Update From Your Tandridge District Councillor – June 2025
Local Government Reorganisation and a World Without Consultation
I have written a lot in these pages about the impending Local Government Reorganisation. If you have missed previous articles, I can send you them all. If you are new to the topic, in a nutshell, the 12 local councils in Surrey (Surrey County Council and the 11 District and Borough Councils) are being restructured into one, two or three “Unitary Authorities” across Surrey that encompass all the powers that were previously split between the two levels of government. The changes are probably long needed, but the big debate has been over whether Surrey should be one large entity (so your lowest level of government aside from the Parish Councils governing 1.2million people) or two (600k population per Council) or three (400k population per Council). In other areas around the country that are reorganising, the same debate rages.
High level draft proposals were submitted on the 21st of March and final proposals were submitted on the 9th of May. The County Council submitted a proposal for a structure encompassing 2 Unitary Authorities and modelled savings based on 2 Councillors per division. Notably, the 81 political divisions in Surrey County Council today are not being changed, so the modelling for savings was done with 162 Councillors. Most District and Borough Councils in Surrey endorsed a submission for 3 Unitary Authorities and 3 Councillors per division, because they felt that democracy, local knowledge, local efficacy and engagement would be too comprised without enough Councillors or with divisions that are too large. Interestingly, the average size population of all Unitary Authorities in England today (71% of the country already are governed under this structure) is 293,000. The Government’s feedback after the first round of submissions was that one Unitary Authority offered the greatest savings and all models should be compared to one Unitary Authority. Clearly, the Government is considering all three scenarios but leaning towards fewer Authorities.
In addition to the submission of the core proposals, Crawley Borough Council and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council submitted a proposal to Government to create a new Authority that would move Crawley into Surrey and include Tandridge as part of the Authority. Tandridge District Council voted to support the submission for 3 Unitary Authorities and 3 Councillors per division and voted against the proposal to merge into an Authority that moved Crawley into Surrey. It submitted a letter to Government to express this dissent.
Finally, the West of Surrey, particularly Woking, has a huge debt problem. Woking alone has over £2.5 bn in debt and over £1.5bn is unrecoverable (bad). Both the County and the District and Borough submissions to Government indicated they expected Government help with the debt (debt that was loaned by the Government!), although the Treasury has so far consistently refused to help. And Tandridge District Council voted to put on record that it considers it is not appropriate to expect the residents of the Tandridge District to contribute to the resolution of the debt problems of other local authorities within Surrey.
So, what will we look like in 2 years’ time? The decision rests entirely with the Government. In its initial directions it had said it would consult publicly in the summer, but it has retracted this position, ostensibly because people are against the change and they believe the consultation would therefore not be valuable as they believe they must press ahead with the criteria they have set. They are only legally obliged to ensure core stakeholders are consulted (and those boxes have been ticked). Election for a “shadow” Unitary Authority are targeted for May 2026 with the target go live date of the new Authority(ies) in April 2027, when the County and Districts/Boroughs cease. The Government intends to select the final structure sometime this autumn (September to December), so now we wait.
Call For Sites Closed
Housing and Economic Land Availability must be periodically assessed, (a process called the “HELAA”) and particularly when, as in Tandridge, a new local plan is being prepared. At such times, a call for sites is advertised and all sites submitted are reviewed for suitability for development. A Call for sites is an information gathering exercise used to identify potential sites for inclusion within the HELAA. The council undertook a call for sites from 5 February 2024 until 17 March 2024. We received around 268 site submissions along with supporting data for the site maps. The work to assess the sites is progressing as Tandridge District Council ensures it can deliver housing towards its targets.
New Policy for Gypsy and Traveller Sites
All Planning Authorities are required to provide sites for Gypsy and Traveller and Travelling Showpeople (GTTS sites). Having a policy and a plan that demonstrates you can meet the required need is vital, or applications that might otherwise contravene policy, for example Green Belt policy, will be overridden in favour of the accommodation need.
Our District Council, in order to determine the level of need and supply of GTTS pitches/plots, has carried out a Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessment, which highlights a significant need for this type of development and a lack of supply to meet this need. A Pitch Delivery Assessment has been produced to review potential supply to meet the identified need. The District, in the absence of a new Development Plan, has set out an Interim Gypsy, Traveller and Travelling Showpeople Policy. The new policy was adopted on the 2nd of April and it sets out a criteria-based approach to assessing applications for GTTS accommodation, in order to increase needed accommodation in a controlled and proportionate manner. The new policy will allow the Council to meet the obligations set out in the National Planning Policy Framework and the national Planning Policy for Traveller Sites. The new policy will also support the emerging local plan, which is currently in progress.
As ever, if you have questions or would like more detail on any topic, please be in touch at cllr.deborah.sherry@tandridge.gov.uk or 07779134797.
Deborah Sherry, Tandridge District Councillor for Woldingham Ward