenly the council is being 'coy' about Lower Shott

July 9, 2008: Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) is playing a long game with the proposal to develop Lower Shott. Not only has its executive postponed a discussion of the plan for a second time – until after Bookham's July 21 public meeting on the topic. Its officials and politicians are telling all and sundry that they have no immediate plans to take the proposals further.

Some prominent Bookhamites are calling for Mole Valley to put that in writing. They don't believe the council can resist a project that would multiply their rental income from that part of Bookham by six!

As a planning authority, however, Mole Valley faces three main constraints. One is that retail developments have to pass fairly strict tests of their impact on a community. The second is that the trees and part of the car park at Lower Shott are a conservation area. The third is that, however great a financial gain Mole Valley has in prospect as owner of the site, as a planning authority it will struggle to make that gain by breaching its own, very clear, planning guidelines.

All this emerged from Monday night's meeting of the Bookham Residents' Association (full report below). The meeting saw a distinct change of mood among the Conservative councillors on the committee and their supporters.

A month earlier (see June 3 report, below), both the Conservatives and the BRA's chairman, Peter Seaward, and his deputy, John Pagella, said evidence of strong local feeling against the supermarket proposals was politically tainted. They were speaking about the survey started by Liberal Democrat Councillor Cllr Anne Howarth, whose Bookham South constituency includes Lower Shott.

The BRA bigwigs are not saying that any more. We can only guess the reason. The Conservatives have decided that the supermarket proposal is a vote loser, so the BRA's relieved top brass no longer feel they have to support it.

But there's more to it than that. Not only does Pagella no longer support it. He spoke with deep feeling about "fighting every inch of the way." He even promised, in jest, to be at Tory Councillor David Walker's throat if he supported this or any other plan that "compromised" Bookham for the benefit of Mole Valley residents elsewhere.

Whatever the reason, Bookham owes them a debt for having the courage to change their minds. But there's a long way to go before the current Lower Shott redevelopment is seen off. Think about the following:

[] Mole Valley owns much of the land (see * below). Lower Shott looks pretty tired, and the leases on the shops – though said to be 'renewable' – only have a few years left to run. Mole Valley's future plans might include the redevelopment of its own part of the site or, if a developer can buy up enough of the rest, the whole site. Doing nothing at Lower Shott is not a realistic option.

[] Either route would need planning permission. Mole Valley has two roles in any future Lower Shott development. In its planning role it could refuse permission for any proposed development, whether alone or with a developer. In its role as landowner, however, it and any partner could appeal against the refusal.

[] If permission is granted, remember, Bookham's residents do not have such a right of appeal. If local people are to succeed in defeating a plan they don't like, a lot of local effort must go into making sure there are no grounds for appeal.

[] Shops are not the only issue. According to SCC Cllr Jim Smith (Con, Bookham and Fetcham West), (see report below) Bookham has to find room for 600 new houses over the next 20 years. Mole Valley's website, however, says the government requires the whole of Mole Valley to find room for 188 new homes a year. Click here to see a short video of the housing and retail issues Mole Valley faces.

[] BRA deputy chairman John Pagella suggests that Lower Shott householders are not under threat because they can refuse to sell their houses. But the threat to those who want to stay depends on how many of their neighbours sell to the developer. And that depends on how much cash their neighbours are offered in a declining housing market. The answer may be 'lots'.

[] Housing, as well as shopping provision, will be a central feature of the village plan. At the moment its promotors are struggling to find people to take part in the exercise. The village plan idea has its critics but, if local people want a say in how Bookham looks in 20 years' time, they have to get stuck into this project. The July 21 public meeting at the Barn Hall will show how and why the village plan is important.

[] We think the developer is Waitrose but we don't really know. Mole Valley won't tell us. So it's unwise to campaign against 'Waitrose' until we know whether Waitrose is behind the proposal. That's one reason why, for the moment, Pagella's suggestion that campaigners concentrate on preserving the village's "vitality and viability" is the right way forward. However, its strength – its vagueness – is also its weakness. Whether any particular development proposal contributes to or detracts from Bookham's vitality and viability is a matter of interpretation, and Mole Valley will interpret it in whatever way suits them.

[] Against that, Mole Valley and the developer must now be in little doubt that Bookham's populace includes some very well informed property experts.

[] We may know more about the developer and his intentions after a meeting due next Monday (July 14) between Blueland director Steve Finch, who represents the developer, and the BRA's chairman, Peter Seaward, deputy chairman John Pagella, and John Howarth, who for the moment is leading the effort to develop the village plan.

These are some of the realities. The test for local politicians is what part they give local people, particularly those who live and work in Lower Shott, in its future. The test for local people is how much work they put into seizing influence for themselves.

* Meanwhile, the Bugle has obtained details and a map of the extent of the council's ownership. MVDC owns the open space land on the east and north side of Lower Shott, the public car park, 10 shops, various stores, and five flats on a 199 year lease to Mole Valley Housing Association (MVHA). MVHA also owns all except two of the garages west of the main site. Those two are let with two of the shops.

An extract from the map is shown above right. We apologise that, for technical reasons, we can't show it any larger. We are investigating the possibility of a download.

Article updated July 28.

Mole Valley soft pedals Lower Shott Plan

July 9, 2008: Mole Valley's planning department has no current plans to move the Lower Shott development plan forward. That is the clear message it is giving Bookham politicians and residents' representatives who have met planning officials and Cllr Ben Tatham (Con, Mickleham, Westhumble & Pixham) Mole Valley District Council's (MVDC's) current portfolio holder for finance and assets.

Cllr David Walker (Con, Bookham North) told Monday night's meeting of the Bookham Residents' Association: "Mole Valley has no intention to develop the land as far as I am aware."

No further moves are in prospect for a year to 18 months, according to Surrey County Councillor
Jim Smith (Con, Bookham and Fetcham West).

Smith told Cllr Anne Howarth (Lib Dem, Bookham South), whose constituency includes Lower Shott, that he had met Mole Valley officers and been assured the development, "won't go on before the village plan, the health check." The village plan will take at least a year.

"That's a change of tone," said Lib Dem activist and former councillor Michael Anderson. "We would like to see that in writing," he said. "The community want to hear these messages."

They'll get their chance at a public meeting the BRA has arranged to discuss the Lower Shott development at the Barn Hall at 8 pm on July 21. Cllr Tatham will be at the public meeting but not on the platform.

BRA deputy chairman John Pagella said one purpose of the public meeting will be to send "a very clear message" to Mole Valley [so that] they are in no doubt at all about what local people think."

The other purpose, said Pagella, will be "to explain to them what the process is and how, effectively, they can engage in it."

"We think we know," he added, "what we are going to be told."

On June 19 Pagella had met Cllr Tatham and Cllr Janette Purkiss, principal planning policy officer Jack Straw and senior planning officer Gary Rhoades-Brown for a briefing at Pippbrook. He said he learned that, as the planning authority, Mole Valley, "won't permit anything that would detract from the vitality or viability of the existing High Street."

This is a direct quote from Mole Valley's consultation document on the local development framework. Pagella added that any retail development in Bookham would have to go through a development impact assessment to make sure it did not breach this guideline.

John Howarth, also at the June 19 briefing, was less reassured. Though the meeting had been "helpful," he said, "Ben Tatham had been very coy about previous discussions Mole Valley had had with the developer."

He noted that the current rental income from the shops in Lower Shott was about £90,000 to £100,000. The income from a 20,000 square foot supermarket might be £20 to £30 a square foot, or up to £600,000 – six times the current income for Mole Valley.

Cllr Walker noted that, "The discussion so far has turned on Mole Valley getting money from this. Mole Valley is all of us here." If Mole Valley made a decision that they did want to sell this land it could do this for the the people who live here, because it holds that land on behalf of all of us."

Pagella replied that Mole Valley covered all of Mole Valley, not just the people of Bookham. Grinning at Walker he added that if, as a result of selling the land and pleasing the rest of Mole Valley, "Bookham is compromised,", "I will be at your throat."

Pagella warned against mounting a campaign against a proposal that hadn't been set out, at least not publicly: "It's not even a scheme. And if you marshall arguments against something that might change, you might find you have compromised your own position."

Though there was great opposition to a 20,000 square foot supermarket, for example, "What happens if there is a proposal for a supermarket of 15,000 square foot, or 10,000 square foot? Then things change."

Pagella, who is in property management, urged that it would be best to stick to the formula that the development must not threaten the village's vitality or viability. "Then, if we need to, we can fight every inch of the way."

Cllr Smith added that so far the discussion about Lower Shott had been about a supermarket. But there were other possibilities, and Bookham had some tough questions to ask itself in future, not least where it would put the 600 houses the government expected to be built "in this community."

This wasn't just about shops, said Cllr Howarth: "We're also talking about houses where people are living at this moment. They are not all owned by the [Mole Valley Housing Association]. Some of the houses in Lower Shott have been purchased through the right to buy scheme. So it’s not a straightforward swap. We’re talking about people's houses."

Pagella pointed out that no-one could compel them to sell and Mole Valley would not do compulsory purchase: "They can refuse to sell."

Another pitfall is that Mole Valley can refuse permission but the developer had the right of appeal. "If Mole Valley does refuse it and it goes to appeal," said Pagella, "Mole Valley has a difficult position on its hands."

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Mole Valley executive ducks second Lower Shott discussion

July 9, 2008: Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) has cancelled the July meeting of its executive committee, due last Tuesday night. The executive had been due to discuss the development proposals for Lower Shott at its June meeting but postponed that discussion for a month (see stories below). Now this second meeting is off.

Cllr Anne Howarth (Lib Dem, Bookham South), whose constituency includes Lower Shott, said she had been told "there wouldn't be enough business to hold a full executive meeting."

Clearly angry, she told Monday night's meeting of the Bookham Residents' Association: "I haven't got all the answers I wanted. So I have written to the leader of the council, the chief executive of the council and the director of strategic services of the council. I have not had a reply so I have asked that I'm given a reply by the time of the 21st July public meeting."

The BRA has arranged a public meeting on the Lower Shott development at the Barn Hall at 8 pm on July 21. Among the answers Cllr Howarth was looking for, she said, were more information about the background and origins of the proposals to develop Lower Shott, whether the proposals are still ongoing, and whether the plans will be put in abeyance until after the village plan has been developed, in a year or 18 months' time.

Letter to the Mole Valley Planners

The Bugle's editor is sending the following letter to the head of planning at Mole Valley. You don't have to do the same, but if you want to use parts of the letter, please feel free:

Mr Clive Smith
Head of Planning
Planning Dept
Pippbrook
Dorking
Surrey
RH4 1SJ

Dear Mr Smith,

Proposed Development - Lower Shott, Great Bookham, Surrey.

You should be aware of the growing alarm in this village about the proposed Lower Shott supermarket development. It's not just that we cannot see a need for it. Neither can Mole Valley. Six months ago the Council's own Tym & Partners consultancy report made it quite clear (11.53) that, "There are no [retail] development opportunities in Fetcham or Bookham."

Further, Tym's view (7.28) is echoed in Mole Valley's own Consultation Document (6.2.19): "Currently, we consider that the provision of convenience shopping is good for the size of the centre and its local catchment."

Nothing could be clearer, and that should be the end of any talk of further supermarket provision in or near the village.

One justification for the development is that Bookham would be more sustainable if its residents made fewer shopping journeys elsewhere. But where is the evidence that an extra supermarket would reduce these journeys enough to outweigh the traffic it would attract into Bookham, which is already congested enough?

Bookham already enjoys a rich mix of shops, including a fishmonger and a butcher with customers far beyond the immediate district. The threat the development poses to them far outweighs any environmental benefit. And what is 'sustainable' about sacrificing the trees that gave the Grove its name – simply to provide all the car parking the developer would insist on?

For those who like supermarkets, we already have two – and even that may be one too many. The lorries delivering to these premises already cause problems. Bookham's narrow roads are not built for heavy traffic that would pose further risks to the schoolchildren whose safety is already too low on Mole Valley's list of priorities.

Great Bookham is a place to be proud of. Please help us protect it.

Yours faithfully.

Public meeting set for Barn Hall on July 21

Friday, June 20: Posters will appear shortly advertising a public meeting to discuss the future of Lower Shott. The Bookham Residents' Association (BRA) says it will make details of the meeting, set for 8PM on Monday, July 21 at the Barn Hall, available at its Village Day stand tomorrow. Deputy BRA chairman John Pagella says he intends to ask for villagers' help in "reaching groups not already covered by existing arrangements."

This is a reference to the use of the BRA's road stewards, whose main function is to collect subscriptions from BRA members. An earlier letter, to road stewards from BRA chairman Peter Seaward, seemed to indicate the BRA's reluctance to extend consultation beyond its membership. (See report below.)

Objectors to the proposed building of a Waitrose (possibly) supermarket on the site of the Lower Shott shopping parade have a fight on their hands. As reported below (June 3), the presumption among local Conservative councillors is that the developers should be given a fair wind.

Local people who object have to mount reasons why the development should be refused. If local people, says David Walker (Con, N Bookham), merely say they don't want it, "they will shut themselves out of the process."

But the Lib Dems aren't offering salvation either. Their current stance is to insist that the development be frozen until the Village Plan is complete, in about a year's time.

To the Bugle's knowledge, the only reason for freezing anything is to serve it up later. If villagers want this plan thrown out, that is what they must campaign for, and nothing less. Will no-one speak for them?

Meanwhile, it's up to everyone who cares about this issue to publicise the meeting as widely as possible. More information here shortly on where to get a poster to put in your window.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Waiting game as local nabobs decide what to do

June 15, 2008: Local people are waiting for local councillors and other bigwigs to decide how they will respond to Bookham's overwhelming rejection of the proposal for a supermarket at Lower Shott.

The latest total of survey forms received by local Liberal Democrats is 1,569. Of those, 98.6% are against the proposals.

There was brief flurry of excitement last week when a rumour circulated that the Bookham Residents' Association (BRA) had asked its road stewards to canvass opinion in their roads.

This turned out to be nothing more than a report of a letter sent out the day after its June 2 meeting telling the stewards that the BRA would be "meeting with" Mole Valley District Council within the next two weeks – the date is actually June 19, this coming Thursday - to ask if the MVDC has any more information. The BRA would then convene "a public meeting in Bookham so that everyone can express an opinion on this issue."

At the moment the favoured date for the public meeting appears to be July 21, slap in the middle of the holiday season.

The letter concludes by asking the stewards to pass the information on – but only to members of the Association in their road. We have no information of the BRA's plans to advertise the meeting to anyone else.

The Council Executive, meanwhile, plans to discuss the supermarket proposal at its meeting on July 8. [This meeting has since been cancelled]. Members of the public may attend but not speak.

More information when we get it.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Bookham 'unanimous' in rejecting Waitrose development

Tuesday, June 3, 2008: Bookham has given the proposed supermarket at Lower Shott a crushing thumbs down, according to a poll organised by local councillor Anne Howarth.

By yesterday (Monday, June 2), 1,133 of the opinion survey forms Bookham shoppers and others returned to local traders were against the development, a massive 98.7 per cent vote against the proposal.

Anne Howarth had started the survey on May 17. By yesterday, June 2nd, 1,148 forms had been returned. Speaking for Anne Howarth in her absence on holiday, local Lib Dem campaigner Denis Loretto told the monthly commmittee meeting of the Bookham Residents' Association (BRA) that the poll was statistically valid. "I can tell you now that, once you've got a sample that big, you don't need to collect any more.

"It's very carefully worded," Loretto added. "It's not a petition. It simply asks, is there demand for this development or not?"

Loretto told the meeting the poll included 983 Bookham residents and 165 respondents from elsewhere. Bookham residents are even more hostile to the Waitrose development than others. Fourteen Bookham residents had voted for the development, 969 against it – almost 99 per cent anti the new supermarket.

BRA chairman Peter Seaward did not seem to welcome Loretto's information. He and vice-chairman John Pagella dismissed the survey, which carried Howarth's Lib Dem logo, as 'political'.

Comment
In a sometimes-heated discussion, the BRA committee divided into two camps. One group, mainly Lib Dem activists, want the development frozen until the Village Plan had been drawn up, perhaps in a year's time. The village plan might preclude the development, said Michael Anderson, so the supermarket project ought to be suspended.

The Conservative faction want to keep the development in play and let it go forward to the next stage. Anyone who opposes the scheme, it appears, can be written off as representing "a special interest group." That's 99 per cent of us, then.

The Conservatives may not be winning the argument, but at Mole Valley they're in charge of the planning game. Cllr David Walker (Con, Bookham North) insisted that it wasn't enough for local people to be against the proposal. They had to put up good reasons why it shouldn't go ahead, otherwise they would "shut themselves out of the process".

That, when you think about it, is quite chilling. It suggests a presumption that developers – with endless time, money and connections - have the right to disrupt communities who, having none of these things, must justify showing developers the door.

To be fair, the Tories – now totally in charge of planning – have a problem bequeathed them by the lovely John Prescott, who introduced into planning law new grounds for appeal against refusal: predetermination and bias.

If councillors give any hint, now or later, that they've made their minds up about Waitrose's imminent planning application and the application is then turned down, the developer can go to court and claim that the members of the planning committee were predetermined to refuse or biased against the applications without having considered it properly.

That said, despite all the assurances that the project is in its very early stages, it's come far enough for Mole Valley council and the Mole Valley Housing Association to have seen a plan of the development. Cllr Janette Purkis (Con. Bookham North) waved it around during the meeting.

The plan is for a 2,000 sq m supermarket – twice as big as the Somerfield at the bottom of the High Street.

Beware the lies: if Waitrose gets its supermarket, it will be because it softened the village up with a clearly-impossible scheme like that, then everyone relaxed when the scheme was cut in half. The supermarket Waitrose lost to Tesco in Ashtead – for which this is clearly a replacement – was a 1,200 sq m scheme.

Loretto, meanwhile, had to speak from the back of the hall because, like everyone in the village but the committee, most of whom had their backs turned to him, he's not important enough to be allowed to speak at BRA meetings. Villagers have only been allowed in at all since a Bugle campaign last year. Loretto only got a word in because Seaward deigned to allow ordinary residents to speak.

Denis Loretto is a hero. A founder member of Northern Ireland's non-sectarian Alliance party in 1969 and a campaigner there for integrated education, he knows a bit about democracy and what it means to stand up to bullies.

Peter Seaward, who treated Denis Loretto as though he'd just brought the coal in, isn't fit to lick Loretto's boots.

There is more. The BRA politburo has graciously agreed to a public meeting about the Village Plan on June 24. But Seaward and co are refusing to publicise it.

Just as they refused to publicise the inaugural Village Plan meeting on May 14 in anything but the BRA's unreadable newsletter. Did you know about it?

Fifteen people turned up.

The BRA says it doesn't have the resources to put up posters or print handouts. Its account is thousands of pounds in surplus and its committee recently discussed more than doubling the BRA's annual participation tax to £5*. What is it doing with all its money?

And what, more to the point, is it doing with the £5,000 grant Surrey County Council has given it – our money, remember – to develop the Village Plan?

This time it's different. Tell your mum, tell your husband, tell your daughter, tell the binman, tell your boss – THE VILLAGE PLAN REALLY MATTERS, and so does turning up on the 24th.

Whose village is it, ours or the BRA committee's?

* Peter Seaward has since told the Bugle that the £5 subscription wasn't "discussed", merely mentioned as an assessment of the effects of inflation.

[] To download Denis Loretto's account of the history of the Alliance party (2.2MB), click here.

Mole Valley issued a press statement yesterday, Monday, June 2:

Lower Shott Shops, Bookham

Mole Valley District Councils Portfolio Holder for Finance and Assets, Councillor Ben Tatham has said; "Mole Valley District Council owns the land and shops at Lower Shott, Bookham. The Council has been approached by developers who are looking to create a mixed use development in the area.

"The Council has given permission for the developer to speak to the Council tenants, the shop keepers, but has expressed no opinion on a proposed development. The future of any development in the area will be dependant on the response of Bookham residents and the tenants of the Lower Shott shops.

"This proposal will not be discussed at this early stage by the Executive on the 1oth June. Bookham Residents Association are organising a public meeting as soon as possible to discuss resident and tenants views on a potential proposal for future development at Lower Shott, Bookham."

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Article updated July27, 2008. See Bugle Blunders

Lower Shott Scheme goes back to 2005

Friday, May 23, 2008: Michael Varley, the developer fronting the proposed redevelopment of Lower Shott, first approached householders in 2005, the Bugle can reveal. In a letter dated November 2 (shown right), he told them his company was "investigating a property development opportunity in the Grove Corner area," and would like to meet them to discuss the proposals.

And Mole Valley's planning department has seen the plans and told the developer they are "not viable," according to David Walker (Con Bookham North). His evidence is an article in the Leatherhead Advertiser of May 15 which quotes a letter to traders from the developer, Varley's company Blueland, saying, "We have now made substantial progress in our discussions with the council which broadly supports what we are trying to achieve."

The article goes on to quote the Mole Valley's head of planning, Clive Smith, as insisting that the talks are still at an early stage: "The council has been approached as a property owner but there has been no decision on anything yet. What was said in the letter bothers me. I don't know how they can say what they have because no decisions have been made with this site in a planning capacity."

Walker, who holds the housing portfolio on the Mole Valley executive, didn't say when the approach was made. But he told the Bugle the project's viability had been judged against the current local plan, not the new plan – the ' Local Development Framework (LDF)' - which will be submitted to central government in October this year for implementation in 2009. (An earlier version of this article confused the two)

That was why it was important, he continued, for Bookham's local people to contribute to the LDF, now being drafted. (See the the Mole Valley website (click here)).

The key document villagers need to see and comment on is the Revised Preferred Option Consultation document.

The Bugle has discovered that Varley wrote to all the residents in the row north of Lower Shott from the shopping parade to Griffin Way south. The potential redevelopment, therefore, is a massive site that extends well beyond the parade of shops, the car park and the chestnut grove. (See the Bugle's attempt to draw straight lines on the aerial photo on this page.)

Local people say the developer bought some of the Lower Shott properties as long as two years ago. Many former council tenants who bought houses and flats under 'right to buy' legislation are now selling them to the developer.

Varley, they say, already owns the house at the end of the terrace west of the shopping parade and has options on others in that row. Some occupants have accepted 'retainers' giving him an option to buy their properties at a certain price. At a time of falling house prices, many residents will be tempted to sell – since the houses are now subject to planning blight, if they do want to sell they will have no-one else to sell to except either Varley or Mole Valley which, we understand, has also bought back some properties.

The Bugle was incorrect to report last week, however, that the developer had written to the shopkeepers, whose properties are held leasehold from Mole Valley District Council (MVDC). The shopkeepers had not been consulted.

Nor had the MVDC tenants above the shops. Their tenancies were not included in the transfer of MVDC's housing stock to Mole Valley Housing Association (MVHA).

One tenant told the Bugle that, if the site were redeveloped, she might be offered accommodation in another MVHA property, but she was settled here and had children in the Howard of Effingham. "I'm really angry," she said.

Michael Varley visited the shops on May 22, say shopkeepers, to ask them how they felt about possible redevelopment. Most don't think the development proposals have a chance of success.

Ron Fowler, who owns the fishmonger at the heart of the shops, approached MVDC last year before he invested £60,ooo expanding his business at Lower Shott. Like all the other shopkeepers except the saddlery at the end of the row, his lease has only five or six years to run. But he told the Bugle that the terms of the lease mean that he is guaranteed renewal if he wants it. He would not, he told us, have spent all that money otherwise.

Mole Valley reassured him that any proposed plans for the site were "just rumours," he told the Bugle.

But Fowler does not believe that MVDC did not know about Varley's approach.

And the developer's negotiations to buy the garages behind the houses are "advanced", says one local source. This is a substantial plot between the row of houses on Lower Shott and the green bordering the A246.

If a development goes ahead, Bookham south looks likely to lose that green and the trees opposite the old cottages to the east of the site.

Our earlier report that Mole Valley's executive meeting, first arranged for June 10, has now been postponed to a date in July was also inaccurate. The executive meeting will take place as normal on that day but discussion of the Lower Shott issue will be deferred until July. More details when we have them.

We understand the public will be allowed to ask questions at the meeting but only if they are submitted 10 days in advance.

It's different this time. The Bugle has spoken to residents protesting against a development in Wimborne, Dorset, where Waitrose wants to put a supermarket on the town's cricket pitch, in use since 1787.

The local planning authority, East Dorset, held a similar meeting to discuss the proposal. And it waived its normal rules to allow local people to speak at the meeting.

There is no reason whatever why MVDC should not do the same.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Anne Howarth (Bookham South), whose ward the development is in, is conducting a survey of residents' opinion about the proposals.

She has also written to to the Leatherhead Advertiser to insist that consultation should take place before any further decisions were taken - not afterwards.

Article updated May 26, 2008

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Why Bookham should be ballotted on Lower Shott

Mole Valley Executive meets to consider Waitrose proposal for Lower Shott

Wednesday, May 21 2008: The property company exploring planning permission for a supermarket and houses in Lower Shott is a front company for the Waitrose supermarket chain, says a local source.

The company has already bought houses on the site, according to our informant. We will provide more information as soon as we get it.

On its front page last Friday, May 16, the Surrey Advertiser quoted the Bugle's report (below) about the potential redevelopment of Lower Shott, adding a Waitrose comment that, "the company did want to expand in the area but it could not discuss specific sites due to 'commercial reasons'."

Thursday, May 15 2008: The Waitrose supermarket chain has plans to redevelop the shopping parade at Lower Shott, the Bugle can reveal. And the evidence so far is that Mole Valley Conservatives back the plan against the wishes of local traders.

Though a developer approached Mole Valley Council (MVDC) at the end of last year, the potential development was only made public last week in a press release by local Conservatives on behalf of Cllr Janette Purkiss (Bookham North).

The statement (in full, below), suggests a large scheme. If it went ahead, the release says, MVDC would have to consult not just Bookham but "the surrounding villages."

Lower Shott, a large site owned by MVDC and Mole Valley Housing Association (MVHA), is made up of shops and flats, a large car park and public toilets, and sizeable areas of grass and chestnut trees next to the south side of the A246.

Cllr Purkiss, who holds the property portfolio in the new Mole Valley Council (MVDC) executive, confirms to the Bugle that, "a new supermarket would be a large scale development."

The arrival of a large supermarket would gravely affect local shops, particularly independent traders who attract business from residents far beyond Bookham. By one account, shoppers from Wimbledon come to Bookham to buy meat. A survey for MVDC carried out last year by Roger Tym & Partners found that Bookham's "main strength" was "its good range of independent shops, particularly the convenience shops which include butchers and a fishmonger."

The report concluded: "Currently, we consider that the provision of convenience shopping is good for the size of the centre and its local catchment."

Cllr Purkiss told the Bugle that, "when we were approached by the developer at the end of last year the effect on Somerfields, Rusts and the small shopkeepers and existing tenants was our main concern."

Local traders incensed

The approach was made by Blueland (Bookham), a front for a Maidenhead property agent acting for the developers. Cllr Purkiss says that at that time MVDC decided that, since the local development framework (LDF)proposed no such development, it would take the proposal no further.

But, "within the last couple of weeks," the MVDC has changed its mind and contacted MVHA "to see whether they would be interested in participating in such a scheme… We felt it was something which should be considered," says Cllr Purkiss.

The executive is to meet on June 10 to decide whether the project should move to the next stage, which would involve consulting Bookham residents and sounding out public opinion about such a development.

"At present there is no scheme and there is no contract with a developer in respect of Mole Valley District Council's land," says Cllr Purkiss. "Should the scheme move forward we will speak with our tenants and seek to accommodate their needs.

The redevelopment of this site," she continues, "will be a long process and may not happen for a number of years, if at all."

However, the Bugle understands that owner occupiers, but not shopkeepers, in Lower Shott have already been approached to ask whether they are interested in leaving their properties. {see top of page].

This morning's Leatherhead Advertiser confirms that Blueland wrote to traders at the end of last month saying they had "made substantial progress in our discussions with the council, which broadly supports what we are trying to achieve."

The paper quotes both chief MVDC planning official Clive Smith and Blueland director Steve Finch as saying that the talks are at an early stage. Finch said that, if there were a redevelopment of the site, local traders could either be incorporated in the scheme – he didn't say how – or relocated.

Local traders, whose premises are leased from MVDC, are incensed by the prospect. Fishmonger Ron Fowler, who supplies local actor Michael Caine among others, says he spent £60,000 last year extending his shop, which now occupies the corner of the Lower Shott site. He has been there 17 years.

Article updated May 23, 2008

Local people will be consulted, says Tory with property brief

Sunday May 11, 2008: An unknown Berkshire property developer has approached Mole Valley District Council with proposals to redevelop the shopping precinct at Lower Shott, Bookham, south of the A246.

The plans became known in a statement issued on May 9 by local Conservatives on behalf of Cllr Janette Purkiss (Bookham North). Full text below. Cllr Purkiss told the Bugle that the developer is Blueland.

Blueland's full name is Blueland Bookham Ltd of 12 College Avenue, Maidenhead, SL6 6AJ. Blueland Bookham is probably an off-the-shelf company renamed for convenience to hide the identities of the real developers.

Although one occupant of this address is property developer (and Hawaiian-educated animation specialist) Michael Varley of Bluewater Multimedia, no phone number is listed for this company at the Maidenhead address.

The statement reads:
MOLE VALLEY CONSIDERS NEW DEVELOPMENT IN BOOKHAM

Mole Valley District Council has been approached by a developer, with proposals to develop Lower Shott in Bookham. At present the site is owned by Mole Valley District Council and Mole Valley Housing Association.

Conservative Councillor Janette Purkiss, who has responsibility for property matters on the council, said:-

"Mole Valley has been approached by a developer, who wants to build a supermarket and affordable housing units on Lower Shott in Bookham. The council had no proposals of its own for the redevelopment of this site, which at present accommodates a number of retail tenants and housing.

"However, we have decided within the last couple of weeks to contact Mole Valley Housing Association to see whether they would be interested in participating in such a scheme. We have also scheduled a meeting for our Executive to decide whether this should be taken to the next stage.

"If approved by the Executive, it is proposed that we approach the tenants and enter into a consultation with Bookham residents and the surrounding villages to see whether this scheme is going to produce real benefits for the community. If we feel that it is going to work, then we will enter into discussions to accommodate the existing tenants".

Obviously we have to look forward to the future. This could be an excellent opportunity for local people and local businesses but these proposals are really in the very early stages. We will consider everyone’s point of view."

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Official priorities

COMMENT: The Bugle would dearly like to know why an ill-regarded proposal to redevelop Lower Shott has suddenly received a shot in the arm. Rather than guess, we'll try to keep on top of this as it develops. But it seems quite clear that we aren't being told the whole story. It also seems clear that, for whatever reason, the council now favours this scheme, despite the findings of a report commissioned by the council last year which, in a section on retail development, concluded, "There are no development opportunities in Fetcham or Bookham."

Meanwhile, the way planning proposals proceed is so arcane, so riven with smoke, mirrors, tangled legislation and nods and winks that we claim only the vaguest knowledge of what goes on. But, based on the way earlier planning decisions have been reached, we know enough about it to make some confident predictions.

One is that the developer will present an obscenely ambitious planning proposal.

The next is that, having flushed out the opposition, the developer will withdraw the plan after loud local protests.

Then the proposals will be scaled it down to what the developer wanted in the first place. The opposition, having largely run out of energy, will bow to what they think is inevitable.

Inbetween, Mole Valley's planning department in Pippbrook will spend hours at our expense giving advice to the developer about how the plans can be adjusted to make them acceptable.

One view of this is that the planning department is merely being helpful. Another is that the department is giving developers free planning consultancy paid for by local tax payers - including those vehemently opposed to the proposals.

This wouldn't matter if it were a balanced service. But how much advice does the planning department offer to objectors?

All this is extremely wasteful and time-consuming. It's also deeply undemocratic. First, it pitches ordinary residents who have to deal with these things in their spare time against full-time professionals paid to defeat them. Second, the developers can appeal against an outcome they don't like. Their opponents can't.

Which is why it's vital, in the cause of fairness to villagers who stand to gain or lose a great deal in developments like this, that the process is as open as possible as early as possible. And our front page editorial has called for a secret, village-wide ballot.

And let us make one more confident prediction. This project, like all those of its type, will be hideously complex. But we bet all the problems it poses will be solved in much less than the four years it has taken so far to get nothing done about a pedestrian crossing at Lower Road recreation ground.

What do you think? Tell the editor.

Article updated March 5, 2009

Prescott's still the stage villain, but he was doing what business wanted

Whenever the Green Belt is mentioned, the name 'Prescott' is bound to follow. Though he's long gone - his department is now the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) - many still hold former deputy prime minister John Prescott responsible for a campaign to build houses all over our lovely landscape, and we must do everything in our power to defeat this man's legacy – his determination to ruin Surrey.

But though Prescott is a convenient stage villain to blame for the pressure to build more housing, the situation is a little more complicated.

A 2006 London Business Survey carried out by the CBI employers' organisation and consultants KPMG showed that, among local employers, skills shortages had knocked transport off its perch as their main concern.

That must have taken some doing, because local businesses have been complaining about congestion for years. The main reason for skills shortages, said 73 per cent of employers, was property prices. Businesses could not recruit the people they needed unless those people already lived in the south east. If they didn't, they couldn't afford to move here.

Prices rose dramatically in the property bubble, though the banking crisis and recession have since trimmed the icing from the top of the cake. But though the credit crunch has slowed and, in some cases, even reversed the inexorable rise in house prices, the differential is still too wide to allow potential employees to move south – especially when their own house prices are declining too.

Mole Valley tops Surrey's house price league

It isn't hard to see why the gap is so wide. Mole Valley tops the Surrey house-price league. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Trust shows that the average property here costs nearly six times as much as the average Mole Valley household - not individual - earns in a year. In the West Midlands the average multiple is 3.8.

Since the Rowntree figures go back to the end of 2003 they have to be treated cautiously. But they provide strong pointers to where housing pressures are greatest. And they also explain why the CBI has joined the Campaign for More and Better Homes (CMBH).

The CMBH was formed by the Town and Country Planning Association, Unison, house builders, and the Shelter housing charity in November 2004. The spur was the Barker report on housing supply, which warned of 'an ever-widening divide' between those who were able to afford to buy houses and those who were not.

The CMBH is pressing for more house-building, especially in the south east. It wants 200,000 new homes by 2016, and Shelter told the Bookham Bugle it wants 60,000 social rented homes between 2008 and 2011.

Mixed benefits of rising prices

The direst shortage, says the CMBH, is for social rented housing, the council housing sold off so enthusiastically 20 years ago. Though the sell-off was of great benefit to tenants, it has created the present crisis. But then the whole subject of housebuilding is seething with conflicting special interests.

There are plenty of people in Surrey - mostly those already well up the housing ladder - who don't want a single new house anywhere. Many of them fear that more houses mean lower prices. Even infill - knocking down one big house and building seven - is frowned on. And indeed, there is plenty of evidence here in Bookham that infill can degrade a community if it is not supported by adequate infrastructure – not just water supplies and sewerage but the provision of extra school places, medical care and so on.

But - the other side of the Surrey coin - infill is scorching through our suburbs nevertheless because - if you're lucky enough to be the owner of the one big house - selling it to a developer is an effortless way to make a shedload of money. And if the planners allow it, that's what will happen.

Without affordable housing, essential workers like the police, nurses and others will be priced out of local existence, and the private sector needs young and unskilled workers too.

But even the employers disagree about what's best. One survey by the local branch of the Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF), cited in a recent Surrey Advertiser article, found that, like the CBI, three-quarters of EEF employers were constrained by skills shortages caused, among other things, by rising prices. 'Regional housing costs seriously affect employers' ability to recruit,' says EEF South. 'The provision of affordable housing is important to all, not just key public sector workers.' Yet some employers told the EEF they didn't want more houses because of the extra traffic they would generate.

The CMBH's Nicola Gilchrist agrees that there is opposition to more houses in the south east, but adds that, 'A lot of the objections are perception problems. The main barriers,' she told the Bugle, 'are that there won't be enough infrastructure for them all, and that they will damage the environment. We say the damage won't be significant because having housing nearer where people work will reduce commuting times and mean less traffic congestion.'

Business leaders exerting strong pressure

The CMBH wants 'sustainable' housing, she says: well insulated houses which use solar panels and other energy-saving features. 'If we build in a sustainable way, these houses can actually enhance the environment,' by lowering CO2 levels and reducing traffic.

She agrees that infrastructure is a problem, and acknowledges the CMBH needs government commitment to building enough roads, schools, hospitals and waste management facilities to support the extra inhabitants.

But for the CMBH, the key point is that, 'Some people are trapped. They have no opportunity to get on the housing ladder.'

Though this doesn't deal with the delicate issue of where the houses will be put, the point to remember is that the business leaders are as keen for the campaign to succeed as either Shelter or, for that matter, the house-builders. A CBI spokesman told the Bugle that the CBI was keen to see 'changes in the planning regime, and more affordable homes.'

The manufacturing employers in the EEF also want planning rules relaxed - not just for housebuilding but to ensure that, wherever new homes are built, business development can be allowed as well. And they're pleading environmental benefits, in terms of shorter journeys to work, to support their case.

So the next time Prescott is cursed in your presence, remember that his motives are as much about appeasing the business lobby as his desire to lay waste to the south east.

Article last revised 10 July 2009