WAVERLEY councillors have followed their Guildford counterparts’ lead in refusing planning permission for 254 new homes on a 32-acre green field site currently occupied by the Hogs Back Brewery’s award-winning hop garden in Tongham.

Developer Gleeson Homes’ bid to build the estate between The Street and the A31 was knocked back by Guildford Borough Council in October, and, as it straddles the borough boundaries, again by Waverley Borough Council’s joint planning committee less than a month later.

In reaching their decision, Waverley councillors endorsed officer’s concerns about the absence of completed legal agreements to offset the new estate’s “significant impacts” on the protected heathland surrounding Farnham.