In this section
- Section Home
- Privacy Policy
- Get a postal vote

Archive
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003

Blog RSS feed

RSS Feeds

- News RSS
- Blog RSS

Letters and articles

Within this section, we re-publish recent letters to newspapers and articles written by your local Conservative councillors, highlighting how Merrow Conservatives are standing up for you on the issues that matter.

Ensuring value for money and respecting Guildford's heritage

It is clear that the current location of Guildford Borough’s Tourist Information Centre, paying a commercial rent in Tunsgate, offers neither value for money for local taxpayers nor a prominent position to bring in tourists.

However, the current proposals for Guildford House, the Constitutional Hall at 170 High Street and the Tourist Information Centre need greater research and transparency.

The recent scrutiny review has revealed that no consideration has been made of co-locating the Tourist Centre in Constitutional Hall with another retail or business use. This could avoid taxpayers paying the capital cost of refurbishing the Hall, save the rent paid at Tunsgate, bring in a regular rental income and avoid the need for musical chairs at Guildford House. For example, what better use – a century on – for the former picture palace of Constitutional Hall than as an independent cinema?

Neither has there been a proper assessment of the case for transferring the Guildford House building to a community trust, ensuring the Grade 1 listed building remains in safekeeping for local community use for perpetuity. The Council’s assets should be used effectively and efficiently, but residents want to be reassured that there will be continued public access to Guildford House, and our High Street’s heritage is protected and respected for current and future generations.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Listening to parents' views on Pegasus

As Conservative County Councillors representing Guildford parents ,we are leading the campaign to challenge Surrey County Council's  decision to axe the Pegasus school bus service.
 
We have applied to call in the Council Cabinet's decision for review by the Transportation Select Committee, of which both of us are members. We have also requested cross party support from the LibDems.
 
Parents with children using Pegasus have emphasised to us  the impact of the bus service on their lives. This service has reduced car journeys, traffic congestion and emissions, improved road safety and given both parents and children time and convenience. In December 2008 a report recommending a two year extension of the service and a review of its operations was submitted to the then Transport Committee. This approach is exactly what both of us proposed as newly elected councillors.  
 
Many parents who have contacted us and Conservative colleagues recognise that the service will have to change and fares increase substantially for it to continue. That is why we both have already pressed for a review of costs and operational expenses before the council decided its future.
 
We owe it to parents, children and taxpayers to investigate if the Pegasus service can be adapted and made more financially viable than at present. Local parents and teachers deserve a reasonable chance to discuss the consequences and present their ideas to the Council before a final decision is taken.
 
However, the Cabinet has just gone ahead and axed the service without consulting schools and parents on various options.
 
It is not just what you do but the way that you do it which is important to local people.
 
Mark Brett- Warburton, County Councillor (Guildford South East)
Graham Ellwood, County Councillor (Guildford East)

Fourth option would extend the Pegasus Bus Service

(Letter to the Surrey Advertiser)

As a member of the County Council’s Transport Committee I feel it important to clarify:

1-    In my capacity as County Councillor for Guildford East together with several Conservative colleagues I have pressed for, and indeed achieved, insertion of the fourth option referred to in your article.( Surrey Advertiser 25th September)

2-    The fourth option would extend the Pegasus service for two years pending a review of costs and operational expenses This option will additionally now be presented to Cabinet this week.

3-     However, given the current cost of £820000 to Surrey taxpayers of transporting 840 pupils, either the operator will have to reduce their costs and/or parents affected will have to pay more. Certainly many parents who have contacted my colleagues and myself seem to recognise that fares will have to increase substantially for the service to survive.

4-    Any cut in services is an emotive issue and I will continue to press for an extension of the service with the object of running it more viably.

Cllr Graham Ellwood
Conservative County Councillor for Merrow & Burpham

LibDems' stance on casinos is not convincing

The Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Guildford can raise whatever issues she wants in her campaign literature (Surrey Advertiser, letters, 21 August). If she wishes to run for high public office, she should expect to be held to account for what she says. And her recent ‘Residents fear casino u-turn’ newsletter plays fast and loose with the facts.

She has maintained that the Borough Council was coming “under pressure from local businesses” to drop the ‘no casino’ policy. In reality, no such representations had been received. She alleged that residents’ views would be “ignored”. Yet the Council is actually consulting on renewing the casino ban – as required by law every three years.

Residents have nothing to fear. What they can expect is a proper debate on the merits and demerits of the no casino policy, and then an open and transparent decision made by accountable, elected representatives.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

The debate on the Guildford casino

Following the passage of the Gambling Act 2005, I was the first to call for Guildford Borough Council to use its new powers to veto any and all casino applications (Surrey Advertiser, 22 April 2005). After a full and proper consultation, Guildford became one of the first councils in the country to adopt such a policy. It has provided certainty for residents, businesses and investors.

This policy is coming up for renewal, and I believe we should seek to re-affirm our ‘no casino’ stance. Again, we must consult, show due process and give everyone a fair hearing. Listening is a legal duty and it will help ensure there is no scope for any spurious and expensive legal challenges (of which, Guildford has seen many).

Our policy was passed with unanimous cross-party support (sock puppet Trinity Party aside). Yet it is disappointing that the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Guildford is now undermining that political consensus. Her latest Focus ‘newspaper’ asserts the Council is “coming under pressure… to change this policy and allow casinos”, “local people are worried” and “residents fear that their views… will be ignored.”  This is utterly misleading.

No-one will be ignored. Such is the “pressure” supposedly building up that not a single recent letter has been received by the Council calling for a change of policy (not even one from Mr Harper). Her desire to stoke unnecessary ‘fear’ and ‘worry’ says more about her style of politics than it does about the Conservative Borough’s stance on casinos.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Thank you for your support

I would like to send my heartfelt thanks to all the residents of Merrow and Burpham who voted for me on 4th June. It will be an honour to serve as their County Councillor, for Guildford East, over the coming four years.

Graham Ellwood
County Councillor for Merrow & Burpham

The South East Plan consultation was a sham

Like 3,850 Guildford residents, last week I received a postcard from the Government Office for the South East thanking me for my response to the draft South East Plan. Unsurprisingly, this consultation has been a sham – with only cursory references in the final report made to the massive objections raised by Guildford residents.

For those who have not read the small print of the 290 pages (before annexes), the message for north and east Guildford is bleak. Green Belt protection will effectively be wiped off the map in Merrow, Burpham and Worplesdon. A so-called ‘urban extension’ of 2,000 dwellings will be dumped on the countryside – most likely at Gosden Hill Farm. This is equivalent to doubling the current area of Burpham, or a new town twice the size of the Bushy Hill estate.

Labour Ministers and would-be developers will no doubt peddle some eco-spin to justify their plans (Dunsfold Park being their case study), spinning a solar panel here, a low-flush toilet there. We should not be fooled by such little green figleaves, designed to cover their embarrassment over the environmental harm that such incursions into the countryside will inevitably cause.

There will be nothing sustainable about more traffic and congestion along the Epsom Road and London Road. The concreting over of the ‘green lung’ around Guildford will increase carbon emissions, harm biodiversity and reduce quality of life. The South East Plan represents the biggest threat in a generation to the look, character and amenity of Guildford Borough.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Beware urban sprawl

The prospect of a sprawling housing estate being dumped on Dunsfold has significant implications not just for that part of Guildford and Waverley. In particular, the sidelining of local objections raises the spectre of more massive housing development to come. Specifically, dumping another estate on Gosden Hill Farm near Merrow and Burpham, accompanied by a spurious ‘greenwash’ to cover up its inevitable environmental harm.

Locally and nationally, Conservatives strongly oppose both the content and the principle of the so-called South East Plan – especially its plans to rip up our Green Belt. Control of planning and housing decisions by Whitehall and regional government should be scrapped and powers given back to local people and the councillors who serve them.
 
However, Liberal Democrats seem to be changing their tune with every month. In February, Sue Doughty called on her website for the Government to “suspend” the South East Plan (note the lack of any pledge to abolish it), and used the politician’s speak of “local sustainable needs assessments and consultation with local communities”.

In March, after saying that “many residents were already angry with the government decision to impose more houses than can be absorbed in Surrey”, Liberal Democrats u-turned and backed  the massive Dunsfold development in our countryside. This is despite it being opposed by each of the local county, district and parish councils, and the residents within the local community.

Gosden Hill Farm suffers the same problems as Dunsfold Park – urban sprawl and a traffic system that is simply unable to cope. Residents should now take any pledge from Liberal Democrats to protect our countryside with a pinch of salt given their record on Dunsfold in listening to local people only when its suits their agenda.

Graham Ellwood,
Conservative County Council candidate for Merrow & Burpham

The South East Plan will wreck Guildford

The Government’s South East Plan threatens to wreck Guildford. Unsustainable building targets will be imposed from above for the next twenty years. The Green Belt will be ripped up in Merrow, Burpham and Clandon and on the Worplesdon-Woking border. The result will be intense over-development and more traffic and congestion, ruining the character of Guildford and letting urban sprawl spill out into the countryside.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Guildford residents sent 4,800 replies to the South East Plan consultation, over half of all respondents. If Labour Ministers simply ignore such overwhelming public opinion, there is a real scope for judicial review. Legal challenges to the Government’s flawed eco-town programme have shown how even Ministers can be made to think again.

Moreover, David Cameron has pledged that the next Conservative Government will scrap the whole tier of regional planning, including the South East Plan. Local councils will decide the right level of development for their locality. Instead of top-down targets, councils will be able to keep the council tax and business rate receipts from new building, rather than the money effectively being snatched away by Whitehall. This will ensure that where new homes are built – such as on the genuine brownfield site of the DEFRA building in Merrow – there is funding to provide the necessary infrastructure to support it.

The South East Plan is not inevitable, and we must fight it every step of the way.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake
Borough councillor for Merrow

Graham Ellwood
Conservative county councillor candidate for Merrow & Burpham

Making inroads with traffic troubles

(Letter to the Surrey Advertiser)

Your correspondent Linda Ratnieks (Surrey Advertiser, letters, 9 January) makes the point that we should protect the vulnerable at this time of increased traffic and increase traffic speed. It is not sufficient to put up posts with the figure 30 on and hope for the best.

Only a couple of weeks ago I had to intervene to stop vehicles being parked on the pavement at the Levylsdene junction, Guildford, and forcing a mother with a pram to go into that busy road. The Epsom Road is where people live, not just an extension of the M25, and their priority must have at least the same priority as the vehicles which pass through.

I tried to get S106 funding to get traffic calming facilities along the Epsom Road, but was thwarted when the county council produced some complicated statistics to prove that traffic would be reduced when the DEFRA site is developed.

The petition I instigated for a cross at Levylsdene bus stop, to serve the village hall, girl guides and the Redwood care home, had overwhelming support from local residents, the only limiting factor being my inability to get more. I apologise for to those I did not contact. The good news for the petitioners is that our crossing has been approved by the Transportation Task Group. It will be coming before the local committee on March 11 to establish priorities and if any local residents would like to attend on that day I can let them know the venue.

We must, however, be aware that our crossing is not the only one on the queue and they are all important to local residents. We can all pontificate on such subjects as the South East Plan, but it is my opinion that traffic problems are on the top of most people’s agenda. Congestion, parking, speed, safety are words that I find used. On the Epsom Road, we also have problems at the junction with Horseshoe Lane East because of children crossing to go to schools, also people wishing to cross Trodds Lane to visit St John’s and the adjacent Community Centre. The speed of the traffic in Trodds Lane has to be seen to be believed.

I shall be writing to all those who signed the petition to update them, as I did after the Local Committee meeting in October. We are due to county council elections this year. A suggested question to the candidates could be what priority they think should be given to road safety.

Cllr David Carpenter

"Bombsite Burpham"

It is very disappointing that Aldi have unilaterally gone ahead with demolishing the Green Man pub in Burpham. Whatever the merits or demerits of any subsequent redevelopment, this was not a move that will promote good community relations.

I suspect that Aldi’s decision will have been influenced by the Labour Government’s abolition of empty property rate relief. Since April 2008, commercial premises must pay full business rates after three months of becoming vacant. This change has increased taxes across the country by £1 billion a year. The annual rates bill on the empty Green Man pub was likely to be £38,000 this year, rising to £40,000 from April 2009. Now demolished, it will pay nothing: no property, no rates.

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors warned that removing rate relief would lead to “deliberate vandalising of property to avoid rate liability”. The British Property Federation has said that firms are now razing buildings across the land, creating a “Bombsite Britain”. Whilst Aldi must take final responsibility, we also have Gordon Brown to thank for our own “Bombsite Burpham”.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Starting a new debate on the shuttle bus

While a decision has been made not to fund a shuttle bus from the Borough levy on council tax, we should consider ways of restoring a similar service without increasing taxes.

The Borough is not a highways authority, but are there funds jointly held with the County Council that could be used ? Would town centre firms be prepared to make a contribution, either directly or via sponsorship? Is there existing public spending that could be re-allocated to support this service instead? Would users be prepared to make a small charge for their journey ? Could the £100,000 cost be lower if the contracts were procured differently?

As Claude Kaufmann, Julian Lyon, David Orchard and Bernard Parke have conveyed in their own ways in recent weeks (Surrey Advertiser, Letters, 24 and 31 October), the democratic expression of our Borough is more than just the sum of rulings made by the Executive.

This week, as a Conservative councillor, I have written to the Liberal Democrat Chairman of the Borough’s Community & Health Committee and called for the Committee to use its powers to hold a Select Committee-style inquiry into the finances of bringing back the shuttle bus. It is an opportunity to put aside party politics, and invite evidence and opinions from across Guildford. This is not to resurrect the debate that has been had, but to initiate a new one.

Every council has to take difficult decisions to balance the books. But this doesn’t give us an excuse to dodge the difficult questions that go with them, or close our minds to alternative solutions to difficult issues.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Time to cut white elephant building projects

(Letter to the Surrey Advertiser)

The key to the debate on the town shuttle bus is how the £100,000 per year cost of a replacement could be funded. The financial situation is tough given Guildford has been short-changed by Whitehall to the tune of £400,000 a year in providing the government policy of free bus travel for pensioners and the disabled.

Using the revenues from on-street parking charges (assuming council lawyers get their act together) would be a fair and logical way of funding a town centre bus.

However, this revenue is being thrown at a financially reckless expansion of Park & Ride. The unsightly new Merrow site has cost local taxpayers £1.6 million in capital, and an ongoing revenue cost of £270,000 every year. The planned Worplesdon site on the Green Belt is likely to have a similar price tag, but there is insufficient cash in our parking reserves to fund such a large amount – raising the prospect of future hikes in council taxes or town centre parking charges.

By not going ahead with the Worplesdon site at this point in time, this would free up money to bring back the shuttle bus, and ensure that we avoid additional rises in parking charges or council taxes. No cut is ever going to win unanimous support. Yet at a time when the public finances are so stretched and people are suffering from the soaring cost of living, white elephant building projects should be the first to go.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake
 

These new quangos will be bad for local democracy

Residents are rightly concerned about the Government’s proposals to remove Green Belt protection around Guildford through the South East Regional Plan. But the public should also be aware of new laws before Parliament that will create a series of new quangos that look set to impose unsustainable development and override local opinion.

These include an unelected Homes & Communities Agency, with powers to seize land, enter private property and act as its own planning authority. An unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission will take control of planning permissions for large developments like airports, power stations, motorways, sewage plants and even incinerators.

And in a game of musical chairs, the housing and planning powers of the unloved South East England Regional Assembly are to be transferred to the equally unwanted and unaccountable South East England Development Agency. This raises the prospect of further environmental damage imposed through the regional planning regime.

Needless to say, none of these expensive and autocratic Labour quangocrats will be directly accountable to local residents or to Parliament.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Paying the price for Merrow’s new white elephant

(Letter to the Surrey Advertiser)

J. Gysin rightly queries moving ahead with a Worplesdon Park and Ride when the Merrow site remains incomplete and empty (Surrey Advertiser, letters, 28 December).

Thanks to Surrey County Council wanting to spend its budget for the sake of spending its budget before year end, they have built a £1 million roundabout to nowhere – and created a municipal eyesore. Visitors to Guildford are today greeted with the delights of spray-painted signs and mounds of earth, rather than rolling Green Belt. Meanwhile, the site lies bare due to Lord Onslow’s developer failing to meet their planning obligations.

A further £1.6 million of taxpayers’ capital will still be needed to pay for the neon-lit, concrete car park. If the site is ever operational, Merrow will cost the public purse a net £400,000 a year to run. This compares with the extended Artington Park & Ride costing a net £200,000 and Spectrum just £130,000. Even without any Worplesdon site, this is not financially sustainable, as there are insufficient funds in the parking reserve to sustain this long-term drain.

The only way that Merrow and any additional Park and Ride sites can then be financed is through further increases in parking charges. Town centre shoppers will face the brunt, as hiking Park and Ride charges on the poorly-chosen Merrow site would make it even more undesirable to its potential users from the Horsleys, Dorking or Leatherhead. I fear everyone in Guildford will end up paying the price for Merrow’s new white elephant.

Cllr Sheridan Westlake

Next Page