Developer FAILS to meet the Planning Committee deadline for a revised Listed Building Consent to address the AGREED harms to the building

At the Planning Committee 3 September 2025, the developer, Gary Humphreys, was given four months to:

“negotiate with the Council & Place Services* and to submit a listed building consent application to the Council with regard to the works undertaken or proposed remedial works”.

(*Place Services is the Council’s Built Heritage Advisor)

The developer has failed to meet this deadline, with no Listed Building Planning application listed on the Runnymede Borough Council planning portal. This despite the developer promising in writing to the Planning Committee that:

“he has read and acknowledged the Committee Report and is agreeable with the recommendation to work with the Council to find ways to resolve the situation. He has always sought agreement and cooperation with the Council and so will carry on with this.”

Developer continues to ignore his prior promise to maintain the wider church graveyard

This is not the first time Gary Humphreys has broken a written promise to a decision-making body. As reported previously, in 2019 he made a written promise in a submission to the Church of England Commissioners that:

"All of the flats will be required to pay for the future upkeep of the building and land surrounding the church. This will mean there is no longer a requirement for the church to provide funding to maintain either of these anymore.

All 5 flats will pay a ground rent of £1000 per year for the maintenance of the whole graveyard. The contract will be made available to local businesses to support the community and we already have 2 gardening contractors agreeing to taken on the church grounds.

The added benefit of this will be particularly helpful for the Church Virginia Water. They are currently funding the maintenance of the land and will be pleased to know the church land will be self sufficient with no further maintenance or repairs will need to be funded by their parish."

He has failed to honour this promise, leaving the church graveyard, which is a Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI), riddled with ever expanding and invasive Rhododendrons which harm its protected habitat.

The family members of loved ones interred in the graveyard continue to be distraught that the situation remains unresolved.

See our previous post here: https://www.change.org/p/object-to-vandalistic-harm-of-stained-glass-windows-at-grade-ii-christ-church-longcross/u/31868660

Developer failed to notify Court of sale of Flat 3 during Judicial Review

It has recently come to light, that despite the Developer receiving a “Letter before Claim” on 5 December 2024 notifying him of the start of legal proceedings for a Judicial Review of the 19 November 2024 grant of retrospective Listed Building permission and lack of enforcement on heritage harms, he failed to tell the Court of the sale of one of the flats on 19 December 2024.

Any leaseholder or freeholder of any part of the building must be included as Interested Parties in a Judicial Review claim. Not doing so has seriously prejudiced the rights of the owners of Flat 3 and is a breach of procedural fairness, especially egregious as there is no time limit for Listed Building Enforcement.

Next Steps

Our counsel will be writing to Runnymede Borough Council.

Despite the successful Judicial Review challenge, this continues to be a very shocking case and we will not cease our efforts to ensure the council undertakes their duties to protect the heritage of Runnymede.

Friends of Christ Church Longcross, fochristchurchlongcross@gmail.com