623 new houses in Elmbridge – every year for the next fifteen years!
In 2016 Elmbridge Borough Council (EBC) consulted on their preferred New Local Plan which included plans to allow 9,480 new dwellings to be built in Elmbridge over 20 years. This depended upon creating three ‘garden villages’ on Green Belt land – two in the Cobham/Stoke d'Abernon/Oxshott area. As a result of c.50,000 local objections from c.3,750 households (over half in our area), EBC said they would abandon this plan. Central Government has increased the pressure however and now suggests Elmbridge needs 623 new dwellings per year and that our Green Belt may be released to build them.
EBC will now launch a consultation on 5 options for a new Local Plan on August 19th 2019 – see www.elmbridge.gov.uk/news/shaping-elmbridge/ from where you can also find lots of background data.
One of these options will be almost identical to that consulted on in 2016 – the 2016 plan has not been abandoned! Others will include ‘intensified’ development and garden grabbing with varying amounts of Green Belt development and several of these will also involve ‘our’ Green Belt areas.
We are concerned that this consultation is to be held while many will be on holiday and that it will only be open for a six week period. Furthermore it is likely that all the responses sent last time will not be considered this time and that all those that registered then to be kept informed will now not be due to GDPR (Data protection).
Accordingly we will try and ensure as many people are kept informed as possible so that we can hit the ground running in August. To this end please can you
- Sign up to be kept informed by EBC (go first to www.elmbridge.gov.uk/planning/planning-policy/)
- Click Subscribe to be on our email circulation list and
- Consider making a donation to our ‘fighting fund’ (details will be announced soon) bearing in mind this process will last until 2020.