Alarm over Site Visits - Letter from Keep Redhill Airfield Green

KRAG
Keep Redhill Airfield Green

Mr David Vickery, Inspector
c/o Ms Pauline Butcher,
LDF Programme Officer
Council Offices
Station Road East
OXTED
Surrey RH8 0BT

Dear Sir,

We are concerned to learn that despite earlier statements to the contrary, you now intend to visit proposed development sites in Tandridge as part of your Examination into the Council's proposed Core Development Document. (Your briefing notes, point 33).

Our concerns are these:-

1) Having only heard representations from the would-be developers of the site, your impressions will not be informed by the twenty year history of rigorous and repeated public examinations of the site's suitability for development ' all of which have been comprehensively rejected.

2) If the process of Examination of the Council's DPD is broadened to include a superficial consideration of specific sites promoted by developers, it puts local residents at a double disadvantage ' since unless we made earlier comments on the Plan we are now unable to express our views, and it would seem that the only 'new' information you are taking into account is that supplied by the developers themselves.

3) The fact is, when the DPD was put forward, we did not comment because we were in agreement with those parts dealing with Redhill Aerodrome. This is a flaw in the current system: if a local Plan is later subject to central Government Review, it will largely be objectors that end up being heard, and those are most likely to be the developers and their consultants. For local residents, the Examination process then becomes like a public inquiry from which they are excluded, and true Consultation does not take place.

4) Thus when RAV's consultant Roger Shrimplin contends on 29th February that it is preferable for 'new housing to be thoughtfully worked out and allocated to a new settlement in the Green Belt (Redhill Aerodrome) rather than scattered piecemeal across the district in a way that would not make the best use of resources and that would not underpin improvements in local services and infrastructure'', we know that his statement is both misleading and disingenuous - yet his is the only voice you the inspector hear, and you will now visit the site with his words ringing in your ears.

5) If you subsequently reject the DPD or this element of it, the developers can (and undoubtedly will) argue that your decision constitutes a specific endorsement of their site, since you have heard their 'evidence', visited the Aerodrome, and decided the Council was 'wrong'.

We should be grateful if you would comment on these points, or alternatively tell us whether you would allow us to make them at the meeting on April 22nd.

Yours sincerely,

Angela Green
Deputy Chairman

Cc Peter Ainsworth MP