Stoughton Action Group (STAG)

- a history of STAG, SCCP and SCA

Stoughton Action Group (STAG) was founded in 1999 to monitor the QE Park development for the benefit of all residents of Stoughton including new residents of QE Park.  It was established by local residents and councillors as an non-political group to liaise with QE Park developers Laing Homes, Linden Homes and Terrace Hill. 

STAG objected to too many houses on QE Park but recognised the development could not be stopped and worked hard at trying to make the best of it particularly for the benefit of the community.

STAG voluntarily disbanded on 24^th January 2005 at the first AGM of the Stoughton Community Association (SCA) because SCA absorbed its role as 'planning monitor for Stoughton'.

Founding chairman of STAG was John Allford.  Nigel Horton took over as chair in mid 2002.  STAG mainly communicated by email to keep costs down, but occasionally had press releases published in local newspapers and sent out newsletters and held public meetings. 

STAG was formed too late to influence the QE Park Planning Brief (published 1999), so many key decisions were made by Guildford Borough Council, Surrey County Council and the developers with little input from residents.  Later, STAG attempted to influence a number of matters, with some failures but also some successes. 

STAG was able to support residents objections at the outline planning stage in October 2001 which reduced the number of houses from over 700 to 525.  Another success, with the help of ward councillors, was to win a larger community centre as a QE Park planning gain.  Other successes were the widening of Grange Road with 10% more parking; preservation of trees and more planting; coordinating the reporting of construction noise, dust and traffic infringements.

A bitter disappointment was GBC's inability to control developers' traffic on the southern part of Grange Road during the many years of development, although in early years the developers cancelled one haulage contract because of problems.  

From April 2001 to March 2003, STAG participated in a series of public meetings held by developers at the Post House (now Holiday Inn) where the the developers presented the outline plan and detailed phase plans.  Issues were generally about traffic and the commercial area, as well as queries about the various planning gains, including buses, the community centre and doctors surgery. (See SCA's status report for details on what planning gains were actually achieved.)

In 2002, STAG supported the Guildford-wide campaign fighting county proposals for 6,000 houses in 3 green belt areas around Guildford.  Maureen Bell spoke alongside other leading objecting campaigners at Guildford Civic Hall.  STAG members were also involved in the campaign against incinerators in Guildford.

In May 2002, STAG organised a public meeting at Northmead Junior School attended by 120 by Stoughton residents and community representatives which elected a steering committee now known as the Stoughton Community Centre Project (SCCP), with a mandate to develop the community centre.

In November 2002, STAG/SCCP won an additional planning gain increasing the size of the "community meeting space" from 150 to 390sqm, with the original location being required for a larger doctors surgery. 

In January 2003, the roles of STAG and SCCP were separated to allow each group to concentrate on increasingly detailed work. 

During 2003 STAG and SCCP worked with councillors and Community Safety Wardens (with special thanks to Steve Edwards) to establish the idea of a community partnership, which grew into the Stoughton Community Association (SCA).   In November SCCP became SCA.

During the latter part of 2004, STAG and SCA/SCCP helped councillors organise a series of public events to develop a Stoughton Community Action Plan.

These public meetings demonstrated a greater need for monitoring planning applications throughout Stoughton, not just QE Park, as well as resolving serious local traffic issues and anti-social behaviour.

Therefore, at SCA's first AGM January 2005 , STAG voluntarily disbanded.  It became the SCA Planning sub-committee alongside SCCP, Traffic and Public Safety sub-committees.

The spirit of STAG lives on.

STAG has no relationship with the Surrey Tax Action Group formed in 2003 by Peter Webb and associates.