SUCCESSFUL High Court challenges mean that the jury is still out on Waverley Borough Council’s Local Plan - the blueprint to build 11,200 houses by 2032.

At a hearing yesterday (July 12), Justice Lewis rejected part of three challenges by Protect Our Waverley(POW) and Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), but agreed the borough council’s decision to take 50 per cent of Woking’s unmet need - an additional 83 houses each year - should be subject to a further legal review.

The judge also concluded that it if one of the Local Plan grounds is successful then the Dunsfold Park permission for 1,800 new homes - a cornerstone of the Local Plan - could be called into question.

POW’s Dunsfold challenge will therefore also proceed to the full hearing in the autumn.

Waverley set aside £300,000 to fight its corner, after CPRE and POW launched three High Court challenges between them, against its “unsustainable” Local Plan housing target.

Hailing a partial victory, POW chairman Bob Lees said: “This decision vindicates POW’s two legal challenges. Waverley Borough Council has failed to protect Waverley from unsustainable development. And the Secretary of State for Housing has failed to comply with Government policy to build houses in the right place: Dunsfold Aerodrome is quite clearly not the right place.”

Waverley leader Farnham councillor Julia Potts, said: “We are very pleased that the judge rejected most of the challenges to Waverley’s Local Plan.

“Nevertheless, today’s judgment is disappointing as we now must go back to court on what is essentially a technical issue. Waverley had to accept the Inspector’s modifications that included taking a proportion of Woking’s unmet need. The Inspector’s reasoning is being called into question.

“Essentially Waverley is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It is a government requirement to have an adopted plan. To adopt a sound local plan, we had to accept the Inspector’s modifications, and these are now being called into question by POWCampaign Ltd and CPRE Surrey and Waverley has to use tax payers’ money to defend our position in court.”

A separate High Court challenge launched by Milford residents Timothy and Isobel House, against the allocation of 180 houses on surplus land at Milford Golf Club that is subject to a restrictive legal covenant has been dismissed.

*See next week’s Herald for the full story.