Karen Stevens thanked the GRA for the opportunity to talk about Blackwell Farm and the Save Hogs Back campaign.

Blackwell Farm is located on the northern slopes of the Hogs Back to the west of Guildford. It is described as one of the three “strategic sites” put forward in GBC’s draft Local Plan.

Karen questioned what makes this site “strategic” - and suggested that perhaps it was a euphemism for “very large”. It’s the largest new settlement area being proposed in the Plan and has been earmarked for 2,250 homes - but the University, which owns the site, is pushing for more than 3,000.

Notes of presentation to Guildford Resident’s Association17 June 2015St Mary’s Church, Guildford

Karen Stevens - Save Hog’s Back

The area, which the University hopes to take is marked here in yellow and is vast - it would mean that 265 hectares is taken out of green belt. To put this into context, it’s more than double the total land taken out of green belt across the whole of England in the 12 months to March 2012. The area in blue is nearly 64 hectares taken out of green belt 11 years ago to allow for the University’s expansion.

3,000 homes would accommodate about 7,300 people, which would make this new town on the Hogs Back bigger than any of the bor-ough’s existing settlements except the Guildford urban area and Ash & Tongham. It would be more than three times the population of Shalford. It would also be bigger than Peaslake, Pirbright, Fairlands, West Clandon, and Worplesdon put together.

Save Hogs Back has been campaigning to keep this area within the green belt - not just because Guildford’s infrastructure wouldn’t be able to cope with such a large-scale development - this will be a problem to some extent wherever is developed - but because Black-well Farm is an important asset to the borough and because it fulfils the purposes of green belt very strongly. It’s not necessary to build here - there are other options.

Why is Blackwell Farm so important to Guildford?

1) It’s an area of great scenic value.

The entire land parcel is beautiful and there are parts designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) or Areas of Great Landscape Value. It could be argued that there are some sites within, or bordering, AONBs that are not outstandingly beautiful, but this is not one of them. Nearly half of the site (marked here in blue) is 90m or more above sea level and so it provides dra-matic and far-reaching views.

The 90m contour was the level above which development was considered to be inappropriate by the Planning Inspector in 2003. To give you an idea, it’s 12 metres above Stag Hill, where the Cathedral sits. This slide (bottom right)shows its position across the town with the Hog’s Back to the West and Pewley Down to the East.

Blackwell Farm also forms the setting to the AONB. Every field across the site can be seen from different points along the Hog’s Back ridge. It also provides views into the AONB and creates an important rural backdrop to Guildford and an attractive western gateway to the town.

It provides the only remaining views of the Cathe-dral, where it rises from an entirely rural setting. Some cities and towns, such as London and St Al-bans protect strategic views of key buildings. Guild-ford is making little effort to do so, and the Univer-sity has recently built an 80 ft Vet School building, which blights an important vista of the cathedral from the Hog’s Back.

2) In addition to its high landscape value, the site is also of high environmental value.

• As well as the AONB to the south, it is also flanked by Broadstreet Com-mon (a Site of Nature Conservation Importance) to the north.

• It includes areas of ancient woodland and ancient hedgerows • It includes 18th century parkland and there remain many designed vistas

and tree groupings in the style of Capability Brown.

• It includes the last remaining undeveloped corner of Guildford Royal Park - Henry II’s hunting ground. This is part of Guildford’s heritage, and refer-ences to it are still found in road names such as The Chase, Stag Hill etc.

• Part of the site is adjacent to a Scheduled Ancient Monument.• More than 30% of the site outside the AONB is grade 2 or 3a farmland (the

rest is 3b).

The Hog’s Back is the only place in South East Eng-land where there is a steep, north-facing chalk down. This means that Blackwell Farm contains many rare and interesting plants. These wild orchids were photo-graphed last month in the ancient woodland at Black-well Farm.

Blackwell Farm is also home at least four bird species of principal importance for the purpose of conserving biodiversity.

Blackwell Farm is not just important from an environmental, scenic, or historic point of view, it’s also valuable in terms of the way it fulfils the purposes of green belt. Green belt isn’t about maintaining our towns, villages and rural areas in aspic (a phrase adopted by the pro-development lobby); it provides a function that is good for everyone in Guildford, whether you live in the town or in the countryside and whether you are young or old. So how does Blackwell Farm perform in this respect? Well it does so very well:• It checks urban sprawl (preventing Guildford moving

westwards).

• It protects the countryside from encroachment - A belt of ancient woodland currently forms a boundary to the town - developing on the other side of it would allow Guildford to be seen for the first time further along the Hog’s Back. It would also mean there would be no clear physical or defen-sible boundary to the edge of the proposed development area and this would pose a threat to the open countryside further west. The slides (left) show the encroachment1. the landscape in 1999 before the last Local Plan.2. the Research Park, which was built in the 1980s, high-

lighted in orange.3. the orange, including Manor Park, taken out of green

belt in 2004.4. now - what has been put forward by GBC in the draft

Local Plan.5. and the land that the University wants to develop. 6. Without protection to green belt boundaries, where will

it stop?• Blackwell Farm prevents the villages of Onslow, Wood

Street and Park Barn merging into each other, as well as neighbouring towns of Guildford, Aldershot and ultimately Farnham. If the University’s proposed development goes ahead, this would mean that a third of the northern slopes of the Hog’s Back between Guildford and Farnham would be urbanised.

• the dramatic topography of this chalk ridge preserves the setting and special character of Guildford.

• it assists in urban regeneration - the fifth purpose of green belt. Stopping development on Blackwell Farm would result in the University investing in and regenerating land it is own-ership and delivering its commitments following the 2003 boundary review (including 270 homes for key workers and 3,125 student residences still unbuilt and releasing further accommodation at Hazel Farm).

Unfortunately, it would appear that meeting the purposes of the green belt, being outstandingly beautiful and ticking every envi-ronmental box won’t be enough to save this site. The University and Guildford Borough Council will argue that there are “excep-tional circumstances” that outweigh all these benefits, and there is a great risk that, with today’s drive for development, together with the University’s and Council’s combined influence, a Gov-ernment Inspector may well accept this.

So what makes this a strategic site and why it might be a good place to build, compared to any other 265 Ha site in Surrey?

Is it due to its location next to the A3 and A31 - two strate-gic roads? Well, anyone caught up in traffic in the morning or unfortunate enough to be travelling by ambulance to the A&E at the Royal Surrey would not consider a development on the west to be best placed. Furthermore, any efforts to relieve pressure would require major road access across the slopes of the Hogs Back, causing a scar across the north facing chalk slopes of the AONB.

Is it strategic because of its proximity to the University and Research Park? A circle drawn out from the University al-ready encompasses most of Guildford, including Guildford Business Park and derelict areas along the railway line be-fore it reaches Blackwell Farm. The arrow here indicates the centre of the Stag Hill campus. Furthermore, why should the Research Park extend across the deer leap, which has formed the western boundary to Guildford since medieval times, when there are acres of surface car parks on its exist-ing site that could be built on and the density of the existing development is just a fifth of that proposed on Manor Park

next door?

Should it be our strategy to focus on the development of the Research Park when many of the businesses see little value in being located near the University anyway and are concerned about traffic on this west side of Guildford?

Finally, should we allow encroachment on Blackwell Farm for housing when one in seven beds in Guildford Town is occupied by students, and the University is sit-ting on permission to house them on Manor Park next door? Given that the University is going to be the one that profits most from developing Blackwell Farm, it explains a bit about why it has gone back on its argu-ments for housing its students on campus.

Is it good, strategic long-term planning that Guildford should create a new garden village, next to a sports park, next to the A3 and next to another garden village built after the war at Onslow? This would appear to many to be simply uncontrolled, low-density sprawl.

Save Hog’s Back believes that Blackwell Farm is a strategic site by name only and it isn’t the best place for development. Exceptional circumstances do not exist for developing this part of Surrey and we know from Brandon Lewis’s recent comment on Radio 4 that any decision to do so will be made by our elected Council. It is therefore the objective of Save Hogs Back to continue to set out the reasons why Blackwell Farm shouldn’t be built on and contin-ue to table ideas about what can be done to help make Guildford a better place to live, rather than destroying what we’ve got. As Professor Martin Sweeting (Chairman of Surrey Satellite Tech-nology) said when describing the importance of our landscape in attracting top businesses to the area:

“The Hogs Back, the lands either side of it and the villages therein, comprise a national treasure that absolutely must not be lost forev-er.”

Save Hog’s Back Limited is a not for profit company with the object to promote and encourage for the benefit of the public the improve-ment, protection and preservation of the countryside of the Hogs Back and its neighbouring towns and villages, and the environmen-tally better development of the same.

Slides produced by Save Hog’s Back for presentation to the Guild-ford Residents Asoociation.

www.savehogsback.co.uk