WAG dismisses Taylor-Wimpey’s gimmick
An invitation by Taylor-Wimpey to help name three “new neighbourhoods” as part of their anticipated plans for a ‘Garden Village’ at ‘Three Farms Meadows’, the former Wisley airfield, has been dismissed as yet another cynical attempt to suggest that planning approval is a ‘done deal’.
“It’s most certainly not,” says Tony Edwards of the Wisley Action Group [WAG]. “And the company’s call to representatives of local campaign groups to join a Zoom meeting on August 2nd to “consider naming opportunities” for three non-existent neighbourhoods is, at best, jumping the gun.”
At worst, Edwards claims that the process is a cynical propaganda gimmick, intended to provide credibility for Taylor-Wimpey’s [TW] ambitions when they have not yet even presented an outline planning application.
“That’s a bit like Christening a baby before its conception and demonstrates little more than wishful thinking,” he says. “And while we are told that a planning application will be forthcoming in the third quarter of this year, TW has failed to provide a more specific date, despite our calls for clarity.”
In the circumstances, Edwards has suggested that some suitable names for TW’s make-believe neighbourhoods might be ‘Mid-Surrey Malady’, ‘Wisley Havoc’, ‘Gross Expectations’, ‘Ockham Carnage’, ‘Three Farms Fiasco’, or ‘Much Gridlock near The Mole’.
“It might be more realistic and less ludicrous, however, for TW to explain how such a development would override 13 of the 14 reasons why a similar scheme was roundly rejected on appeal by the Secretary of State just three years ago in June 2018,” says Edwards.
“Since that time we have, of course, seen Guildford’s controversial Local Plan called into doubt with specific reference to an overestimate on housing need and alongside the apparent over-estimates for population figures in Guildford. And then there’s the clear and obvious question mark over J10 road works, without which no major housing development at Wisley could be sanctioned,” he concludes.
