Arborfield Garrison Residents Action Group

Tonight the Arborfield SDL Community Forum met for the fourth time at the Henry Street Garden Centre, can we also offer our appreciation to the Goold brothers for graciously offering the use of their coffee shop area for the meeting – given the interest and numbers of attendees at the forums now it is good to have a location that can both hold everybody in comfort, and which provides adequate car parking.

The meeting this time consisted of two presentations, one by Cllr Keith Baker, and one by Tracey Coleman Assistant Head of Development Management at the council, followed by a breakout session for each area to gather requirements for upcoming discussion topics.

Cllr Baker covered highways matters, this time looking further afield than the Arborfield Bypass, taking in Barkham Bridge and discussions about Eversley. As might be expected from a politician there was a good bit of political spin, for example we know that the discussions he mentioned with Eversley Matters are not nearly as advanced as was suggested, indeed our colleagues in Eversley were further taken aback by some of the discussion about an Eversley Bypass. Certainly from our position we bring together residents from across the county boundary, all of whom have legitimate concerns of the effect of the development. Although it is obviously tempting to present matters from a Wokingham centric viewpoint, as open meetings Eversley residents and councillors are always well represented and we would encourage councillors and staff from Wokingham to present their comments and thoughts accordingly. Cllr Baker also made mention of funding, where the council is lobbying for funding from the Local Enterprise Partnership – there is a time critical element for this because with a General Election due in 2015, the opportunity to secure funding may change were a new government to be elected, much as it did when the current government was elected and swept away the previous structures.

Tracey Coleman covered the planning application itself, now expected from the Arborfield Garrison Landowners Consortium only at the beginning of April – there is no detail of when we might expect an application from the Marino Family. There will however be a single infrastructure plan for the whole SDL submitted with the AGLC application. None of the developers were officially represented at the meeting tonight, although as with the highways meeting there were representatives present.

Following the presentations the meeting split by geographical areas to gather lists of topics for future forum meetings. Many of the items brought up were issues that we have mentioned previously, however what was of most concern was the lack of knowledge displayed by the Finchampstead Parish Councillor listing the important items for Finchampstead, indeed at one point he said incorrectly that the Hogwood Lane Industrial Estate was not going to grow. This is totally incorrect, a doubling of the size of the Industrial Estate has been a key part of the development here. In addition all of the 1,500 Marino houses and a small number of the AGLC houses will be built in Finchampstead – this has implications for all Finchampstead residents as those additional people will have the right to be buried in the churchyard at Finchampstead, they will also as parish residents be able to apply for allotments on the recently opened Finchampstead allotment site. The influx will be a significant increase in the numbers of residents these councillors represent and we would urge the local parish councillors in Finchampstead to bring themselves up to speed with what is proposed for their parish, and the effects it will have on the people they represent before it is too late.

As discussed, Wokingham Borough Council has suggested that the primary channels of communication between the residents and the council as through the parish councils and ourselves as the residents group. We have additional meetings with staff and councillors between the quarterly forum meetings and we are happy to take any particular issues forward that you might wish to be raised. Please contact us using the website contact form if there are any issues you’d like to raise or any questions you would like answered and we will do our best to get answers or to direct you to the person who may be able to help you.

The development is coming whether we like it or not, what is important now is that we use whatever influence we have both individually and as a group to get the best outcomes for our communities.