Following the completion of the Guildford Borough Council Local Plan - Issues & Options consultation on the 29th Nov 2013, the Council Leader Stephen Mansbridge has issued the following statement on behalf of the Guildford Borough Council Conservative group.
The Issues and Options consultation has now closed. It took more than three years to amass the background documents which, in total, ran to more than 2,500 pages. We were advised that all this work was necessary in order to prove to the National Planning Inspectorate that we have indeed considered all the options.
We, as a group, decided to engage deeply with our residents and in as neutral a way as possible. With a task of this scale, we gave clear guidance to the planning service at GBC and they did their best to ensure that the consultation was properly conducted. We recognise that this required many of you to undertake a lot of reading and we thank you for your trouble and your interest.
There has been a significant response to the consultation with something in excess of 10,000 responses and there are still more to count. In comparison to previous consultations, this can be considered to have been very successful and we thank all of you for your hard work.
Read more: Guildford Issues & Options Consultation: Conservative Group Statement
Guildford Borough Council opened their consultation period for their "Local Plan Strategy and Sites Issues and Options" document from the 1st October to 29th November 2013. A number of exhibitions and workshops were held in and around the areas affected. The consultation is now closed.
The Cobham Heritage Trust has responded to the consultation and you can see their letter here.
Guildford Borough Council have a dedicated website at guildfordlocalplan.info where further details can be found. You can also download a copy of the "Local Plan Strategy and Sites Issues and Options" document from here. This file is 11MB and may take a short while to download depending on your Internet connection speed.