VICTORY in the battle to keep Farnham out of the urban sprawl of the Western Corridor Blackwater Valley sub-region has been followed by an unexpected shock on the development front. In June the town achieved its wish for a future linked to the rest of Waverley, rather than as part of a "strategic hub" with Aldershot, Farnborough and Camberley, as was being proposed in the emerging South East Plan. This week, however, it has emerged that Waverley itself must face up to 20 per cent more homes being built than at present. The borough must find space for 4,950 new homes over the next 20 years under plans put together by Surrey County Council. The increase in the rate of housebuilding for Waverley will come despite a decrease in the rate for the county overall. Overall in Surrey, 47,200 new homes will have to be built by 2026 - an average of 2,905 compared to the current 2,360. In Waverley the average number of homes built every year over the 20-year period will have to rise from 205 to 245. The figures were revealed on Tuesday as Surrey County Council unveiled the latest stage of the South East Plan on the orders of the South East England Regional Authority. It sets out how the area is going to build more houses, encourage the growth of business and develop a better infrastructure over the next 20 years. Once adopted it will replace the current county structure plan which runs until 2016. Until now it has only been known how many houses Surrey would have to take, following a decision by SEERA, but now the county council has divided those figures up to the 11 different districts. Waverley will face the challenge of accommodating an extra 850 homes over and above the 4,100 which would have been build if the current house-building rate were to continue. The county came up with the figure after asking the borough council to carry out an urban capacity study of how many homes Waverley itself thinks it can accommodate. This included looking at sites which could potentially become available as a result of existing permissions, sites allocated for housing and brownfield sites which could be redeveloped in the next 20 years. Waverley believed it has the potential capacity for 4,856 new homes. However, the county looked at the borough's housing list and its need for new homes in the future and rounded the figure up to 4,950. Average house building figures in nine of the county's districts are to reduce, with only Waverley and Guildford being asked to take more. The figures were not well received at a meeting of Waverley Borough Council's executive where borough and county councillor David Harmer broke the news. Portfolio holder for planning Patrick Haveron said that although an extra 40 homes a year was "not very much", it was vital that the borough council does all it can to stop Waverley being swamped with new housing. "There is only so much capacity that Waverley can take," he said. Waverley Borough Council has yet to formally respond to the consultation and is looking at putting together a special development control consultative forum to look in detail at the proposals. "We need to consider how we can constructively harness any new housing investment in the area to contribute to the lives of our communities," the council's director of planning and development Steve Thwaites said. However, local MP Jeremy Hunt is appalled by the proposals to increase house building in "rural" Waverley. "It's totally unrealistic to expect Waverley to accommodate nearly 5,000 new houses," he said. "The pressure all this construction will place on local services such as our roads, schools and health care will be shattering. "What makes this plan worse is that it is based on such an ill conceived policy. "The government has decided that the country needs to up its house building to provide more affordable accommodation for key workers and low income families. "The reality is that building 47,000 new houses in Surrey will do little to bring house prices down, particularly since the proportion of these homes that will specifically be social housing remains unclear. "Increasing the supply of houses in areas such as Waverley will only succeed in driving up demand for housing in the area as more people see an opportunity of living there. "Instead of following a policy of urbanising our countryside, the government and SEERA should concentrate on schemes such as shared purchasing and longer mortgages to put existing houses within reach." Six weeks of public consultation on the plan start on Monday, September 19, and residents can have their say though leaflets in the county's library and local council offices.
