Keymer "most concerned"

Tandridge council leader, Mr Gordon Keymer, has written to the Inspector voicing his worries about what's going on and explaining how the attack on the Green Belt fields was launched just hours before the consultation process closed giving local people no chance to fight back.

Dear Mr. Vickery,

Exploratory Meeting Thursday 3rd April 2008

I am most concerned about the events surrounding the approaching exploratory meeting.

The scoping reports submitted by Village Developments PLC and Asprey Homes Ltd. were submitted in the hours immediately before the deadline for the submission of such representations. Such a move would not have been anticipated by local residents since the examination of the core strategy is not site specific. If local residents had known about the submissions further in advance they could have responded.

The submission of the scoping reports might not have been so worrying had the companies themselves not featured so prominently in your invitations to the exploratory meeting. I must stress that, at this stage, I am only interested in the fairness of the process and it seems to me that there does not appear to be a balancing representation for those who support the draft core strategy.

The initial unease over the scoping reports has turned to local consternation by the apparent importance they are being given at the exploratory meeting.

I strongly endorse the council's core strategy ' hence my concern about the fairness of the process of this exploratory meeting and the effect it will have on the local residents who attend but are not allowed to contribute.

Yours sincerely,

Gordon C. Keymer CBE
Tandridge District Councillor
Oxted North and Tandridge Ward