Guildford News

Friday, December 22, 2006

RESPONSE TO HARPER'S SURREY AD. LETTER

Dear Sir

Mr Harper’s letter to you, published on December 8, shows that he has much in common with another eminent local man, Lewis Carroll, in that both clearly enjoy Wonderland. It is simply untrue that the rejection of the Stadium application and its subsequent appeal was due to a few local residents.

There are just over a hundred houses in Abbotswood and the Council received over 1200 objections to this proposal at the application stage, in the form of individual letters, e-mails and pro-forma letters from right across Guildford against only 169 in favour.
At the Council planning meeting where the application was considered, all 20 Councillors from across Guildford voted against the application (the ones representing Christchurch withdrew to avoid accusations of bias)
As Mr Harper objected to this result (I bet football clubs wish they could do this!), the application went to appeal and the Government Inspector ruled that the application was inappropriate on 6 out of 7 counts. During the Appeal the local football club dissociated itself from the application.

All this was for a site which Mr Harper does not own and which the Council had clearly stated that it had no intention of selling. Of course Mr Harper knows these facts. However this was only one of the 25 or so appeals that he has made to pursue his business interests and in so doing has caused Guildford residents (of which he is not one) to carry approaching a million pounds in costs, has diverted Council time from worthwhile projects for the benefit of all in Guildford and has caused many residents many years of uncertainty.

Mr Milton’s and Mr Beasley’s letters are much more constructive but miss two key points. Firstly, why should the Council favour football over other sports by finding it land in addition to that which it has provided at Spectrum? Secondly, how can a major club hope to be viable in Guildford when the Woking club loses hundreds of thousands of pounds a year? I do not believe that Guildford residents would like these running costs to be added to their Council tax.

Dr Graham Hibbert
Guildford