Tandridge District “Our Local Plan 2033” Regulation 19 Consultation
Councillor Nicholas White
It is very important for everyone to write/email Tandridge District Council regarding the proposed Draft Tandridge Local Plan 2033 before 5.00pm on Monday 10th September 2018 to make their views known as this is the last opportunity to make your views known. You can find the document on the TDC website, along with the supporting evidence base and technical papers. There is a paper copy in Lingfield Library. You can make your comments through the website portal, but it is not user friendly hence my recommendation to email your comments to localplan@tandridge.gov.uk. Any comments you have made previously are not forwarded to this consultation.
All comments concerning the Tandridge “Our Local Plan; 2033” should specifically identify where the plan is “unsound” and where it fails to be “legally compliant” if you wish them to be considered further by the examining inspector after he reads them.
A sound plan must be based on robust and credible evidence. It must be deliverable. It must provide sustainable development. It must show it has consulted effectively with you.
-
Click On "Our Open Plan" Picture To Open The Document For More Details
So, for Dormansland the plan intends to increase the housing density by allowing greater infilling or replacement of one house with up to 3 times the number over most of the village (In the Urban Capacity Study).
- How can TDC guarantee these sites coming forward in the village? Have they considered how the infrastructure can cope with incremental increase? How can they ensure the right balance of houses comes forward when their “Housing Strategy” hasn’t been written yet?
- The rural exception affordable housing schemes, like the Baytrees in Lingfield, can allocate up to 20 houses per site for both Dormans Park and Dormansland. These will be green belt sites and will be able to have up to 10 % market housing, where there are more than 10 houses.
- The proposed garden community is going to impact on Dormansland in several different ways, mainly by putting pressure on the existing infrastructure until its own is built. However, the garden community is not fixed to any sites, has no guarantee the transport infrastructure will be upgraded (the A22 and Godstone Railway Station), will only deliver 1,400 homes in the plan period and even that is not guaranteed.
- Essentially, the garden community concept is undeliverable and will be unacceptable to an examiner; by putting this garden community forward, TDC has made the green belt sites around Dormansland open to green belt release across more settlements to deliver the housing number.
The Council have prepared a list of the infrastructure this development should bring forward, including new schools, a new medical centre (to replace Pondtail Surgery in Godstone), to improve the M25/A22 junction but there is not confirmation from Surrey County Council or the NHS they can afford to staff these and most of the road improvements have not been costed. School expansions have been proposed as well but the fact both Lingfield and Dormansland primaries have no land to expand onto meaning they would both need new sites, without any consideration of the additional cost of land.
Please try to submit a response by 5pm on Monday 10th September. I will post a template on my website (www.nicholaswhite.org.uk) to help you write a response to include how the plan is unsound and not legally compliant or contact me directly to send you the template. I could not vote for the plan to go forward to this consultation, when it was brought up at Full Council as not only does it risk increasing the numbers of houses in the parish but will put an unbearable strain on our existing infrastructure and will cause considerable harm to the green belt around us in the south of the district.