Another Development Brief for Upper High Street

A Question to Tuesday 20th July's meeting of the full council produced no firm answers as to when a formal Development Brief for the Upper High Street site will be adopted.

Residents will remember the consultations and meetings which took place over three years ago resulting in a document approved by the Environment Committee. Unfortunately this document was never given any "teeth" when it came to guiding planning applicants for the UHS site and needs to be rewritten and incorporated into planning policy and as part of Plan E.

Lib Dem councillor Julie Morris asked when progress will be made but was given the reply "a decision will shortly be made on how best to deliver this document".

Epsom-based Lib Dem councillors are keen that the new Development Brief will use the existing (unadopted) one as a basis. Cllr Morris said "The council does not need to spend huge amounts of money on producing an entirely new document, merely to update the existing Brief using roughly the same method. What we need is a Brief which can be used to inform planning applicants and it is regrettable that all the effort we put in last time was, for the most part, a waste of time and money. At that time there was huge opposition to a planning application on this site and the council needed to be seen to be doing something. Sadly they failed to create the process which would have formally adopted the Brief."