Members of Merrow Downs Residents’ Group (before we thought of ourselves as “a group”) met the Tormead Head and his Urnfield Project Manager onsite in May 2022, after the planning application had been refused by GBC’s Planning Committee. We had asked for the meeting to explore whether there was any possibility to find common ground, in the likelihood that Tormead would appeal against GBC’s refusal of the application.
It wasn’t a very long meeting, although we were all civil, because back then residents hadn’t lost all trust in the developer and the school hadn’t experienced the determination of local residents.
We asked for one thing. We said we could (just about) live with the development on the ground provided it was built without the floodlights. The response from the Tormead leadership was immediate and unequivocal: the project was “unviable” without the lights. End of meeting. It didn’t feel like there had ever been room for manoeuvre.
The reality of the floodlights is actually worse than we had feared. Here is what the developer presented to the Planning Committee and the Planning Inspector, illustrating the likely impact of the floodlights:
And here is what a local resident saw when the floodlights were on test last week, from the top of Holford Road.
Of course, no one who had scrutinised the proposals for lighting really believed Tormead’s photo montage. But, as one planning officer told me recently, part of the problem is that Planning departments (and planning inspectors) do not often have access to lighting experts. They are therefore at the mercy of the information presented to them by developers, perhaps balanced by additional evidence that any local residents can secure, self-funded.
The floodlights are one thing. But after the appeal decision Tormead submitted a “non material amendment” to GBC, proposing some additional bollard lighting, for health and safety reasons, along the edge of the paths and along ONE side of the car park. Here’s what this looks like.
Rather more like an airport landing strip than minimal lights installed in a sensitive location to ensure no one trips over.
And then we have the additional three car park lights, a confirmed planning breach, installed in what was supposed to have been a construction “exclusion zone”, and shining brightly through the woodland on Merrow Downs.
Last week at the Annual General Meeting of Merrow Residents’ Association the 100 or so MRA members in the room were horrified to learn about the true impact of the lighting at Urnfield, and about the limitations on Planning Enforcement to stop the ongoing planning breaches by Tormead. The school continues to use the site daily, and at the weekend not only held hockey fixtures there, but rented out the pitch to Guildford Hockey Club.
The school has been told by Enforcement Officers not to use the site until all pre-use conditions have been approved:
Let’s hope everyone’s liability insurance covers their teams’ activities at a site which is unauthorised by planning for use. Hockey can be very physical.
