With the ongoing consultation on the planning applications in full flow, it is time for a quick update. Firstly the deadline for comments on the two planning applications has now been synchronised on 5th December, so you only have a couple of weeks left to have your say. If you want a chance to go through the plans, talk to local councillors and also ask questions of the developers Finchampstead Parish Council have organised another opportunity to do so on Saturday 22 November 2014 at Nine Mile Ride School from 3pm to 5pm. Our experience from previous exhibitions is that this is a good opportunity to put specific points to the developers and politicians who react a lot more proactively face to face with residents, certainly we are aware of changes that were made to submitted plans after residents with particular issues took them up face-to-face with Crest Nicholson.
Some of the first responses to the consultation are now starting to appear on the council web site. As always we can’t link directly to the applications because of the way the council website is designed, however following the instructions in this post you can find the applications and read what people are saying.
The themes are pretty much what you would expect, but a few points to bear in mind:
- Whilst it may make you feel better to object to the principle of building houses here it is a waste of time, that decision has already been made when Wokingham Borough Council designated this area as a Strategic Development Location a number of years ago. The principle of building houses in the South East was pushed by both the previous Labour government, and the current Conservative led coalition, and Wokingham is required to find space for a certain number of houses each year. All that will happen if you object to building houses is that your comments will be noted and ignored.
- Keep it brief – the council is expecting a lot of responses to these applications, brief bullet points might be better than an essay.
- Write a unique letter, multiple copies of the same letter, or a single letter or petition signed by multiple people counts as one response.
From feedback we’ve had so far the big issue once again is traffic and traffic mitigation. The liberal use of traffic calming in the current plans have gone down no better than the liberal use of traffic lights in the previous plan. There are also notable gaps demonstrating a lack of understanding of local roads, so for example in Finchampstead restricting Park Lane and slowing traffic through California Crossroads without doing anything to Church Lane and White Horse Lane is a recipe for people rat running along White Horse Lane, a common problem currently when there are holdups at California Crossroads after a closure of the A327.
As always the lack of a coherent solution to the A327 through Eversley, especially considering that all the remaining MoD personnel who currently walk to work on the Garrison will be heading towards Aldershot will also be going this way features in comments. We suspect the high level representation from Hampshire County Council will also be concerned about this.
Environmental concerns have come up, in particular what the effect of building on Hogwood Farm will have on the bottom end of Park Lane and New Mill Lane – somewhere that has flooded in the past few years – and further downstream on Swallowfield. Certainly people have concerns about the proposed handling of water on both developments.
The comment by Crest Nicholson representative Hugo Reeve at the last Community Forum that his planning application needed to be approved to release the land for the school, a statement that is also made in the planning documents themselves also continues to be of concern, especially to those parents looking for a school at the earliest opportunity. We have had informal discussions with several councillors who are insistent that this is not the case and that they can proceed with the school without having to have the main planning application approved, including one or two who have said that had they been at the forum they would have highlighted when Hugo made the statement that this was not the case. Unfortunately despite the leader of the council and former lead member for development being present at that forum he did not object, and every subsequent statement from the council has a lot of fluff about an ongoing process of negotiation, but no the kind of unequivocal statement on the school that people need.
There was a recent meeting to discuss the school plans in more detail where the plans were revealed. Sadly the need to meet the tight timescales has resulted in the council settling on one of the new, much criticised standardised designs that were put forward by the current government a few years ago, whilst the parent group are putting forward their ideas, ultimately the need to get the school built on time will almost certainly mean that rather than a design that fits into the vision for the new community we will have something very close to the standardised designs commissioned by former Education Secretary Michael Gove.
Whatever your particular concerns, it is important that you get them in by 5th December to ensure they are noted. Whilst in practice the council usually accepts comments after this date, they don’t have to so please try to get them in time.
Alongside the main planning applications, there is another consultation taking place which will be of particular interest to Arborfield residents, which is for the Arborfield and Newland Village Design Statement. Whilst this document can’t stop development coming to Arborfield, it can guide developers as to how local residents want those developments to be built, so is an important document. You can find a link to the proposals and details of how to comment on this page on the Wokingham Borough website.
Finally, one sad bit of news in that Trinity Mirror who own the Reading Post and Wokingham Times amongst other newspapers has decided to close all their Berkshire titles in favour of an online only model, making a number of redundancies. Reporters from the Wokingham Times have been to almost as many meetings and forums as some of the residents and have reported the twists and turns of the Garrison development for many years. We’d like to thank them for all their support over the years and offer our best wishes to those who are being made redundant in the run up to Christmas.
Remember Remember the Fifth of December
With the ongoing consultation on the planning applications in full flow, it is time for a quick update. Firstly the deadline for comments on the two planning applications has now been synchronised on 5th December, so you only have a couple of weeks left to have your say. If you want a chance to go through the plans, talk to local councillors and also ask questions of the developers Finchampstead Parish Council have organised another opportunity to do so on Saturday 22 November 2014 at Nine Mile Ride School from 3pm to 5pm. Our experience from previous exhibitions is that this is a good opportunity to put specific points to the developers and politicians who react a lot more proactively face to face with residents, certainly we are aware of changes that were made to submitted plans after residents with particular issues took them up face-to-face with Crest Nicholson.
Some of the first responses to the consultation are now starting to appear on the council web site. As always we can’t link directly to the applications because of the way the council website is designed, however following the instructions in this post you can find the applications and read what people are saying.
The themes are pretty much what you would expect, but a few points to bear in mind:
From feedback we’ve had so far the big issue once again is traffic and traffic mitigation. The liberal use of traffic calming in the current plans have gone down no better than the liberal use of traffic lights in the previous plan. There are also notable gaps demonstrating a lack of understanding of local roads, so for example in Finchampstead restricting Park Lane and slowing traffic through California Crossroads without doing anything to Church Lane and White Horse Lane is a recipe for people rat running along White Horse Lane, a common problem currently when there are holdups at California Crossroads after a closure of the A327.
As always the lack of a coherent solution to the A327 through Eversley, especially considering that all the remaining MoD personnel who currently walk to work on the Garrison will be heading towards Aldershot will also be going this way features in comments. We suspect the high level representation from Hampshire County Council will also be concerned about this.
Environmental concerns have come up, in particular what the effect of building on Hogwood Farm will have on the bottom end of Park Lane and New Mill Lane – somewhere that has flooded in the past few years – and further downstream on Swallowfield. Certainly people have concerns about the proposed handling of water on both developments.
The comment by Crest Nicholson representative Hugo Reeve at the last Community Forum that his planning application needed to be approved to release the land for the school, a statement that is also made in the planning documents themselves also continues to be of concern, especially to those parents looking for a school at the earliest opportunity. We have had informal discussions with several councillors who are insistent that this is not the case and that they can proceed with the school without having to have the main planning application approved, including one or two who have said that had they been at the forum they would have highlighted when Hugo made the statement that this was not the case. Unfortunately despite the leader of the council and former lead member for development being present at that forum he did not object, and every subsequent statement from the council has a lot of fluff about an ongoing process of negotiation, but no the kind of unequivocal statement on the school that people need.
There was a recent meeting to discuss the school plans in more detail where the plans were revealed. Sadly the need to meet the tight timescales has resulted in the council settling on one of the new, much criticised standardised designs that were put forward by the current government a few years ago, whilst the parent group are putting forward their ideas, ultimately the need to get the school built on time will almost certainly mean that rather than a design that fits into the vision for the new community we will have something very close to the standardised designs commissioned by former Education Secretary Michael Gove.
Whatever your particular concerns, it is important that you get them in by 5th December to ensure they are noted. Whilst in practice the council usually accepts comments after this date, they don’t have to so please try to get them in time.
Alongside the main planning applications, there is another consultation taking place which will be of particular interest to Arborfield residents, which is for the Arborfield and Newland Village Design Statement. Whilst this document can’t stop development coming to Arborfield, it can guide developers as to how local residents want those developments to be built, so is an important document. You can find a link to the proposals and details of how to comment on this page on the Wokingham Borough website.
Finally, one sad bit of news in that Trinity Mirror who own the Reading Post and Wokingham Times amongst other newspapers has decided to close all their Berkshire titles in favour of an online only model, making a number of redundancies. Reporters from the Wokingham Times have been to almost as many meetings and forums as some of the residents and have reported the twists and turns of the Garrison development for many years. We’d like to thank them for all their support over the years and offer our best wishes to those who are being made redundant in the run up to Christmas.
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