We are going to judicial review

Dear Supporters

Our fight to save the Green Belt now starts in earnest.  Seven Conservative councillors voted to approve the unlawful additions to the Fairmont Windsor Park hotel and, after being consulted by the Council, the Secretary of State has failed to call in this application, by a billionaire Tory donor, for consideration by the planning inspector.

We now have to take Runnymede Borough Council to judicial review to stop this new planning precedent. It means an unscrupulous developer can now offer to remove an unwanted building anywhere in the London Green Belt if they are caught building something without planning permission, it no longer has to be on the same site. It will make it easy for developers to overbuild and then choose their own punishment.

We are actively raising funds to pay our legal team. Please go to our website greenbeltwatch.org.uk if you can donate something. As they say, every bit helps.

The Arora Group built a hotel with an extra wing, much larger basement, two extensions, taller and added thousands of square meters of tarmac, including a 68 space car park on top of a habitat protection zone, without planning permission.  It could add up to the size of two football pitches, in total, and they’ve got away with it by offering to demolish a derelict building on a site over a kilometre away that is called ‘Project Parkwood golf course’ in their planning documents, so it looks like the house needs to be removed anyway.

Not only have the Arora Group constructed a vast amount on the hotel site unlawfully, on the adjacent Green Belt site, under their ownership, they have cut down mature trees and built five detached houses, five tennis courts with floodlights, an outdoor gym, a car park, road, and playground. It also looks like they’ve laid the foundations for a golf driving range, all without planning permission. Much of this is also subject to a retrospective planning application, RU.22/1819, the fifth retrospective planning application by the Arora Group in Englefield Green.  Every application has, thus far, been supported by the council’s planning officers.

Where will this end?

If we don’t act then large-scale, intentional, unlawful building the Green Belt will become an easy option.  Not only will the Arora Group be able to offer up various barns, horse shelters and stables they own in exchange for any further building, other developers can do the same if they find some unwanted buildings somewhere else in the Green Belt, with or without planning permission.

We are taking action not only because we love our village but because we value the Green Belt and don’t want this behaviour repeated all over the London Green Belt and perhaps in other Green Belts around the country.

This isn’t a fight about a hotel, it’s a fight about the whole of the Green Belt.

Please help us if you can.

Thank you

The Green Belt Watch Team