Planning Matters #15 of 2025 

20 November 2025 

In this edition: 

•           Pressure on Green Belt grows 
•           GBC publishes land availability assessment 
•           Feedback from NAG AGM 
•           Please respond to NPC Survey! 
•           Further Taylor Wimpey application in Tongham 
•           Local Government review outcome

 Pressure on Green Belt grows  

A report from the Countryside Planning Alliance (CPA), ‘Greying the Green Belt’, chronicles the harm already being done to the Green Belt by the application of the new ‘Grey Belt’ rules. The report concludes: “The many, well-known, benefits of Green Belts, including human well-being, natural capital, food production, carbon sequestration, flood prevention – and preventing urban sprawl, of course – have been swept away in a decision to reclassify land to meet poorly thought-out housing targets.” 

Even the housebuilders themselves - including the CEO of Taylor Wimpey, no less - are pointing out that the housing crisis is not simply a supply-side issue. Issues such as affordability, consumer confidence, interest rates, mortgage availability, and real income levels mean that “the binding constraint is effective demand, not supply”, as is argued in another CPA report ‘Veering off plan?’. 

None of this has prevented Government Ministers from stepping up their rhetoric regarding their ambition to build 1.5 million new homes during this Parliament. A press release this week is headlined “Housebuilding around train stations will be given default ‘yes’”. (This despite the fact that there is considerable evidence that the vast majority of commuting journeys into London from within the Green Belt are made by private vehicle; the 2021 census also shows the same picture for journeys to work from Normandy). 

The same press release also announces that councils will have to inform government if they intend to block applications of 150 homes or more so that ministers can decide whether to step in and make the decision themselves. This includes a veiled threat to local councillors: “Particular attention will be paid to those applications where a planning committee intends to refuse it contrary to the advice of planning officers.” You have been warned. 

GBC publishes Land Availability Assessment  

Against this difficult background, Guildford Borough Council (GBC) has published its Land Availability Assessment. This is an annual exercise, not to be confused with the separate Green Belt Assessment that is currently underway as part of the Local Plan process. It shows that, as we knew, GBC is unable to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply; in fact it has a three-year (2.98 yr) supply. 

As a result, the Assessment needs to be revisited, and the document is clear (para 6 of the Introduction): “Additional sites will need to be identified as part of the new Local Plan.” If this statement is taken at face value, it means that applications such as the one we are told Taylor Wimpey (TW) are soon to make should not be taken in isolation, but rather in the broader Local Plan context. This is clearly of fundamental importance to us in Normandy and our MP has undertaken to write to GBC on our behalf to seek clarity on this point (see report below from AGM).  

Feedback from NAG AGM  

Our AGM was held on 12 November and was attended by 25 people, including our guests: the MP for Surrey Heath, Dr Al Pinkerton; Guildford Borough Councillor David Bilbé; Normandy Parish Councillor Simon Schofield; and Normandy Parish Clerk Amanda Pick. 

Much of the meeting was, unsurprisingly, taken up with discussion of the prospect of planning applications coming forward for major housing development in Normandy. The strong view was expressed that these should only be considered as part of the Local Plan process already underway, and Dr Pinkerton undertook to write to Guildford Borough Council about this. 

The papers for the meeting are available on our website here, and the draft Minutes here. 

Please respond to NPC Survey!  

All of the above makes it very important that everyone in Normandy completes the survey that Normandy Parish Council has distributed to every household in the village, and which is also available on their website: see link. It is open until 8am on 28 November. 

Given the pressure on Councils such as GBC that the Government is exerting, there will need to be compelling arguments from residents if major applications such as the TW and Shortlands Farm ones are to be resisted. This will require not just weight of numbers, but also expert advice. The Parish Council, as a statutory consultee, will need to have a more formal understanding of residents’ views in order to respond to any eventual planning application and, possibly, to incur expenditure on their behalf to seek that expert advice. It is therefore very important that as many people as possible complete the survey before the deadline; please do so, and encourage others to do likewise! 

A reminder that the results of the survey, along with a discussion of next steps, will be the subject of a Village Meeting on 30 November at 7pm in the Village Hall. 

Further Taylor Wimpey application in Tongham 

As if a proposed 200 houses at Shortlands Farm (Gleeson Land), and 950 between Flexford and Normandy (TW), were not enough, TW has launched a proposal for a further 400 in Tongham. 

That would make a completely disproportionate total of 1,550 new builds proposed in our corner of West Surrey within a distance of less than three miles. If they were all to go ahead, there would be little or no Green Belt separating Tongham, Ash, and Normandy, and we would be well on the way to losing any gap between Aldershot and Guildford. 

This is a further reason why, we would argue, GBC must insist that all these proposed major developments will only be considered as part of the ongoing process to update the Local Plan, and not be taken isolation. What is the point of having a Local Plan if the big developers are allowed to make the decisions as to where houses should be built?

Local Government Review Outcome 

This is old news, but as we omitted to include it in our last newsletter, it is worth recording that after a lengthy period of local and public consultation the Government has decided on two unitary authorities: East and West Surrey. Elections to the new, for the time being shadow, authorities will take place in May 2026, and the existing bodies will be dissolved at the end of March 2027. While this is designed to maximise efficiencies, there are also understandable concerns that it will take decision-making further away from local communities.