It is well worth picking up a copy of the Wokingham Times this week, with a number of development related stories.
Front page news is details of the Arborfield Relief Road and North Wokingham Distributor Road consultations. As a result of the number of questions received after the meeting announcing their preferred route Wokingham Borough Council has put a lot of effort into the consultation with response cards delivered to homes in the affected areas, exhibitions running in a number of places across the district, and council officers in attendance at various times to answer questions. We must commend the council on their efforts – alongside the coverage in the paper Cllr Keith Baker has been interviewed a number of times on local radio stations publicising the consultations. The main criticisms we have heard so far are that it would have been good if they had used up to date maps that included the Arborfield Cross Roundabout, and the developments at Penrose Park and Poperinghe Way, and also a comment that whoever wrote the survey doesn’t know the difference between “affect” and “effect”, which are really pretty minor compared to complaints about previous consultations. Details of the exhibition, plus copies of the exhibition boards and accompanying documents can be found on the council website at http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/transport/roads/arborfieldreliefroad/ and we would urge everybody to participate and make their views on the route known.
Later on in the paper on page 7 is an article about the free school group that is spinning off from AG-RAG. We will shortly be putting up a page about the free school on the site here, and longer term will probably set up a separate website for the group once a full committee has been formed. In the mean time if you are interested in helping with the free school bid, please contact us through our contact page.
There is a lot of work involved, but hopefully with a good number of people we will be able to get a decent local school for the residents of Arborfield and Finchampstead and remove the need for children to be bussed all across the borough, and over the border into Hampshire for good.
Later on in the paper there is a news item about the current state of play with the planning application. As you will have gathered from the summary of responses we published recently there have been a number of issues with the planning application across a wide variety of areas. The impression of the whole application was that it was assembled in a rush with inconsistencies in some places and gaping holes in others – it didn’t really fit with the promises made at the planning workshops of wanting to build a high quality development. Not surprisingly, as the Wokingham Times revealed, the council has contacted the developers to ask them to withdraw the application, an action we wholeheartedly support, sadly as the statement from Mark Cupit highlights, the MoD and their partners Crest Nicholson and Wates Developments seem to want to try and push on and patch up the application, a major disappointment given their previous promises to deliver a quality development. It is worth remembering that we pay for both Wokingham Borough Council time, and also the MoD through our taxes, so in these times of austerity we would urge the developers to take their time to get this right rather than follow the previous MoD tactic that we saw with the approval of Penrose Park of being refused by the council and rolling out a team of expensive lawyers to force unacceptable plans through anyway.
One final bit of development related material in the paper is on the letters page, with a letter from Arborfield Councillor Gary Cowan, expressing his disappointment with the cancellation of the Community Forum, and also stating his position with regards to the routing of the Arborfield Relief Road. You can of course tell that we have an election coming in Arborfield next year as there is a whole paragraph blaming the previous Labour government for the houses here – whilst that is entirely true, what is forgotten is that following the defeat of the Labour government at the last general election those housing targets were abolished, and Wokingham Borough Council like many others took the opportunity to review the housing numbers. Whilst some councils cut the numbers, the Conservative controlled council chose to retain the previous figures. In the interests of balance at this point I’ll also say that the Liberal Democrats also want to build houses on the Garrison site, and have previously stated that they thought there should be more than 3,500 here.
Whilst we’re sure the development will once again be a major issue in the local election next year, it’s worth remembering that each of the major political parties, except for the Greens have national policies to build more houses in the South-East of England, and these policies are supported by their local parties in Wokingham. They also all favour building on brownfield sites and since the Garrison will be the largest brownfield site in the borough, that means here. Whatever our political affiliations, whatever the political affiliations of the person elected next year, and whatever our feelings on how it will affect our area there will continue to be acute pressure from the national government to build lots and lots of houses in the area. We would therefore hope that the election candidates will focus more on how they will ensure the houses can be accommodated rather than making hollow promises to cut the numbers, or retreading old ground trying to blame someone else for the plan.
Press Coverage
It is well worth picking up a copy of the Wokingham Times this week, with a number of development related stories.
Front page news is details of the Arborfield Relief Road and North Wokingham Distributor Road consultations. As a result of the number of questions received after the meeting announcing their preferred route Wokingham Borough Council has put a lot of effort into the consultation with response cards delivered to homes in the affected areas, exhibitions running in a number of places across the district, and council officers in attendance at various times to answer questions. We must commend the council on their efforts – alongside the coverage in the paper Cllr Keith Baker has been interviewed a number of times on local radio stations publicising the consultations. The main criticisms we have heard so far are that it would have been good if they had used up to date maps that included the Arborfield Cross Roundabout, and the developments at Penrose Park and Poperinghe Way, and also a comment that whoever wrote the survey doesn’t know the difference between “affect” and “effect”, which are really pretty minor compared to complaints about previous consultations. Details of the exhibition, plus copies of the exhibition boards and accompanying documents can be found on the council website at http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/transport/roads/arborfieldreliefroad/ and we would urge everybody to participate and make their views on the route known.
There is a lot of work involved, but hopefully with a good number of people we will be able to get a decent local school for the residents of Arborfield and Finchampstead and remove the need for children to be bussed all across the borough, and over the border into Hampshire for good.
Later on in the paper there is a news item about the current state of play with the planning application. As you will have gathered from the summary of responses we published recently there have been a number of issues with the planning application across a wide variety of areas. The impression of the whole application was that it was assembled in a rush with inconsistencies in some places and gaping holes in others – it didn’t really fit with the promises made at the planning workshops of wanting to build a high quality development. Not surprisingly, as the Wokingham Times revealed, the council has contacted the developers to ask them to withdraw the application, an action we wholeheartedly support, sadly as the statement from Mark Cupit highlights, the MoD and their partners Crest Nicholson and Wates Developments seem to want to try and push on and patch up the application, a major disappointment given their previous promises to deliver a quality development. It is worth remembering that we pay for both Wokingham Borough Council time, and also the MoD through our taxes, so in these times of austerity we would urge the developers to take their time to get this right rather than follow the previous MoD tactic that we saw with the approval of Penrose Park of being refused by the council and rolling out a team of expensive lawyers to force unacceptable plans through anyway.
One final bit of development related material in the paper is on the letters page, with a letter from Arborfield Councillor Gary Cowan, expressing his disappointment with the cancellation of the Community Forum, and also stating his position with regards to the routing of the Arborfield Relief Road. You can of course tell that we have an election coming in Arborfield next year as there is a whole paragraph blaming the previous Labour government for the houses here – whilst that is entirely true, what is forgotten is that following the defeat of the Labour government at the last general election those housing targets were abolished, and Wokingham Borough Council like many others took the opportunity to review the housing numbers. Whilst some councils cut the numbers, the Conservative controlled council chose to retain the previous figures. In the interests of balance at this point I’ll also say that the Liberal Democrats also want to build houses on the Garrison site, and have previously stated that they thought there should be more than 3,500 here.
Whilst we’re sure the development will once again be a major issue in the local election next year, it’s worth remembering that each of the major political parties, except for the Greens have national policies to build more houses in the South-East of England, and these policies are supported by their local parties in Wokingham. They also all favour building on brownfield sites and since the Garrison will be the largest brownfield site in the borough, that means here. Whatever our political affiliations, whatever the political affiliations of the person elected next year, and whatever our feelings on how it will affect our area there will continue to be acute pressure from the national government to build lots and lots of houses in the area. We would therefore hope that the election candidates will focus more on how they will ensure the houses can be accommodated rather than making hollow promises to cut the numbers, or retreading old ground trying to blame someone else for the plan.
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