
It’s been a busy few weeks. Most long time Arborfield residents would not have experienced a full on campaign such as the one we have just had. In previous years Arborfield was a bit of a backwater in Wokingham Borough terms with local village candidates Gary Cowan and Steve Bacon arguing over their respective views of the future direction for the village. We’d get a couple of leaflets from each through the door, but as both were active around the village anyway people were pretty clear as to what each one believed.
That all changed in 2016 when Gary left the Conservative Party in a blaze of local publicity, and instead sat as an independent, and Steve Bacon retired to Wiltshire. That brought the prospect of a rather different election, and brought up the question of whether Gary had won all these years as a Conservative, or whether Gary was winning because he was a good councillor, and his party allegiance was largely irrelevant.
The Wokingham Conservatives were clear that it was the former when they parachuted in David Edmonds, their constituency party treasurer from Riseley, someone who had no experience as a local councillor, no previous association with Arborfield, no involvement in the extensive discussions over the school, no involvement with the Arborfield Bypass, no involvement in the regular Community Forums, no involvement in village events, and who prior to him and his wife knocking on every door in the ward multiple times in the last few weeks the vast majority of us had never met.
Many long time residents of Arborfield were pretty sure it was the latter. Like all of us they’d experienced first hand Gary’s assistance with a variety of issues over the past twenty-one years.
When the campaign kicked off we were hopeful of a positive campaign, with David Edmonds promoting the Conservative clean campaign pledge, and whilst he kept to that in print, sadly as we highlighted both here and here his campaign nosedived into the gutter and on the doorstep the Conservatives were becoming increasingly negative.
However, it is clear from the result how the people of Arborfield, people who have had twenty-one years of being represented by Gary reacted to a bunch of total strangers turning up on the doorstep and trying to paint Gary as some sort of waster who would get elected and swan off to his non-existent luxury pad in the South of France, we’d seen how hard he has worked over the years, and the picture didn’t fit. On an increased turnout Gary was returned with more than double the vote of his Conservative challenger, and more votes than he got last election. It was a great result in a borough that many claimed could never return an independent, and one that we’re sure has sent almost as many shockwaves through the local Conservatives as their loss of deputy leader David Lee in Norreys, and Executive Member for Children’s Services Mark Ashwell in Evendons, or the other Independent in the elections Jim Frewin coming second in Shinfield.
Put simply the Conservatives have forgotten what it means to be a hard working local councillor. Throughout the campaign whilst the Conservatives were putting out lots and lots of leaflets, Gary as always was active addressing residents issues. Right in the middle of the campaign there was an issue with an exercise class being stopped by over officious security guards on the Garrison playing fields, as always Gary got stuck in. He’d spent that evening at the Parish Council meeting and picked up the problem when he got home. He got in contact late night with Crest to sort it out and the next day Gary had an answer, confirmation from Crest that the class shouldn’t have been stopped and shared it online.
You don’t need to take our word for it, his active work for the community can be seen on the Arborfield Community and Arborfield Green Community groups on Facebook over and over and over again. Where was David Edmonds? Thanking people for their views but apparently not doing anything except taking selfies around the village and commenting on the weather on his personal Facebook page.
The election is over. Hopefully the Conservatives will now step back and consider why in what was regarded as a safe Conservative seat into which they poured hours and hours of time and significant resources they were so significantly beaten, whilst we as a village move forward.
Our simple advice to anyone from any party who is looking to follow Gary as Borough Councillor is you need to be visible and working for the village, the result is clear that Arborfield expects a hard working councillor who actively engages with its residents concerns over months and years, not one who just appears six weeks before the election with stacks of glossy leaflets. Use sites like Facebook to engage with the residents, not to show us how pretty our village is, or comment on the weather.
Don’t wait for the election, don’t wait to be told, come along to the community forums, come along to the parish meetings, come along to village events, find out the issues, find out what concerns residents, and get working for them.
Arborfield Community Forum
This week we had another Arborfield Community Forum, held this time in the old Arborfield Garrison Community Centre, now being managed as the Arborfield Green Community Centre by Crest Nicholson.
Unlike some community forums in the past there weren’t any new announcements, but it did provide a good way to see a lot of the players building the Arborfield Strategic Development Location together in one place, as so often they will present whatever new development or plan they are putting forward in isolation.
Crest of course were there, and for a number of people the main topic of conversation was the development going on on the public open space they had fenced off and sold on to Westbuild Homes where the church car park used to be. Particular concerns were the absolute eye sore the developers had created digging a balancing pond in what was supposed to be retained public open space, and also that the night before the site had not stopped working at 6pm as they were supposed to. Crest have already taken Westbuild Homes to task over the late working, ironically for one of the most controversial parts of the development the site had bitten back and the reason for the late working was their drilling rig had got stuck, indeed you could see the drill stuck in the same spot for several days this week. With regards to the balancing pond with the current hot weather we’re stuck with it looking a mess for a while at least as any attempt to turf it or seed it at this point wouldn’t take. Crest were also presenting the plans for more blocks of flats for the rental market on a site next to the Bohunt School access road.
Moving on to the other large developer on site, back in March Legal and General the new owners of the southern part of the development went out to consultation on changing the agreed design and layout, and they were at the Community Forum presenting these new plans again. Much as when Crest took over the northern part this is really just a rearrangement rather than any major changes, so the second primary school on the site has been relocated to a more central location, and the employment area has been moved too. There is also a change to the routing of the Nine Mile Ride extension which may well serve to lower its attractiveness as a cut through.
From the council there were two displays, the first was for what has provisionally been named Arborfield Primary School – although I’m sure it has been pointed out that it is in Barkham! This will initially be a two form entry school with provision for it to subsequently expand to three form entry as Arborfield Green is built out and with the plans for the Barkham Square extension to the development. Site wise it will be based around what was the third rugby pitch behind the wire on Biggs Lane.
The other talking point locally is the very visible campaign by Barkham Parish Council petitioning against the Barkham Square development, which can be found here. What the council is actually petitioning for is to force a discussion in council over “unsustainable development in Barkham”. But that is all the petition is for – Wokingham Borough Council can quite happily have the discussion, and then do absolutely nothing. It’s worth highlighting that the same arguments about sustainability are being made by the campaigns against the other locations being talked about for the next phase of housing, which are development on green belt land around Twyford and Ruscombe, and the 10,000 home development on rural Grazeley near junction 11 of the M4. As we have said previously, Barkham Square is the least controversial site under discussion, as it is an expansion of the existing Arborfield Green development, but early enough that the schools and district centre can be build for 4,500 homes rather than the planned 3,500. The main argument against it is that it will bring the Arborfield Green boundary very close to Barkham Village, and this is a separate settlement from Arborfield Green, but Barkham have rather neutered their own argument by having now moved their parish council offices out of Barkham Village into Arborfield Green, and very prominently argued that the 1,800 houses of the 3,500 on Arborfield Green being built in Barkham are part of Barkham through school naming arguments, arguments over the name of Arborfield Green as a whole, and the new very obvious big green signs marking the boundary of Barkham.
Unfortunately, being realistic it is almost inevitable that we will get more houses around Arborfield Green. The pressure for houses is coming from Westminster, not Wokingham. The council uses two basic criteria for establishing development locations, firstly brownfield sites, which was the basis on which Arborfield Garrison was selected as the largest development last time around, or secondly expanding existing settlements which was the basis of the Wokingham North and South strategic development locations, and the South of M4 location. Arborfield Green now has become an established development that can be expanded, and is especially attractive because it will have a modern district centre, has a big secondary school and two large primary schools being built already, so it would need less infrastructure than a totally new development.
The national housing policy is for significant new housing development in growth areas like Wokingham Borough, so the houses have to be built somewhere. If the council refuses all developments the Westminster Government will approve them anyway, but without consultation with residents or much council involvement at all. The Barkham campaign has already been labelled as NIMBYism by other parts of the borough, and to some extent the borough council trades off small campaigns from each particular area campaigning against each other, Grazeley residents are as passionate about their rural village as are Barkham, and Ruscombe residents are as passionate about preserving their village as are Barkham too. Really what we as a borough residents need to do is stop arguing against each other with leaflets like the Barkham one which says houses can be built in “other places”, and sit down and be realistic as a borough and answer the question – the government says we need to build these houses, where are we going to put them?
As we did at Arborfield Green, if the houses are going to come anyway, the questions we as a community need to be asking are not how do we stop all housing development here as that is unrealistic, but what do we as a community need in place to allow us to support the housing we are being asked to take. Do they need to provide a Medical Centre to support the extra houses? Do our schools have enough places? Do we need more road improvements? Is there enough green space?
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