120505 Local Democracy
Reply
Letter to Surrey Advertiser
Sir
I read with interest the letters of Mr Slade and Alderman Bridger and the comments of our Council Leader (Surrey Ad 4th May) and, having spoken at the Committee meeting to which he referred, I can clarify a few points for your readers.
Peter Slade is absolutely right about the crucial role the Philharmonic (GPO) plays in the image and cultural outreach and vitality of Guildford – so much so that all of the Councillors barring perhaps Cllr Meredith were vocal in support of retaining the GPO in some form and gave unequivocal backing to a requirement for the Chief Executive and lead Councillor Jen Powell to revert back without delay with a clear fact-based recommendation as to the future of the GPO.
120504 Local Democracy
Comment posted on Guildford Dragon website
Let All the Councillors Have Their Say
In response to your opinion piece, ‘Where is GBC’s ‘Openness and Transparency’?’, as I recall it, Mr Hill’s other interventions during the debate on the Guildford Philharmonic were to tell the Scrutiny Committee what it can and cannot discuss and what sub-committees it can and cannot establish.
It is, surely, bad enough to have a relatively unaccountable Executive Committee (7 rural councillors and a token urban one) running affairs in our town – often to the complete disenfranchisement of the remaining forty or so councillors – but to also have a non-local Chief Executive deciding how this Council should conduct the democratic part of its business and behaving petulantly at that meeting whenever anyone said something with which he disagreed is palpably ultra vires. He was at the meeting as an officer (standing in for the one whose demise he oversaw) and should have behaved as such.
It is questionable how well the administrative part of his job is done – I know several members of the voting public to whom he has not even afforded the courtesy of a reply in respect of letters, emails and calls, relating to important issues affecting the town and Borough*. I also have received comments from many employees across the Council (all too afraid to speak out despite the Transparency Code implemented last year) that tell a different story when compared to that protective cloak of concern for his staff he discovered somewhere for the occasion of that meeting.
It is not the professional part of the job that is at question here, though. If David Hill wishes to get involved in local democracy, he should (1) move here so that he is eligible to stand and to vote; he should (2) put himself forward and see what the good burghers of Guildford actually think of him; he should (3) earn sufficient respect to be voted as party leader of the majority party so that he can (4) become the leader of the council.
Let all of the councillors have their say. Let them all provide strong and free representation of those who entrusted them with their votes. No-one should be disenfranchising whole sections of the Borough. Not the party political system, not the Executive Committee and, most definitely, not the Chief Executive.
* I have been asked to remove this reference as some instances have been agreed as misunderstandings – my own experience is very mixed (for example, as of 14th May and as far as I can tell, I have not yet received a reply to or acknowledgement of my email to him of 27th April).
120429 Waitrose
Letter to Surrey Advertiser (unpublished)
Sir
I attended the Waitrose exhibition and I have considered long and hard what I saw and heard and, however much I would love to have Waitrose in Guildford, I simply cannot see why it should be on the Bellerby Theatre site.
As a property professional with almost thirty years of experience, I know that it would be a much better idea to have both John Lewis and Waitrose anchoring the Friary extension and regenerating the area that has been all but set aside for tens of years pending development. The combination of these two sister stores in a large format could well be the difference between a viable development or not. Furthermore, the development of a new residential quarter should be capable of generating attractive returns for the Council’s site.
120426 Address to Scrutiny Committee
Address as delivered to the Guildford Borough Council Corporate Improvement Scrutiny Committee (26th April 2012)
My name is Julian Lyon, I have lived in Guildford for all of my 51 years and, of the things that make Guildford so special, its excellence in the provision of Arts ranks very highly.
I well recall many Sunday afternoons sitting in the back row of the balcony of the old Civic Hall with my parents and siblings from the age of five, listening to and watching the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra – including, when I was around 7, hearing the Philharmonic Choir (now Vivace) performing the seemingly unapproachable piece: Elgar’s The Kingdom.
I have to declare an interest this evening, therefore, because, according to the report in front of you, I have benefited disproportionately from the existence of the Philharmonic for 46 of its 67 years. I am also a trustee – following in my father’s footsteps – of the South East Music Trust and I have, in the past, sung in the Philharmonic Choir.
Protected: 120423 Philharmonic and SEMT
120421 Waitrose
Letter to Guildford Dragon
The travesty of the conflicting interests of the Borough Council when it comes to deciding how much of the gross capital receipts should be commuted for s106 and s278 agreements for highways improvements is that we have no traffic study or long term plan against which to measure the appropriateness of any allocation.
Indeed, Waitrose themselves (in the form of their traffic engineer at the exhibition at the Guildhall on Friday 20th) acknowledged that their modelling, based on a generic traffic modelling system, only analysed the traffic impact of their proposals on the York Road roundabout and York Road itself.
Protected: 120416 Philharmonic and SEMT
120413 Master Plan
Letter to Guildford Dragon
Guildford desperately needs to address its traffic congestion (clearly confirmed by the meeting of 150 to 200 people on 21st March launching the Guildford Vision Group) and to create a vision for a better town to meet the needs of all its stakeholders.
The Council’s Draft Town Centre Masterplan, with minimal consultation over the busy Christmas period, has been widely criticised as “woeful”, “badly researched”, “lacking any vision” and “fundamentally flawed” – mainly because it did nothing to address congestion and the impact of traffic routes on pedestrian access between the station, the town, the river and elsewhere.
Perhaps having a plan approved by a Council Executive I have previously criticised for its lack of transparency, is more about selling off Council-owned (actually our) town centre sites, and triggering quick-fix solutions such as the Bedford Road bus station idea and the Waitrose supermarket land sale! (For those unaware, a sale of the Bellerby Theatre and surrounding land to Waitrose has been rushed through before the Council even had the chance to grant itself planning permission – although it did publish a planning brief to convert less lucrative residential use to a ‘preferred’ supermarket use without any reference to traffic generation or solutions).
Guildford Vision Group the way forward
Guildford Vision Group showing the way to a greater future
Congratulations to the Guildford Society, supported by the various Residents’ Associations around Guildford, for the successful launch of Guildford Vision Group on 21st March 2012 in front of between 180 and 200 people.
Guest speakers included the former Director of Planning on Cambridge City Council, Peter Studdert; the former President of the Royal Town Planning Institute, Mike Hayes CBE; and Allies & Morrison. The focus was on Collaborative Planning, The Planning Process and Shaping Towns and Cities.
This initiative takes a much more significant position when seen in the context of the Localism Act, since Guildford Vision Group (GVG) could decide to apply to become a Neighbourhood Forum if it has public backing but is unable to secure proper engagement from the Local Authority. Equally, the newly published National Planning Policy Guidance (NNPG) requires Local Authorities to put in place a Local Plan, and the Localism Act allows residents to apply to run local services; perhaps this process could be taken over by GVG.
One way or another, it is vital for the future operation, prosperity and environment of our great town of Guildford that a proper vision is put in place – after all, “The Vision is an expression of what a place could be like in the future. It is the foundation of the masterplanning process” (Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment – CABE).
It is to be hoped (but not to be taken for granted) that the Borough Council will engage and openly work with the community to agree what Guildford can be like in the long term.
More information will soon be available on the GVG website (www.guildfordvisiongroup.com) and I intend to discuss issues on the face of this blog over the coming months.