This week attention was once again focused on the Arborfield Bypass Relief Road as Arborfield Parish Council published the results of their survey. The results are probably not too much of a surprise to those people who are up to date with feelings in the village as they indicate that a significant majority of the respondents are not in favour of the technical recommendation, option A, that runs close to houses in the village and doesn’t address the long standing issues further down the A327, but instead favour the longer option B.
The questionnaire also highlights how ludicrous any transport policy that predicts residents will give up their cars in favour of the 144 bus with pretty well everybody surveyed relying on the car for much of their daily travel requirements.
The other important point to highlight, again not a surprise given the people asked is that a majority of respondents favoured spending less on wider infrastructure, for example traffic mitigation in Finchampstead and Barkham, and community facilities, schools etc in the Arborfield Garrison development itself, in order to provide a longer more expensive bypass to protect the villagers of Arborfield.
Unfortunately unless the developer consortium starts using a realistic transport model, rather than living in a fantasy world where the new and existing residents are going to start using the bus, or riding bicycles in large numbers, there isn’t going to be anything like enough money put forward by them to mitigate all the transport bottlenecks properly.
Sadly whilst Cllr David Lee seemed quite positive when announcing the appointment of Crest Nicholson as Development Manager and we were expecting Crest Nicholson to come and talk to residents in the summer that hasn’t happened. Instead Crest Nicholson has appointed yet another set of specialist consultants, in this case Curtin & Co a specialist London firm who deal with community engagement, and specialise in getting contentious developments approved. For example Ally Kennedy, one of their directors highlights this on his profile on their website:
I have achieved planning permissions against officer recommendation across the south east region. In South Hampshire, I achieved permission for a residential developer on a scheme which was previously defeated by 11 votes to 2 at planning committee and was recommended for refusal.
Ally Kennedy has also helped pen an interesting article discussing localism and “rural NIMBYs”.
It fills you with confidence that when local residents and their elected representatives have considered and refused a development, he is most proud of having forced those developments through. In a number of other Wokingham SDL’s the council has refused permission, and rather than engaging with resident and council concerns, the developers have appealed to central government. For example Crest Nicholson appealed over a WBC refusal in the North Wokingham SDL and won.
If you look back at the responses to the planning application the key concerns are the urbanisation of a semi-rural area through building a new town between Arborfield and Finchampstead, along with the major transport problems building a new town will bring. In the real world the unpalatable truth that the developers seem unable to accept is that if you want to try and preserve some semblance of a semi-rural community you need to build fewer low density houses, but that’s not going to make the developers nearly as much money as cramming in 3,500 houses. However unless you’re going to create some sort of 21st century Bournville the vast majority of the residents are going to be heading out onto the roads to jobs in Wokingham, Reading, Basingstoke, Farnborough, London or wherever and the unpalatable truth is that you’re going to have to do significantly more to mitigate traffic from your 3,500 houses than stick up a few sets of traffic lights, and again that will be expensive. Instead what we’re being offered is the worst of both worlds, all the houses, and with minimal commitment to making it work as a community.
As a residents group we have always been clear that we support a reasonable development here – the last thing we need is a large derelict army base in our midst – but the development needs to reflect where it is located. This isn’t an urban area, it is a semi-rural community with limited already overstretched road capacity and poor, lightly used public transport. We have limited medical facilities, and pretty well all our secondary school students get on a bus as there isn’t a school locally. You either need to build something that fits in with those limitations, or put real money behind the faux promises and stump up the money to transform the area. This is exactly what residents have been telling the developers in their numerous responses to consultations over the past few years, and in person at events like the community planning weekend and exhibition many attended in January.
Rather than engaging with residents and those issues, the developers are once again moving towards trying to persuade us “rural NIMBYs” to support a half-baked underfunded urbanisation of our community, and if that fails, they’ll appeal to their buddies in central government who will probably approve it anyway.
So are you ready to be persuaded?
Are You Ready to be Persuaded?
This week attention was once again focused on the Arborfield
BypassRelief Road as Arborfield Parish Council published the results of their survey. The results are probably not too much of a surprise to those people who are up to date with feelings in the village as they indicate that a significant majority of the respondents are not in favour of the technical recommendation, option A, that runs close to houses in the village and doesn’t address the long standing issues further down the A327, but instead favour the longer option B.The questionnaire also highlights how ludicrous any transport policy that predicts residents will give up their cars in favour of the 144 bus with pretty well everybody surveyed relying on the car for much of their daily travel requirements.
The other important point to highlight, again not a surprise given the people asked is that a majority of respondents favoured spending less on wider infrastructure, for example traffic mitigation in Finchampstead and Barkham, and community facilities, schools etc in the Arborfield Garrison development itself, in order to provide a longer more expensive bypass to protect the villagers of Arborfield.
Unfortunately unless the developer consortium starts using a realistic transport model, rather than living in a fantasy world where the new and existing residents are going to start using the bus, or riding bicycles in large numbers, there isn’t going to be anything like enough money put forward by them to mitigate all the transport bottlenecks properly.
Sadly whilst Cllr David Lee seemed quite positive when announcing the appointment of Crest Nicholson as Development Manager and we were expecting Crest Nicholson to come and talk to residents in the summer that hasn’t happened. Instead Crest Nicholson has appointed yet another set of specialist consultants, in this case Curtin & Co a specialist London firm who deal with community engagement, and specialise in getting contentious developments approved. For example Ally Kennedy, one of their directors highlights this on his profile on their website:
Ally Kennedy has also helped pen an interesting article discussing localism and “rural NIMBYs”.
It fills you with confidence that when local residents and their elected representatives have considered and refused a development, he is most proud of having forced those developments through. In a number of other Wokingham SDL’s the council has refused permission, and rather than engaging with resident and council concerns, the developers have appealed to central government. For example Crest Nicholson appealed over a WBC refusal in the North Wokingham SDL and won.
If you look back at the responses to the planning application the key concerns are the urbanisation of a semi-rural area through building a new town between Arborfield and Finchampstead, along with the major transport problems building a new town will bring. In the real world the unpalatable truth that the developers seem unable to accept is that if you want to try and preserve some semblance of a semi-rural community you need to build fewer low density houses, but that’s not going to make the developers nearly as much money as cramming in 3,500 houses. However unless you’re going to create some sort of 21st century Bournville the vast majority of the residents are going to be heading out onto the roads to jobs in Wokingham, Reading, Basingstoke, Farnborough, London or wherever and the unpalatable truth is that you’re going to have to do significantly more to mitigate traffic from your 3,500 houses than stick up a few sets of traffic lights, and again that will be expensive. Instead what we’re being offered is the worst of both worlds, all the houses, and with minimal commitment to making it work as a community.
As a residents group we have always been clear that we support a reasonable development here – the last thing we need is a large derelict army base in our midst – but the development needs to reflect where it is located. This isn’t an urban area, it is a semi-rural community with limited already overstretched road capacity and poor, lightly used public transport. We have limited medical facilities, and pretty well all our secondary school students get on a bus as there isn’t a school locally. You either need to build something that fits in with those limitations, or put real money behind the faux promises and stump up the money to transform the area. This is exactly what residents have been telling the developers in their numerous responses to consultations over the past few years, and in person at events like the community planning weekend and exhibition many attended in January.
Rather than engaging with residents and those issues, the developers are once again moving towards trying to persuade us “rural NIMBYs” to support a half-baked underfunded urbanisation of our community, and if that fails, they’ll appeal to their buddies in central government who will probably approve it anyway.
So are you ready to be persuaded?
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