We expect our planing application to be given the nod because it is in everybody’s interest for the project to go ahead.
So says Scott Black, Crest Nicholson’s group director of new business in the front page story of the Wokingham News this week.
But is it in your interest? If you’re a highly paid director of a major house builder, getting the maximum number of houses for the minimum outlay on infrastructure it probably is in your best interest, if you’re a Ministry of Defence bureaucrat wanting the money to build the new facilities for REME in Wiltshire it is probably in your best interest, if you’re an officer at Wokingham Borough Council worried about delivering a school promised to desperate local parents in September 2016 it is probably in your best interest, but for the rest of us maybe it isn’t.
If you’re a resident of Badger’s Mount who believed Wokingham Borough Council when they assured them that the Supplementary Planning Document would protect their green spaces, keep the new development back from their home, and showed the main route from the north of the development into the centre diverted well away from their homes this isn’t in your best interest. Crest Nicholson have decided to ignore that part of the Supplementary Planning Document and are proposing to fell trees to build houses on the supposedly protected green, and will direct increased levels of traffic past their houses avoiding their new development. It’s not in their interest.
But then it is a lot cheaper to build houses on the undeveloped land on the greens than clear developed army land, and the new residents won’t like having a main access road past their houses. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you’re a resident of Finchampstead or Eversley who lives around the Tally Ho, it’s not in your best interest as the robust planning application from Crest Nicholson offers little hope for you. Once these 3,500 houses are built on the site of one of the main local employers it won’t only be residents from the new houses coming past your homes on the way to work, you’ll get all the soldiers still housed here coming past on the way to their base in Aldershot – and yet Crest Nicholson aren’t looking at any sort of bypass for Eversley, and Wokingham Borough Council and Hampshire County Council aren’t willing to put up the money either.
But then it is a lot cheaper to not build the bypass. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you’re a resident of Arborfield you’re in a bit better position, as the council has agreed to build a bypass – but don’t ask how it’s being paid for as it’s not Crest Nicholson paying up, they’re making a contribution but you can bet it will be as small as they can make it to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you live around California Crossroads you’re going to get the junction rebuilt with raised multicoloured bricks, but will following the yellow brick road solve the traffic chaos when thousands of extra residents come up and down the Nine Mile Ride every day?
But then it is a lot cheaper to provide some pretty coloured bricks. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you’re a resident of Barkham you get the pretty bricks and paint too, but again what happened when thousands of extra residents try to get through there every day avoiding the inevitable queues at the bridge?
But then actually solving the traffic problems your high profile development will cause is expensive. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
What about the new residents, the people who will come to these new houses? The illustrative plan makes things look quite pleasant – but then has anybody counted the number of houses on the plan?
If they built the number of houses shown on their illustrative plan it probably would be quite pleasant, and would meet the density of a garden village which in the garden village developments that their marketing harks back to was an absolute maximum of 12 houses per acre. Instead they will build 2000 houses, because building any less would affect the profits Crest Nicholson can make, and Scott Black’s nice bonus.
Let us not forget, for all their comments about what a great place this development will be, neither Scott Black or any of his colleagues, nor the Wokingham Borough Council officers will have to live here while it is being built. A couple of the local councillors live close, and only one actually lives on the SDL, but as the councillors on the planning committee come to make the decision are they looking at the ways this application ignores their adopted planning document, or will gridlock local traffic, or are they looking at the promise so many of them backed to open a school in 2016 that is entirely dependent on this application being adopted on time? Which group of residents are they going to go with, will it be the parents desperate for a new school in September 2016 as Scott Black expects, or the numerous other residents whose interest is not served by the current plans?
We asked precisely that question on BBC Berkshire last week – neither Crest Nicholson or Wokingham Borough Council were willing to answer that question in person.
Let’s be clear, we agree with Scott Black, the borough needs new houses, and we need a new school, but at any cost? If he thinks this development is so fantastic, perhaps he can come join us and watch his utopia be built at close quarters from Park Lane.
Given the Nod
So says Scott Black, Crest Nicholson’s group director of new business in the front page story of the Wokingham News this week.
But is it in your interest? If you’re a highly paid director of a major house builder, getting the maximum number of houses for the minimum outlay on infrastructure it probably is in your best interest, if you’re a Ministry of Defence bureaucrat wanting the money to build the new facilities for REME in Wiltshire it is probably in your best interest, if you’re an officer at Wokingham Borough Council worried about delivering a school promised to desperate local parents in September 2016 it is probably in your best interest, but for the rest of us maybe it isn’t.
But then it is a lot cheaper to build houses on the undeveloped land on the greens than clear developed army land, and the new residents won’t like having a main access road past their houses. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you’re a resident of Finchampstead or Eversley who lives around the Tally Ho, it’s not in your best interest as the robust planning application from Crest Nicholson offers little hope for you. Once these 3,500 houses are built on the site of one of the main local employers it won’t only be residents from the new houses coming past your homes on the way to work, you’ll get all the soldiers still housed here coming past on the way to their base in Aldershot – and yet Crest Nicholson aren’t looking at any sort of bypass for Eversley, and Wokingham Borough Council and Hampshire County Council aren’t willing to put up the money either.
But then it is a lot cheaper to not build the bypass. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you’re a resident of Arborfield you’re in a bit better position, as the council has agreed to build a bypass – but don’t ask how it’s being paid for as it’s not Crest Nicholson paying up, they’re making a contribution but you can bet it will be as small as they can make it to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you live around California Crossroads you’re going to get the junction rebuilt with raised multicoloured bricks, but will following the yellow brick road solve the traffic chaos when thousands of extra residents come up and down the Nine Mile Ride every day?
But then it is a lot cheaper to provide some pretty coloured bricks. The existing residents need to make some sacrifices to ensure Crest Nicholson can make enough profit and Scott Black can get a nice bonus.
If you’re a resident of Barkham you get the pretty bricks and paint too, but again what happened when thousands of extra residents try to get through there every day avoiding the inevitable queues at the bridge?
What about the new residents, the people who will come to these new houses? The illustrative plan makes things look quite pleasant – but then has anybody counted the number of houses on the plan?
If they built the number of houses shown on their illustrative plan it probably would be quite pleasant, and would meet the density of a garden village which in the garden village developments that their marketing harks back to was an absolute maximum of 12 houses per acre. Instead they will build 2000 houses, because building any less would affect the profits Crest Nicholson can make, and Scott Black’s nice bonus.
Let us not forget, for all their comments about what a great place this development will be, neither Scott Black or any of his colleagues, nor the Wokingham Borough Council officers will have to live here while it is being built. A couple of the local councillors live close, and only one actually lives on the SDL, but as the councillors on the planning committee come to make the decision are they looking at the ways this application ignores their adopted planning document, or will gridlock local traffic, or are they looking at the promise so many of them backed to open a school in 2016 that is entirely dependent on this application being adopted on time? Which group of residents are they going to go with, will it be the parents desperate for a new school in September 2016 as Scott Black expects, or the numerous other residents whose interest is not served by the current plans?
We asked precisely that question on BBC Berkshire last week – neither Crest Nicholson or Wokingham Borough Council were willing to answer that question in person.
Let’s be clear, we agree with Scott Black, the borough needs new houses, and we need a new school, but at any cost? If he thinks this development is so fantastic, perhaps he can come join us and watch his utopia be built at close quarters from Park Lane.
Share this: