THE jury is still out on whether the Court of Appeal hearing challenging Waverley’s Local Plan housing target to build 11,200 houses by 2032 will succeed.

But Waverley has already warned the two parties taking legal action they should be careful what they wish for.

Surrey Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and Protect Our Waverley (POW) insist they are not trying to quash the whole of the Local Plan, by seeking to reduce its 11,200 target to 7,500 new homes by removing the borough’s requirement to meet 50 per cent of neighbouring authority Woking’s “unmet need”.

But Waverley has warned its legal advice is that while the court does uphold their appeal, it is “highly unlikely to get involved in setting housing numbers”.

If the judgement is that both the Local Plan inspector and a High Court judge who backed him acted unlawfully, then it will be back to the drawing board to recalculate – and that could lead to an even higher housing target, rather than the reduced numbers campaigners are pressing for.

The appeal hearing was fixed during Waverley’s previous administration, and the borough council’s new executive met with CPRE Surrey chairman Anthony Isaacs and POW chairman Bob Lees earlier this month in an unsuccesful attempt to see if legal action could be avoided.

Writing to both afterwards, Waverley deputy leader, Godalming councillor Paul Follows said: “All of our advice leads us to conclude that this carries a real risk of (a) increasing the future target, (b) strengthening planning appeals against us in the short term, and (c) increasing the uncertainty that currently surrounds the plan as a result of the appeals.”

Both CPRE Surrey and POW maintain it is of national importance to continue the action in order to get clarity on a key issue.

CPRE Surrey director Andy Smith said the issue of Woking’s unmet need had “profound consequences” nationally as the countryside was “at risk from excessive, arbitrary and unsustainable housebuilding targets”.

Speaking after Monday’s hearing, he said: “We understand and appreciate the position of the new leadership at Waverley Borough Council regarding the Local Plan process but we believe that it was in the public interest for these issues to be properly aired and subjected to legal scrutiny.”

POW stated: “Our objective was to reduce the obligation upon Waverley Borough Council to meet an artificially high housing quota...That extra demand, Woking’s unmet need, has since been accepted as zero – but Waverley’s higher quota remains.

“If CPRE’s and our case is proven to be correct then it has the potential to reduce the housing quota throughout the borough.”

Waverley leader, Farnham councillor John Ward said: “Although this new administration has not led on the development of this plan, what we want is certainty for the future of our borough.

“If we had not defended these appeals and simply let the campaign groups put forward their arguments without any opposition and the appeal was upheld, we could not be sure what it would mean for the future of the plan and its housing numbers.”