First of all, can we thank all the local residents who took the time and trouble to come along to the weekend and participate. As I’m sure you will have picked up the developers and planners are not local, and they are primarily talking to the professional staff at Wokingham Borough Council who again are not local, so an event like this is really important for trying to ensure that the voices of the people who actually live here are heard in the process.
The sessions today largely mirrored the sessions yesterday, with a similar heated discussion over a variety of key points during the Problems, Dreams and Solutions exercise which once again ran on for a lot longer than the facilitators originally intended. This was then followed by a number of planning workshops looking at different aspects of the new development.
From the feedback we have gathered so far there are a number of points that have come up:
Firstly, there have been generally positive comments about John Thompson and Partners who ran the weekend. Whilst they are new to the process, compared to previous planners and planning processes they have shown themselves to be much more willing to engage with the local people, and in particular have an open discussion about why they have made certain decisions about the design. It is worth highlighting that their ongoing participation in the process is not guaranteed, the developer consortium could decide to employ another firm for the later stages who will not offer the level of consultation that John Thompson and Partners have offered. We would obviously be most disappointed were the developers to take such a retrograde step and revert to employing planners who do not engage with the local community. Also of course the proof of how much the have listened will be when the final plan is presented as part of the outline planning application in March.
Another point that has been raised is the disappointing lack of attendance from key stakeholders from Wokingham Borough Council. Whilst there was a good showing from the various local borough councillors, and David Lee appeared at the beginning of the second day, Keith Baker who is the executive member responsible for the development was notably by his absence, and many of the senior planning team from the council staff were also notable by their absence. This led to a good deal of frustration where residents questions could not be answered because these key people were not there.
We have also been told about issues over the promotion of the planning weekend. Whilst flyers were delivered through many doors, key areas around the SDL appear to have been missed, in particular Nine Mile Ride. It would be useful to hear back from local residents as to whether they received a flyer through the door or not. There was a notice printed in the Wokingham Times in the 9th January issue, but you’ll be forgiven for having missed it as it was on the first page of the classified adverts after the arts news and motoring pages rather than in the main part of the newspaper as previous notices have been.
We are in the process of gathering any other feedback people may have about the weekend, so if you have any comments you wish to make please let us know.
Arborfield Community Planning Weekend Review
First of all, can we thank all the local residents who took the time and trouble to come along to the weekend and participate. As I’m sure you will have picked up the developers and planners are not local, and they are primarily talking to the professional staff at Wokingham Borough Council who again are not local, so an event like this is really important for trying to ensure that the voices of the people who actually live here are heard in the process.
The sessions today largely mirrored the sessions yesterday, with a similar heated discussion over a variety of key points during the Problems, Dreams and Solutions exercise which once again ran on for a lot longer than the facilitators originally intended. This was then followed by a number of planning workshops looking at different aspects of the new development.
From the feedback we have gathered so far there are a number of points that have come up:
Firstly, there have been generally positive comments about John Thompson and Partners who ran the weekend. Whilst they are new to the process, compared to previous planners and planning processes they have shown themselves to be much more willing to engage with the local people, and in particular have an open discussion about why they have made certain decisions about the design. It is worth highlighting that their ongoing participation in the process is not guaranteed, the developer consortium could decide to employ another firm for the later stages who will not offer the level of consultation that John Thompson and Partners have offered. We would obviously be most disappointed were the developers to take such a retrograde step and revert to employing planners who do not engage with the local community. Also of course the proof of how much the have listened will be when the final plan is presented as part of the outline planning application in March.
Another point that has been raised is the disappointing lack of attendance from key stakeholders from Wokingham Borough Council. Whilst there was a good showing from the various local borough councillors, and David Lee appeared at the beginning of the second day, Keith Baker who is the executive member responsible for the development was notably by his absence, and many of the senior planning team from the council staff were also notable by their absence. This led to a good deal of frustration where residents questions could not be answered because these key people were not there.
We have also been told about issues over the promotion of the planning weekend. Whilst flyers were delivered through many doors, key areas around the SDL appear to have been missed, in particular Nine Mile Ride. It would be useful to hear back from local residents as to whether they received a flyer through the door or not. There was a notice printed in the Wokingham Times in the 9th January issue, but you’ll be forgiven for having missed it as it was on the first page of the classified adverts after the arts news and motoring pages rather than in the main part of the newspaper as previous notices have been.
We are in the process of gathering any other feedback people may have about the weekend, so if you have any comments you wish to make please let us know.
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