The official consultation period for the planning application closed yesterday, however at the Community Forum meeting on Thursday evening Finchampstead Borough Councillor Simon Weeks who chairs the planning committee publicly confirmed something we’d heard a while ago, that the planning committee will take all responses received before it goes before the committee into consideration. The exact date it will go before the committee has yet to be confirmed, and may yet change given some of the other announcements at the meeting, so we still advise that residents get their responses in sooner rather than later.
There are a number of upcoming public meetings and exhibitions:
- Finchampstead Parish Council have arranged a public exhibition of the plans at the California Ratepayers Hall next Saturday 29th June between 3pm and 5:30pm. We have to say that we were surprised that this is taking place after the end of the official consultation period, and after Finchampstead Parish Council themselves have submitted their response – how can it be representative of the opinions of residents if the public exhibition to consult them is after the closing date?
- Wokingham Borough Council has called an additional Arborfield Community Forum on Highways for Monday July 15th we have yet to see an agenda, but we have heard from a number of sources that the council is to announce a preferred route for the Arborfield Bypass. UPDATE: Thanks to Cllr Keith Baker for getting in touch to say that the meeting will be dedicated totally to discussing the output from the Arborfield Relief Road Feasability Study.
- In addition the agenda for the Arborfield Community Forum was changed at relatively short notice last week to include Cllr David Lee reporting on a meeting he has had with the directors of Crest Nicholson. The company has recently been appointed by the MoD to project manage the development from their side – note that although it’s not highlighted in the press releases they have to work with Wates Developments who are retained as the representatives of the Aegean Trust and Mr and Mrs Kenyon. The significance of this is that David Lee highlighted that two of the directors involved are local to Wokingham, one apparently living in the Arborfield area, and in particular they are not happy with aspects of the plan that has been submitted. Cllr Lee could not be specific about what they were unhappy with, but rather cryptically said that he did not think that the residents would be unhappy with the changes that Crest Nicholson were proposing. As a result Crest Nicholson would like to have a meeting with residents, a meeting that is tentatively scheduled for the third week of July. We will publish date and time details when we have them.
After the threat to the consultation process we received last week, we forwarded details to both Wokingham Borough Council and the police. Local media also picked up on the press release that we issued. A question was asked at the Arborfield Community Forum and the council officers confirmed that they have examined all the responses in favour received so far and are satisfied they are genuine. They also highlighted that any member of the public is free to come in to the council and similarly examine the responses. We have sent a formal letter to the council asking them to do everything they can to ensure the consultation process is carried out fairly and transparently for the benefit of everybody involved.
The council is currently running an Open Spaces consultation looking at parks and gardens, natural/semi natural green space, amenity green space, provision for children and young people, civic space, outdoor sports facilities, allotments, indoor sports facilities (sports halls), Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space (SANGS), swimming pools and activity halls (community buildings). In terms of Arborfield it discusses dual use of school facilities and reuse of existing MoD facilities. The consultation is being carried out using a very simple online survey that we would encourage interested residents to fill in.
The main topic of discussion at the Arborfield Community Forum was schools, the secondary provision in particular. Whilst earlier drafts of the SDL plans included significant contributions for schools, and council suggestions that Emmbrook School might be moved to Arborfield changes in government regulations have curtailed that. At the meeting Piers Brunning from Wokingham Borough Council highlighted that one of the reasons for closing Ryeish Green, and moving Emmbrook was to be able to sell off the land and get the money from that sale to finance new schools. Unfortunately since local parents successfully opened a free school on the Ryeish Green site the council has been unable to do that. With increasing numbers of schools in the area becoming academies, and with the council fearing that if Emmbrook was moved local residents would similarly set up a free school and obtain the Emmbrook site, the council has changed their strategy. However another side effect of the free school regulations is that now the council is seen as provider of last resort, there is a process of putting new schools out to tender to go through before the council can even consider opening a school themselves. This led to some quite heated discussion, especially from busy and hardworking parents present, as the quickest way to get a school built on the SDL is for parents themselves to set up a free school – that could be up and running by September 2015. Going the academy route it would realistically be September 2017 when a school might be opened. Piers is gathering contact details for parents who wish to be involved with a potential free school bid, so if any parents are interested in being involved, please contact Piers.
Other interesting points to come out of the discussion are that whilst a strong argument for having a school here has always come from Finchampstead, with four primary school forms coming from the two SDL based primary schools when fully open, and currently approximately three and a half primary school forms coming from the existing schools at Farley Hill and Coombes, the six form entry school on the SDL will end up being almost exclusively for children on the SDL and around given the tiebreak criteria is distance to the school. As such once all the houses on the SDL have been built, another solution for secondary school provision in Finchampstead will be needed.
