How can you build on a view like this?
OUR precious Green Belt is being covered in concrete in a race to build houses at any cost. Leafy Surrey is a prime target and never more so than at Wisley where a Cayman Islands-based company hopes to build more than 2,000 houses on Three Farms Meadows, a former airfield. The battle to protect this productive farmland has been raging for years and highlights the lengths that would-be developers will go to achieve their objectives. The original planning proposal was unanimously rejected by Guildford planners two years ago, but there was a lengthy appeal hearing last autumn, vigorously opposed by campaign groups, parish councils, local residents and Guildford Borough Council. The Secretary of State’s decision is due in a few weeks, but the off-shore company involved has requested a three-month deferral so it can present new material. This could delay the decision until possibly 2020, more than four years after the original rejection of the controversial proposal. Local campaigners have urged the minister to reject the plea on the basis that an appellant should not be rewriting their proposals during an appeal, let alone once the inquiry has closed and the inspector has reported. While off-shore investors may have limitless budgets, local residents will struggle to raise the hundreds of thousands of pounds needed to defend their Green Belt and countryside in a re-run of a costly and protracted appeal hearing.
TONY EDWaRDs, Ockham, surrey.