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Green belt protection could be stripped from 16 villages around Guildford, opening the door to housing developers.

At present all villages in the borough, except for Ash Green, are designated as green belt land, a status which provides some protection.

However, Guildford Borough Council has highlighted more than a dozen villages to lose that protection, with residents concerned it will be a green light for developers.

Reports prepared ahead of the current local plan consultation have identified areas of potential development.

The Issues and Options paper lists ‘villages we think should not be green belt’ as: Chilworth, East Horsley and West Horsley (North), Effingham, Fairlands, Flexford, Gomshall, Jacobs Well, Normandy, Peasmarsh, Ripley, Send, Send Marsh and Burntcommon, Shalford, Shere, West Horsley (South) and Wood Street Village.

Concerns have been raised about the mooted change of classification and parish councils and residents’ groups have met to discuss the issues.

Jules Cranwell, 59, of West Horsley said residents do not understand the basis for the proposed changes.

“We have always been led to believe the green belt is sacrosanct,” he said. “What they are proposing to do is impose a potentially massive increase on housing and the population.

“There does not seem to be a basis for interfering with the green belt. I don’t think anybody in the country wants the green belt interfered with.

“It is not just the green belt, it is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). If you have an AONB surrounded by an urban sprawl it becomes a bit of a nonsense. The reason people choose to live here would be gone, we would be a bit like Croydon. We would not be an English village any more.

“If the villages come out of the green belt there could potentially be more and more development. The residents are totally against it.”

Following the consultation, which ends on November 29, the borough council will develop a local plan for dealing with the current housing shortage and the growing need for new homes up to 2031 – as well as the borough’s infrastructure.

At the moment it is not known how many new homes will be needed and the council’s estimates range from 181 to 1,066 properties per year.

Monika Juneja, lead councillor for planning and governance, said: “National planning policy on villages in the green belt has recently changed. We cannot automatically decide to keep all of our villages within the green belt.

"National planning policy tells us our villages should only be green belt if we need to prevent development in them because of the contribution their open character makes to the openness of the green belt.

“If we need to protect the character of a village for other reasons we must use other means. We need to assess each of our villages and decide whether they should remain in the green belt, and have used the Green Belt and Countryside Study to help us decide this.”

Lisanne Mealing, chairman of Ripley Parish Council, said the council feels ‘quite threatened by the whole thing’.

“It is important to most people to try to maintain the village and that sense of being in the countryside,” she said.

“It is just short-sighted. We want Ripley to remain in the green belt, whatever should happen. We are trying to get the community behind responding to the local plan. It is crucial to the community

“I think remaining in the green belt is important to all villages on the list. Villages are small and beautiful. We need to protect what is important.”

Information about the local plan consultation can be found at the council’s drop-in shop at 25 Swan Lane, where people can speak to a planning policy officer about their views.