If you haven’t seen it in the Wokingham Times etc, there is much talk about redeveloping Elms Field, a park in the middle of town. You can read about the proposed development here.
When I was a child, my mother used to take me and my friends regularly to play at Elms Field, near Wokingham town centre. Back then, there were tennis courts, a Pitch & Putt golf course, a running track and adult exercise equipment laid out there along with a great selection of children’s play equipment.
Now some of that play equipment was removed for good reason as it was downright dangerous. I still have the scars to prove it. But, a lot of what was there has gone or has been left to deteriorate and looks, well, scruffy.
So, now that Wokingham Borough Council has decided to try and redevelop the area around the field adding more housing, building on the old Cricket Ground etc, you would think there was a greater need for the park & the green space in the centre of the town?
Not so, apparently.
Looking at the recent plans for the area, every single mature tree is due to be removed and the green area will be reduced to the size of two football fields. It will then be surrounded by 4 storey flats, shops and paved walkways. We will also loose one of our car parks and the now useless tennis courts to housing. If you don’t believe me, here is the publicly available video of what it will look like, here. It’s also on the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/KeepElmsFieldGreen .
Now, no-one is averse to getting the town modernised. Some of our 60’s architecture is looking very tired and the Peach Place development could be a good thing, if done right. If this means that we have to have a hotel and a supermarket to pay for it, that is not such a bad thing. So, we went along to the Wokingham Town Centre Regeneration Forum on the 25th June 2013. It was filmed, here . The Elms Field questions are about 55 minutes in…as you can hear, people are not very happy.
The meeting just reinforced my initial suspicions that the Elms Field development, as currently proposed, just doesn’t seem right for Wokingham and that we are being dictated to about what we want, rather than consulted. If we had retailers queuing up to take the new stores and if the land had not be originally bought for the good of the town, I might feel better about it.
See Elms field should be for the people of Wokingham for their enjoyment and leisure for ever for a bit of history.
So, we have taken up collecting signatures, to ask the Council to debate the proposal and reconsider what they are doing in this part of the development. The on-line version can be found here: http://wokinghamlibdems.org.uk/en/petition/no-to-elms-field-development I can honestly tell you, we have been getting an overwhelmingly good response.