Curtin & Co the professional Community Politics organisation taken on by Crest Nicholson for the past year or so to help with community engagement to produce more acceptable plans this time around have the following statement on their website:
Communities and their representatives are at the heart of planning. By listening carefully to them and understanding their issues, acceptance of proposals is greatly improved.
We’d probably agree with them on that, but I wonder how you thought the recent exhibition showed they understood your issues?
Certainly from the feedback we have received so far, the answer seems to be that they didn’t seem to understand at all, and that the entire exhibition was a major disappointment.
Over the years this development has been discussed, there have been a couple of common points. Firstly the preservation of green space used by existing residents has been a major concern – right from the start AG-RAG has been in favour of a development “behind the wire” highlighting that public areas outside the boundary wire of the Garrison should remain public areas, and that the effect on existing residents should be minimised. Secondly the mitigation of the traffic effects of the new development needs to be taken seriously for all the surrounding villages.
If you take a look at the supplementary planning document adopted by Wokingham Borough Council the “behind the wire” principle is clear. Crest Nicholson helpfully include this plan on their “Story so far” panel, all of the formal playing fields along with the informal space around the top of Sheerlands Road is maintained, and there is a clearly marked buffer alongside the existing homes on Badger’s Mount. The withdrawn plans from 2013 which were modified from the original design as part of the community planning workshops in January 2013 largely maintained that, with only building on one side of Sheerlands Road on the Garrison Church Car Park. These new plans however discard the green buffer behind Badger’s Mount, and fill all of the informal space with houses, requiring the felling of a number of trees that are supposed to have tree protection orders on them to achieve this, and even putting houses on the access road to Gerring Road and the whole of the Badger’s Mount estate. Hardly listening carefully to the local community and understanding their issues. Not surprisingly we are aware of a number of local residents who visited the exhibition and expressed pretty forcefully their opinion of the latest plans.
Looking at the other hot button issue, that of traffic mitigation, whereas the consultation exhibition for the withdrawn plans recognised the importance of this and included proposed plans for many critical junctions, there was nothing like this at the recent exhibition. We can’t even comment on how good or bad their plans might be, because there was basically no detail at all, we are no clearer now as to what they are proposing as to where we were a month ago.
So what has gone wrong? Curtin & Co have been engaging with community representatives such as the parish councils and local borough councillors, but they have noticeably failed to engage with the community itself. We had a Community Planning Weekend where a number of local residents sat and worked with the master planners, producing a plan that whilst it had some issues was still something that had clearly evolved as a result of the community engagement. Nobody on the new team was involved with the previous community engagement, and rather than organise a new round of engaging with the community, this team appears to have developed the plans in isolation, the result being that the masterplan is considered by many to be worse than the withdrawn plan.
Ironically the new plan is still being sold on the basis of green space, but comparing the plans from 2013 with the new plans there is clearly less green space. The existing space around the junction of Sheerlands Road and Baird Road is entirely gone, green space around the brook is reduced, the village common is significantly reduced, houses are built closer to the balancing lake and the SANG is reduced in size. What that has been traded for is personal green space, so the density of housing is reduced by putting them on larger plots. Certainly good for making the houses to sell more attractive, but it is the existing residents who are losing their green space, and there is less public green space for the new community.
As expected the secondary school has moved back to the original location, but since Reading Football Club are holding firm on Hogwood Park, it has all the same problems with access from outside the SDL. Whilst in fifteen years once the majority of students using the school will be fed from the SDL most students will be able to walk, in the early years most students will be coming from Finchampstead and will have to come through the whole southern part of the SDL into the town centre to get to the school. The school desperately needs direct access from Park Lane, rather than requiring all of the students to come in at the same time as all of the residents are heading out to work, and sending them in via a fairly roundabout route around the industrial estate and the football club.
If you didn’t get a chance to attend the exhibition, the boards are available on the Crest Nicholson Consultation Website. You’ll find that the previous Arborfield Vision site has been removed, however you can look back at the presentation and commitments that the previous masterplanners and the the Defence Infrastructure Organisation made on our site here, something that is probably a rather depressing experience when you realise quite how much of the previous community engagement has been squandered, and the good will that has been lost by Curtin & Co and Crest Nicholson. Please also feedback if you haven’t already using the Crest Nicholson Online Feedback Form.
Looking Back on the Consultation Exhibition
Curtin & Co the professional Community Politics organisation taken on by Crest Nicholson for the past year or so to help with community engagement to produce more acceptable plans this time around have the following statement on their website:
We’d probably agree with them on that, but I wonder how you thought the recent exhibition showed they understood your issues?
Certainly from the feedback we have received so far, the answer seems to be that they didn’t seem to understand at all, and that the entire exhibition was a major disappointment.
Over the years this development has been discussed, there have been a couple of common points. Firstly the preservation of green space used by existing residents has been a major concern – right from the start AG-RAG has been in favour of a development “behind the wire” highlighting that public areas outside the boundary wire of the Garrison should remain public areas, and that the effect on existing residents should be minimised. Secondly the mitigation of the traffic effects of the new development needs to be taken seriously for all the surrounding villages.
If you take a look at the supplementary planning document adopted by Wokingham Borough Council the “behind the wire” principle is clear. Crest Nicholson helpfully include this plan on their “Story so far” panel, all of the formal playing fields along with the informal space around the top of Sheerlands Road is maintained, and there is a clearly marked buffer alongside the existing homes on Badger’s Mount. The withdrawn plans from 2013 which were modified from the original design as part of the community planning workshops in January 2013 largely maintained that, with only building on one side of Sheerlands Road on the Garrison Church Car Park. These new plans however discard the green buffer behind Badger’s Mount, and fill all of the informal space with houses, requiring the felling of a number of trees that are supposed to have tree protection orders on them to achieve this, and even putting houses on the access road to Gerring Road and the whole of the Badger’s Mount estate. Hardly listening carefully to the local community and understanding their issues. Not surprisingly we are aware of a number of local residents who visited the exhibition and expressed pretty forcefully their opinion of the latest plans.
Looking at the other hot button issue, that of traffic mitigation, whereas the consultation exhibition for the withdrawn plans recognised the importance of this and included proposed plans for many critical junctions, there was nothing like this at the recent exhibition. We can’t even comment on how good or bad their plans might be, because there was basically no detail at all, we are no clearer now as to what they are proposing as to where we were a month ago.
So what has gone wrong? Curtin & Co have been engaging with community representatives such as the parish councils and local borough councillors, but they have noticeably failed to engage with the community itself. We had a Community Planning Weekend where a number of local residents sat and worked with the master planners, producing a plan that whilst it had some issues was still something that had clearly evolved as a result of the community engagement. Nobody on the new team was involved with the previous community engagement, and rather than organise a new round of engaging with the community, this team appears to have developed the plans in isolation, the result being that the masterplan is considered by many to be worse than the withdrawn plan.
Ironically the new plan is still being sold on the basis of green space, but comparing the plans from 2013 with the new plans there is clearly less green space. The existing space around the junction of Sheerlands Road and Baird Road is entirely gone, green space around the brook is reduced, the village common is significantly reduced, houses are built closer to the balancing lake and the SANG is reduced in size. What that has been traded for is personal green space, so the density of housing is reduced by putting them on larger plots. Certainly good for making the houses to sell more attractive, but it is the existing residents who are losing their green space, and there is less public green space for the new community.
As expected the secondary school has moved back to the original location, but since Reading Football Club are holding firm on Hogwood Park, it has all the same problems with access from outside the SDL. Whilst in fifteen years once the majority of students using the school will be fed from the SDL most students will be able to walk, in the early years most students will be coming from Finchampstead and will have to come through the whole southern part of the SDL into the town centre to get to the school. The school desperately needs direct access from Park Lane, rather than requiring all of the students to come in at the same time as all of the residents are heading out to work, and sending them in via a fairly roundabout route around the industrial estate and the football club.
If you didn’t get a chance to attend the exhibition, the boards are available on the Crest Nicholson Consultation Website. You’ll find that the previous Arborfield Vision site has been removed, however you can look back at the presentation and commitments that the previous masterplanners and the the Defence Infrastructure Organisation made on our site here, something that is probably a rather depressing experience when you realise quite how much of the previous community engagement has been squandered, and the good will that has been lost by Curtin & Co and Crest Nicholson. Please also feedback if you haven’t already using the Crest Nicholson Online Feedback Form.
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