You may have noticed on our recent newsletter that the date of the Wokingham Borough Council Executive meeting at which the Executive will discuss our responses to the Strategic Development Location Masterplans has changed – it will now be held on 3rd June, at 7:30pm at Shute End. Please note the date as this is a vital meeting at which to make our presence felt as this is when the governing executive make the decision as to whether to adopt the masterplan document.
As local residents we are each entitled to ask a question of the executive, which includes our own newly re-elected councillor Gary Cowan, so it is important that we take this opportunity. If you need a reminder of the promises that Gary made during the election, they can be found in his campaign literature.
As both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat national manifesto documents included promises to abolish the regional housing targets that were being blamed for the scale of building at Arborfield, it was no surprise that the coalition document contained the promise to return planning on housing matters to local authorities – see section 4 of the document. As such, our local executive will soon be the ultimate decision making body on how much house building occurs and where it is built, therefore it is important that we make our feelings clear about building at Arborfield.
Other important dates to note are 25th May, at 7:30pm at the Village Hall, which is the twice postponed parish meeting. Again this is an opportunity to ask our Parish Councillors what they are doing to influence the building plans for Arborfield.
We are also gathering at 6:30pm on Friday 28th May for a photo call with our local newspapers as we post letters to David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Eric Pickles (the Secretary of State for Communities) and Liam Fox (the Secretary of State for Defence), to urge them to quickly implement the promise to abolish the regional housing plans, and also to ask what they intend to do with Arborfield in the newly announce Defence Spending Review. We would like as many people as possible to be present for the photo call.
