THE founder of Farnham’s very own populist political uprising – the Farnham Residents – has been booted to the sidelines by his own party after telling a government inspector to send the Farnham Neighbourhood Plan back to the drawing board.

Outspoken borough councillor Jerry Hyman founded Farnham Residents in 2015 and his party has made gains at every election it has contested since – culminating in a near-clean sweep in May’s town and borough polls.

The party’s members are bound by their opposition to the Brightwells regeneration scheme, in its current guise. But Farnham’s fledgling neighbourhood plan has proved a more divisive issue – costing Mr Hyman his place at the party’s top table.

A hearing was held at the Farnham Town Council offices on Tuesday, June 4, to discuss whether changes to the town plan – to accommodate a forced uplift in housing – were ‘significant’ enough to warrant a further inquiry.

The town council’s official position – as outlined this week by new leader and Farnham Residents’ member John Neale – is that: “The nature of the plan has not changed and that the changes have been minor apart from the addition of extra housing sites.”

However, a number of house-builders, each with aspirations to build on sites rejected in the plan, take a different view – and argued last Tuesday that the revised plan is significantly different to the original and, as such, should be invalidated.

Mr Hyman invoked the fury of his own party, as well as the past leader and instigator of the plan, Tory councillor for The Bourne Carole Cockburn, by agreeing that the plan should be binned.

Addressing the hearing, Mr Hyman repeated his long-held concern that the plan does not assess each housing site’s potential impact on the special protection areas surrounding Farnham – instead relying on Waverley Borough Council’s “theoretical” (albeit Natural England-endorsed) mitigation measures.

But speaking to the Herald after the hearing, Mrs Cockburn said Mr Hyman’s comments took everyone by surprise and run the risk of leaving Farnham without the protection of a town-led planning blueprint.

“I’m astounded that an elected member could show such disregard for the hundreds of people who wrote the plan, and the thousands who supported it in the referendum,” she added.

The worst of the scorn was dished out by Waverley leader and Farnham Residents’ councillor John Ward, however, who said: “Jerry holds no elected office within Farnham Residents and has no mandate to speak on behalf of the party on any matters.

“Any comments he makes are entirely unauthorized and only reflect his personal opinions which are, regrettably all too often, at variance with the Farnham Residents Group thinking.”

My Hyman in turn said he was “bemused” by the criticism, adding he is entitled to speak out at examinations and appeal hearings “as anyone else”.