Nick Skellett Surrey Council Council leader says

I very much share your concerns over the pressures from various developers for additional housing, which need to be strongly resisted. These are clearly above the housing levels required for Tandridge in the Surrey Structure Plan or the draft South East Strategy, and any erosion of the Green Belt is unacceptable.

The County Council wrote to Tandridge District Council at the end of February strongly supporting the approach in their core strategy. The County Council consider the approach adopted by the district council to be sound, and that the Green Belt must be maintained. In particular, the County Council has argued that the approach adopted by the District Council to future housing and allocations is sound. The district has always met its housing targets in the past, relying on the windfall sites coming forward, and we see no need for further allocations.

The difficulty is that Government has said generally that planning authorities should not rely on windfall sites for future housing provision, and should make specific allocations in their plans. However, they have acknowledged that particularly in Green Belt areas this may not be necessary and throughout Surrey the County Council has argued that experience shows windfall sites will bring forward more than enough housing, without the need to make large scale allocations or touch the Green Belt. We will continue to argue that case, and support the District Council, and provided the District Council puts forward sufficient evidence to demonstrate how windfall sites come forward I am hopeful they can resist the pressures."

Regards
Nick Skellett