So as 2013 draws to a close, the time seems right for a look back, and a bit of a look forward.
At the end of 2012 we’d just had a Community Forum where we’d been introduced to new personnel on the Arborfield Garrison Landowners Consortium Team, and they had done a presentation suggesting that they were going to make changes to the previous master plans based on local feedback, but with little detail. They said that the detail would be forthcoming following a period of consultation in the new year.
However, at the end of 2013 we’ve just had a Community Forum where we’ve been introduced to new personnel on the Arborfield Garrison Landowners Consortium Team, and they had done a presentation suggesting that they are going to make changes to the previous master plans based on local feedback, but with little detail. They say that the detail will be forthcoming following a period of consultation in the new year.
Of course a lot has gone on in 2013, we did get a lot more detailed consultation through the community planning weekend last January, which led to a revised plan incorporating a lot of the comments that local residents who attended the weekend put forward. However the consortium then rushed through with putting in an outline planning application, resulting in a pretty slapdash set of documents with inconsistencies that were easy to spot, and a ludicrous transport assessment that at best could be described as unrealistic, and seemed to mainly consist of putting “intelligent” traffic lights at numerous junctions across the district. As anybody who has experienced the results of the “intelligent” traffic lights recently installed at Sonning Bridge and the Winnersh Crossroads will know, the effects of putting these in multiple locations would set the borough on a fast track to total gridlock.
Needless to say rather than the masterplan being welcomed by local residents, the slapdash nature of it and poor transport assessment resulted in large numbers of respondents putting forward well founded criticism, and after much discussion with Wokingham Borough Council the application was withdrawn.
However it wasn’t only the developer consortium that was moving forward.
One of the biggest concerns of residents of Arborfield and Arborfield Cross over the Garrison SDL has always been the effect on the A327 through the village. Although a number of years ago the Garrison itself was bypassed (the original A327 is now Sheerlands Road, Whitehall Drive and Bramshill Close) and the plan was to bypass Arborfield Cross as well, only half the job was ever done, and the sweeping wide curve of the bypass drops down to the original road through the village, and not surprisingly jams frequently. Whilst in recent years developer money has paid for the Arborfield Cross roundabout, the fundamental problem of syphoning increasing volumes of traffic through the centre of the village has never been addressed. As such for the residents of Arborfiled Cross and Arborfield Village a bypass has always been top of the agenda.
So it was with much excitement and expectation that villagers went along to the Henry Street Garden Centre to see the council present not a bypass, but a relief road that whilst it went around Arborfield Cross itself, sliced the popular Lockey Farm in two, drove the road straight through the middle of the only area of special character in the village, and did absolutely nothing for those villagers who lived in Arborfield Village. Villagers in Arborfield Cross and Arborfield Village quickly mobilised and that initial pressure resulted in the consultation on the route of the road including the other route options that the council had previously rejected. This also benefited residents in North Wokingham, Emmbrook and Winnersh as they also were given a wider consultation on the route of their road as a result of the change of plan for the road here. The council staged an unprecedented series of exhibitions resulting in a large level of interest and ultimately an overwhelming response in favour of an alternative route for the road, one that did actually bypass Arborfield and Arborfield Cross.
The other area of progress was with regards to secondary school provision.
As long time residents will know, the lack of a secondary school in the south of the borough has been an issue for decades. Large numbers of houses were built around the California Crossroads in what is now North Finchampstead, but with no secondary school provision, resulting in children being bussed to schools both in the centre of Wokingham, and also taken out of the borough down to Yateley School in Hampshire. Although it is clearly a situation that is unsustainable, and local councillors will often highlight it is an important issue on doorsteps, Wokingham Borough Council has singularly failed to actually fix the problem.
For a long while they have been fixated on moving Emmbrook School to the south of the borough, as the sale of the Emmbrook site, along with the closure and sale of the school at Ryeish Green would provide enough money to build a new larger school elsewhere. Whilst on paper this seems like an excellent plan, what it ignored is that Emmbrook residents really rather like having a secondary school on their doorstep, and didn’t want to end up having to have their children bussed in the other direction every day to a relocated school. By effectively playing one set of voters off against another the whole process stalled.
What changed things was the election of a new Conservative led government that had been inspired by the free schools set up in Sweeden, and introduced the ideas to this country. Although Wokingham Borough Council went ahead with the closure of Ryeish Green, it only remained closed for a year before local parents who also resented Wokingham Borough Council now bussing their children across the borough reopened it as the Oakbank Free School. It became quickly apparent to the team responsible for Education Policy at Shute End that with the loss of the money from the sale of the Ryeish Green site, along with the very real possibility that if they closed Emmbrook local parents would reopen it as a free school that their whole plan was in tatters, and they decided that a new, additional school as part of the Arborfield SDL was the way forward, and called a meeting of interested local residents to explain what needed to happen.
The bottom line is that Wokingham Borough Council still doesn’t have the money for a new school, and with the removal of the ability to generate money from the sale of existing school sites they are left with even more limited options for generating it. Whilst the new housing developments across the borough will generate some extra funds, this won’t be enough, and the Wokingham Borough Council officials have been quite clear on this on a number of occasions – “there is no war chest”. However it does get quite interesting when you listen to some of the local councillors who despite what their officers are saying about the availability of money are still promising that Wokingham Borough will deliver a school, and that it will be above the minimum school standards set down by the government by utilising money from some as yet unspecified source. Given that as expected the Wokingham Borough block grant has been cut again it’s hard to see where Wokingham Borough Council, who have failed for decades to get a school built in the south, are going to get the money from, however much local councillors may promise it.
Of course if you look at how Wokingham Borough Council handled the crisis in primary school places – for a number of years they tried to dodge the problem by expanding existing schools with bulge classes, before rushing through plans for three new primary schools in under a year, schools that in some cases didn’t open, or didn’t fill – it is pretty obvious that with a lack of money for a new school, trying to get the existing local schools to take in additional students to postpone the problem is a way they could go, pushing back the date residents in the South might get a new school even further.
One option that was pushed quite strongly by council officers for getting a school here sooner was the option of a Free School.
A Free School is not without risk, but it would potentially get a local school ahead of when the government would allow Wokingham Borough Council to build a school themselves. The main advantage other than getting a school in the south earlier is that it gives access to a separate pot of money, a pot of money that Wokingham Borough Council cannot access. However for a new build school, that pot of money will still only cover the minimum standard for a school, which is why the Department for Education often look towards a cheaper conversion of existing buildings to provide a home for a free school. As continuing rows over the Sikh Free School for Slough that the DfE has put in Stoke Poges, the fight for the Elvian School site by the West Reading Education Network and the concerns when the Royal Berkshire Hospital building was suggested as a free school site show sites will always be contentious.
The situation will be much the same here. By starting a free school early the proposed site for the school on the Garrison won’t be available as the Army will still be using it, but it would require a new build based on current plans. Looking for potential conversion opportunities there is the nearby Sandhurst Block, but that would throw the whole plan for that part of the SDL into disarray, there is also West Court which hasn’t really been allocated for anything after the army departs but could end up as a hotel, conference centre or flats. As the situation in Stoke Poges indicates the DfE is not above putting a free school somewhere totally out of an area it’s supposed to be serving – free schools are outside local authority control and are built and funded directly from central government.
The other point to remember about a free school is that they stand and fall on their own, so the strong advice from experts such as the New Schools Network is to start small and grow – it’s a lot easier to secure funding for a 600 student school and then increase that as required than to get funding for a 1000 student school and try to shrink it if the places aren’t filled.
Looking at all the options several AG-RAG members whose children were at the critical age where they would fall into the period where there would be increasing difficulty getting their children into local secondary schools, but in which the council was not able to build a school themselves came to the conclusion that a free school was the only option, and have been working hard coming up with plans.
So that is where we find ourselves at the end of 2013. Thanks as always for the support of local residents, the process of building a development such as the Garrison SDL is long and drawn out, but it needs all of us to engage at every opportunity – the developers and the Borough Council I’m sure would much prefer it if residents all sat quietly, accepted their proposed road routes, housing layouts and school locations – but ultimately the developers will move on and it’s those of us left here that will live with the results. Remember there is only one local councillor who actually lives in the Garrison SDL. There will be at least one new outline planning application this year, and probably several consultation exercises before that which will need a strong local response, and of course there are the parallel issues of the Arborfield Bypass that will move forward, plus the ongoing discussions over a school.
It’s not over yet, but with the government having signed the deal to build the new home for the base here at Arborfield, the MoD need to get the money to pay for that, so the process will move forward, and we need to be as engaged as ever to ensure we get the best deal for those of us left behind when they move in two years time.
gives an excellent overview, and we would highly recommend talking to the 
Arborfield Community Forum – Monday 17th March
Last night was the next in the regular series of Arborfield Community Forums held once again at the Henry Street Garden Centre in Arborfield.
There were perhaps two key items on the agenda for many residents, the first being an update from Roger Bullworthy on the Marino Family development plans, and the second being a more detailed review of the Arborfield Bypass/Relief Road consultation and details of the next steps. Alongside this the meeting also included more general updates on the development, an update on the ongoing secondary school consultation process, and details of the My Journey and Green Ways projects that are aiming to reduce car use across the borough.
Going through the agenda in order, the meeting started with Wokingham Principal Planning Officer, Matt Melville updating the meeting on current progress. Effectively this is that they still expect the planning application from the Arborfield Garrison Landowners Consortium for their 2,000 houses (of the total 3,500) in the autumn, and that there is a significant amount of work being done by the consortium to ensure a much better application is made this time around. Matt also highlighted the regular steering group meetings on which we are represented, and as mentioned by Matt we are happy to take any particular concerns residents may have to those meetings and report back.
Moving on, next to speak was Roger Bullworthy.
If you’ve attended a number of forum meetings, or the community planning weekend last year, Roger may well have been familiar to you, as although he hasn’t spoken publicly up to now he has been a regular attendee at the majority of the meetings relating to the development.
Roger highlighted firstly that the Marino Family are local, having lived in Finchampstead for a number of years, and intend to continue to live here once the development is completed, as such they are concerned to get the development right as just the same as other local residents they will have to live with the consequences of a badly designed development. In terms of design and layout they are intending to follow the modified version of the master plan as set out during the feedback from the community planning weekend last year.
Roger committed to the Marino Family delivering the Nine Mile Ride extension immediately development commences – this is of course important from the point of view of access to the district centre from the Finchampstead side. Another key point he made is that they are not going to be selling their land holding to a developer in one go, but will instead release land parcels over the whole development period, and whilst the individual developers who buy these parcels will specify their own house types, Roger assured the meeting that the Marino Family would sell the parcels such that anything that was built would conform to the overall master plan.
With regards to questions, the first questioner highlighted a common confusion that surrounds the SDL development in that he hadn’t realised that the Marino family land would hold an additional 1,500 houses. This is a point we have made on a number of occasions particularly to local media, the 2,000 houses on the MoD land are part of a total development of 3,500 – many local residents fail to realise that there are two separate land holdings and assume the reported 2,000 is the total!
Another key question that was raised was over the expanded Hogwood Lane Industrial Estate, and the extra traffic that would be generated. Roger took this to be concern that the expansion would include office blocks, and stated that the expanded industrial estate would all be classified as B2 General Industrial. However we are aware that a concern for many residents is the existing access to the site for HGV’s, some of which attempt to drive up Park Lane rather than come in on one of the slight less unsuitable roads such as Biggs Lane. As we have highlighted on a number of occasions, the industrial estate is really on the wrong side of the development and should really have direct access from the A327 – all HGV traffic for the estate currently has to go around on Biggs Lane, and once the Nine Mile Ride extension is complete will probably come in on that road, straight through the middle of the new housing development. The industrial estate expansion is being placed where it is because that is where the industrial estate is already, not because it is a good place on the overall development to put an industrial estate!
Moving on, next to present was Piers Brunning who updated the meeting on the ongoing consultation process with local parents on provision of a school in the South of the Borough. He also highlighted the next meeting specifically focusing on planning for the new school that takes place tomorrow night, Wednesday 19th March, at 7:30pm at the Finchampstead Baptist Centre. We understand that Wokingham Borough Council may be making some more announcements with respect to the school at the meeting tomorrow, and will report back anything that affects the SDL development.
After Piers had spoken, Steve Bailey gave a presentation on the My Journey and the Green Ways projects. Of most interest will probably be the Green Ways project that is looking to create a network of cycle, footpaths and bridleways away from major roads across the borough, connecting the new strategic development locations with other areas of the borough. The routes will make use of existing footpaths and byways where available, and in others will put in new paths.
We understand that there was some concern with the maps presented, as in a number of places they showed new paths going across land where the council has yet to speak to the affected landowners. There are other places where what are now simple footpaths are to be widened and upgraded to take cycle traffic and horses, again the landowners have yet to be consulted. As was noted in the questions from the floor, the planned network connects together the SDL’s, but misses key connections such as Wokingham Station, and secondary schools – connections that are key if we’re wanting to encourage students to cycle or walk. We’re certainly keen to see such a network come to fruition, however as with the initial stages of the bypass/relief road consultation it causes a good deal of concern from landowners if the first they hear of changes on their land is at a large public meeting such as the forum, and would urge the council to talk to the landowners before such announcements in future.
The final major item on the agenda was a more detailed review of the consultation results on the Arborfield Bypass/Relief Road.
The first and most important point is that thanks to the overwhelming response during the consultation period, the council is now actively pursuing route B. Steve presented a more detailed breakdown of the figures that indicated that route B was the overwhelming choice with everybody apart from respondents from the Farley Hill area. Given the level of response, this has pushed back the schedule for the building of the road, as the council is now going into an additional period of design work that is expected to be signed off at the next council executive meeting when route B is formally adopted as the preferred route. We must congratulate our colleagues on the Arborfield Action Group and our friends at Lockey Farm for the excellent campaign they launched which was highlighted by Steve Bailey as being key in mobilising responses and changing the council plan.
In response to questioning Steve highlighted that any plans would also show what changes would be made to the existing road through Arborfield and Arborfield Cross once traffic had been diverted away.
One particular point that was raised, which wasn’t adequately addressed was whether the developers would still be restricted to less than 750 houses until the road opened. The less than satisfactory answer was that currently this wasn’t going to be the case as the road would be built later as a result of the extra design time needed – as a result we could be looking at over 1,000 houses or more being built before the road would be finished assuming the current timings for planning are met. This led to a discussion about where the lorries to and from the SDL site would be routed, to which the answer is that they will probably come up and down the A327 either through Eversley or Arborfield. Little comfort for those who live on the road.
One bit of good news that was confirmed during the question and answer is that whilst the planned Arborfield Bypass doesn’t meet the new Shinfield relief road, leaving the stretch of road across the River Loddon exactly as it is currently, as a result of the major flooding that occurred this winter and the resultant closures of the A327, that stretch of road has been prioritised for flood alleviation measures, paid for by central government so we should get an improved road over the whole stretch of the A327 after all.
Whilst we are pleased that progress is being made on the A327, we continue to be concerned that this is not the only problem area, chief among the unaddressed areas is the next section of the A327 through Finchampstead and over the bridge into Eversley. Although it hasn’t been closed for long periods over the winter, the chaos caused by one set of temporary traffic lights and the resultant gridlocked traffic at peak times shows that this is a problem that needs to be addressed with more than just a change to the junction with the A30.
The next forum is on Thursday June 5th, at 7pm, again at Henry Street Garden Centre. We would also urge anyone with an interest in the school provision to attend the meeting tomorrow at 7:30pm at FBC.
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