Dear Neighbour

You may remember that in January this year we attended a meeting of the Runnymede Borough Planning Committee at which the Terms of Reference were discussed for the SHMA Joint Member Liaison Group – a joint Spelthorne/Runnymede committee to discuss the Strategic Housing Market Assessment which is required as part of the Review of our Local Plan. The Terms of Reference were openly debated at that meeting. That same evening, however, Spelthorne considered exactly the same document in a closed-to-the-public meeting of the Local Plan Working Party, and the document itself was marked CONFIDENTIAL.

Well, surprise, surprise, it’s happening again. A firm of consultants – GL Hearn – were engaged by both Boroughs to produce this Strategic Housing Market Assessment. A draft report was made public at the Runnymede Planning Committee on 17 September last year (click here and here). Since then, update reports on this issue have been made regularly to the Runnymede Planning Committee by Runnymede Planning Officers.

At Spelthorne? Effectively, nothing.

The subject has been mentioned at two Spelthorne Cabinet meetings. But nothing more than mentioned. The Cabinet, by definition, is made up solely of the ruling party at Spelthorne, and so there was no debate – at all. Click here to see the Timeline.

We asked the Head of Planning at Spelthorne whether the draft GL Hearn report had been discussed by any Spelthorne body involving Spelthorne Councillors. He confirmed it had not.

Why is it that we have to go to a neighbouring borough to find out what is going on?

Kind regards
Keep Kempton Green