More than 100 local residents packed Redhill Football club yesterday evening (1 February 2018) to hear about plans which might bring thousands of homes to green spaces in the area. They were particularly concerned about the scale of development planned for Redhill aerodrome, where some 8,000 houses could be built.

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Stand up to defend the Green Belt from development threats AND secure the affordable homes we need. 

Come to an open meeting to find out about our local Council’s Development Plans and how you can put your views across. 

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Surrey County Council’s financial problems are set to continue as a Council Tax rise of 6% was announced, as well as £66 million of spending reductions required in the next financial year.

The proposals will be approved by the County Council’s Conservative Cabinet next week before all Councillors vote on the proposals at the Budget setting meeting on Tuesday 6th February 2018.

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Surrey Greens have reviewed the County’s draft Waste Plan to 2033, which highlights a massive planned increase in incineration at the cost of recycling.

The Plan, which is open for consultation until February 7th, proposes up to six new incinerators on Green Belt land, even though Surrey is joint top for recycling in England.

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Reigate & Banstead Borough Council is consulting on its Development Management Plan for the final time.

Despite widespread objection to the idea of removing land from the Green Belt to build hundreds of new homes, the final draft Development Plan still allows for:

• 1400 new homes on Green Belt adjacent to Redhill, Reigate and Merstham
• 200 homes on greenfield sites around Horley.

And it now includes longer-term plans for up to 8,000 homes on and around the Redhill Aerodrome site – 6,000 within Tandridge and 2,000 within Reigate and Banstead. This is a completely new proposal since the Plan was previously consulted on and approved by a government inspector.

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Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s draft Development Management Plan is out for consultation – and threatens to allow a house-building boom in the Green Belt to meet high developer demand.

We have fought the idea of housing in the Green Belt throughout the long process of writing and rewriting this draft Plan.

Our detailed response to the last consultation suggested extra sites in the urban area where houses could be built instead of in the countryside (see pages 19-23). The Council appears not to have considered all of these. 

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I am writing this on a train and I’ve just written to Crispin Blunt MP and Vic Broad, Leader of Reigate and Banstead Borough Council.

I emailed them as I left Redhill on my way to Victoria. Unfortunately there is no longer a fast train service to Victoria from Redhill, it was removed as part of the improvements introduced this year.

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Surrey County Council has agreed changes to its multi-million pound property investment policy to ensure that it is environmentally sustainable and will help address the affordable homes crisis – thanks to a Motion tabled by Green County Councillor Jonathan Essex at a Council meeting on Tuesday 5th December.

The Motion won the backing of Councillors from across the Council chamber, following minor amendments proposed by Conservative Councillor Tim Oliver.

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• Would you put a bit of effort into separating out your recycling if it meant less need for incineration?
• Do doorstep collections work best or should residents be asked to take recycling to centres?
• Do you agree that we might need to build a new waste facility on the Green Belt?

Choices we make now will have a real impact on what happens in Surrey for years to come.

Surrey County Council is consulting on its new waste plan. But the consultation is a nightmare in terms of not saying what it means and being totally impenetrable.

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At its meeting next Thursday, 9 November 2017, Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s Executive will discuss the latest draft of the Council’s Local Plan and whether to send it for consultation and submission to the Secretary of State.

Since the previous version of the Local Plan was consulted on, the Council has added a new Proposed Policy Approach: ‘MLS2 Safeguarding Land for Development Beyond the Plan Period’.

The Council is earmarking Redhill Aerodrome for housing development after 2027.

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