PRESS RELEASE – 10th April 2012
Town Centre Masterplan is Scrapped
In a shock move Guildford Vision Group have learned that Guildford Borough Councillors were told last week that work to finalise the Town Centre Masterplan will be abandoned.
Instead the Council intends commissioning urban design consultants to prepare an Interim Town Centre Framework document in conjunction with the Council’s planning policy team.
The Council’s Executive will be asked to adopt the Interim Framework Document in just over three months time without the Document we understand being put out for public consultation.
As all the evidence needed to support the Document’s conclusions will not be available by the 19th July meeting the Council have announced this new planning policy document will itself be scrapped in 2013 and superceded by a final Town Centre Framework Document.
A spokesman for Guildford Vision Group said: - “We are delighted that the efforts of the Guildford Society and many others have resulted in the Council recognizing that their draft Masterplan was fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons, not least its failure to address Guildford’s appalling infrastructure problems.At this stage one can only speculate about the Council’s motives in seeking to put an alternative planning policy document in place by July when we are told that document is only intended to have a shelf life of just one year.We intend to find out why the Council continue to focus narrowly on development in the town centre to the exclusion of the surrounding town and without offering any solution to or safeguards for the town’s endemic traffic problems.With the publication of the National Planning Policy Framework on 27th March the coalition Government have made it abundantly clear that every Council’s urgent priority should be the creation of an up to date Local Plan delivering sustainable development that reflects the vision and aspirations of local communities.We will continue to press for that outcome.”
For more information see www.guildfordvisiongroup.com or contact Yvonka Wilkinson,Campaign Manager,Vision for Guildford Ltd. on 07767 251040
10/04/12