Tandridge District Council’s Local Plan is ‘unsound’ and should be withdrawn, a planning inspector has told the Surrey local authority.
The Plan involved more than 6,000 new homes, including a garden community with around 4,000 in South Godstone.
Tandridge first submitted ‘Our Local Plan: 2033’ to the Planning Inspectorate more than four years ago.
In a letter sent to the council earlier this month, planning inspector Philip Lewis said it was not possible to make the Plan sound by modifying it, so he recommended that the Plan was not adopted.
Mr Lewis said there were ‘significant unanswered questions’ concerning highway capacity, particularly after funding for transport infrastructure from the Housing Infrastructure Fund was refused.
The letter followed a meeting between the council and planning inspector in July. The council said it was ‘disappointed’ with the meeting’s outcome.
A ‘pragmatic solution’ to the inspector’s concerns, including removing the garden community from the Plan, was put forward at the meeting, the council said.
Tandridge’s planning policy committee will discuss the letter on 21 September. It has been asked to inform the planning inspector how it wishes to proceed by the end of that month.
If this article was of interest, then check out our feature, ‘What planning authorities can learn from Garden Cities’.
