SDL = Strategic Development Locations = an acronym that is being used a lot, but basically they are the areas that Wokingham Borough Council have allocated for housing development.

We need new housing as it generates jobs, give people a place to live and brings money into the area. But what we really need is SENSIBLE development. We need to improve our already over extended road system. We need to create more school places. We need decent and affordable places to live with access to leisure areas and the services we all need to stay happy and healthy.

As the plans stand, I have great concerns over some of the locations that have been chosen. Inadequate transport access and in areas that are connected to flooding, being the greatest points. The developers who want to build housing in these places will only be providing the minimum requirements. Will Wokingham Borough Council be providing the shortfall? At what cost?

Anyhow, many of us were at the SDL Meeting in the Town Hall, last Tuesday. Lots of people were standing as there clearly was a misunderstanding of the level of interest. There was lost of discussion regarding roads and transport congestion, followed by general despair over the extra 300 houses that were added and no-one had heard about up till that point.

I got to ask a question on affordable housing – as all I could see in the pictures were large detached homes. I also asked about school provision as I don’t feel enough have been planned to accommodate these extra homes and in the right places. When there is no school close by, people take to their cars, causing more road congestion.

It is also unclear how an outline plan can be drawn up for Matthewsgreen development, if they won’t finish the consultation on the relief road until the spring? More on this subject later….but right now I’d say take a look at what Prue Bray has written on this.

Late last year, I spoke at the well attended Wokingham Borough Council extraordinary meeting about Elms Field. You can find a full video of it made by one of Wokingham’s residents on Youtube and it is quite revealing into the processes of Wokingham Borough Council.(My questions are about 1. hour 31 in) I am also left wondering how many of these councillors do any real shopping, nowadays?

The debate was supposed to be politically indifferent, but I have long felt that the

Tories were inextricably linking the Elms Field development part to the whole Wokingham Town Centre Regeneration Project and were blaming the Liberal Democrats for supporting the protestors. They probably have to back it as a lot of money has already been spent on it. Unfortunately for them, we could see that there was overwhelming disquiet about building Elms Field coming from all corners, even without our help. We were just willing to listen.

It seems that selling the developments on the Elms Field land & properties was the key part of the plan to pay for the regeneration. Each component was not able to financially support itself alone and the repayment ideas do not seem very sound as it depends on being able to sell ALL the properties and rent out the stores at high rates. I also feel that this plan has been too rigid and moving so slowly that it has not adapted to the fact that in the mean time the world of shopping has changed.

Not long after the event and during the Christmas period, the planning application was withdrawn for review…I suspect it will stay quiet until after the Local Elections in May….

So, using all the public feedback we had received, this left the local Liberal Democrat Councillors set about proposing an alternate strategy. This was presented by Prue Bray at the last full council meeting and you can read what she wrote  about it here . But, in the interest of freedom of information, Wokingham Borough Council is now releasing its own meeting videos, so you can even watch what was said  here , about 16 minutes in.

The plan is still in draft and we would totally expect it to be under regular review, but basically it begins with the following:

NOT building housing on Elms Field, but investing in it and creating a modern space for everyone to use.

NOT borrowing £98 Million that Wokingham Borough Council Tax Payers will be paying for, for years.

NOT closing two ground level public car-parks in the town.

NOT stopping the town’s much needed makeover and providing enough money to do the job.

NOT building a supermarket where no-one wants it, but proposing an in demand modern alternative ‘Dark Store’ that will still provide jobs & services in a more suitable location.

Developing and supporting our Market and other small businesses in the town including giving them access to extra services needed in the modern digital shopping world.

Finding a better, but near-by space for the hotel.

Building a small amount of good housing on the brown field area to help support the regeneration.

Including some affordable housing in the town centre.

It has to downscale the original plan a little, but I feel it is much more reasonable approach in the current financial climate and it will help us both develop and preserve the finer aspects of our town and prepare it for the future in a more progressive way.  Lets see if the local Tories are willing to adopt any of it….

I thought I’d like to write a short piece about the thousands of unpaid volunteers who are Town and Parish Councillors and something of what they achieve.  A few years ago, I was attending a Parish Council meeting out of general interest, when they announced they didn’t have their full quota of councillors and were recruiting. So on the spur of the moment, I volunteered.

I have never regretted that decision, not one bit.

No-where else can you honestly do things that affect your local community so directly and in such positive ways.  Planning applications, allotments, football pitches, play grounds, litter picking, fetes, christmas lighting etc are just some of the things that are part of the picture on Town and Parish councils. Via the council, I also get invited to represent my community at other poignant meetings and represent our interests. All for the price of two or three evenings a month.

I’d like to give a simple example of something we’ve done together. We were asked by some members of the  public to provide a public toilet and we worked as a team to find the right place and the funding for one. I stuck to my guns about ensuring it was full accessible and had room for, wheelchairs, carers, prams etc and suggested appropriate locations. It took 18 months to build and we had quite a bunch of problems to overcome, but it was finally opened last year as a FREE public toilet. It is thankfully, well used and respected, but I bet the public have no idea what a battle it was.

 

 

 

This week the flooding started on Christmas day and the police closed many of the key roads, instigating a volley of frantic e-mails and phone calls from people trying to find their way around the closed off areas, such as Loddon Bridge roundabout and the route between Shinfield and Arborfield. I guess in some ways we were all lucky it wasn’t a busy work day, but I suspect that everyone’s memory is too short on what happens on those days.

Living close to both the Emmbrook and the Loddon rivers, every time it rains for more than a couple of days, I start wondering what is going to flood? What roads will be blocked, will I be able to get to work, is my car safe? I can also see that for some local residents, their thoughts are is my house safe, will I need to move my furniture or my family etc?

Many of the businesses and homes in the area are well prepared for the occasionally flood and have learned to live with the inconvenience. My main fear is that the demand for housing & development is so strong that we continue to build near the areas that flood, with only the minimal thought about where the water is to go and the wider effect.

The Environment Agency tells the developers that it will be OK and they decide that there is an acceptable risk, even though anyone who has lived here for any length of time, knows that these areas are prone to flooding. Never mind the fact that f we push the water away from the new developments and cover the areas that act as a big sponge, it then pushes the water into areas that have not flooded before.

Perhaps we should look at a different ideas for these areas, such as building houses on stilts, not concreting off the driveways and streets? Or how about returning some of the concreted areas back to a more natural state. Answers on a postcard please…..

 

 

If you haven’t seen this, it available here: http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/transport/roads/northwokinghamdistributorroad/ – you have until Friday 8th November to comment on the consultation.

Exhibition board 4 has a nice diagram of the eastern section of the Distribution road, which I am going to write about here, but there is more than enough information on the Wokingham site for those who like lots and lots of details.

 

 

Loosely, this development involves the building of over 1500 new homes between the current residential area of Wokingham and the M4. Some of these homes will be ‘affordable’ and there will be a new school. Great! I welcome sensible development and some of these things we do need. But, the subject today is the road.

So, here goes:

Alternative A- is the cheapest and the quickest to implement. It involves forcing traffic down the existing Old Forest road, which is a residential street, over an existing narrow bridge with traffic lights onto a new junction with lights on the A329. Although there is a promise of some improvements to the bridge etc, it doesn’t appear to be adequate for the amount of traffic we are likely to get and the residents around the road clearly do not want this alternative.

Alternative B – involves building a new road at high cost to the council, through a number of businesses at the Toutley Industrial Estate, across a flood plain and through the Millennium Arboretum which is a wildlife habitat. It also requires building a new bridge over the railway and heads straight through the current Winnersh Allotments. The traffic doesn’t go down the Forest Road, which is good, but all it does is dump the traffic onto the A329(Reading Road) just a few yards further up.

Alternative C – avoids building on the flood plain and costs a bit less money. it is just a slightly cheaper alternative idea to B and it does not replace the Toutley road junction.

I think with a few adjustments, we could make B or C work – i.e pushing it as close to the M4 as possible, so it does the least harm.  All three of these seem like poor choices to me, as they just put the traffic onto the A329 and none of them really address the traffic problems in the area.

 

At the now many exhibitions I have been to, there have been some pictures of posted up of the proposed Winnersh bypass, which is expected to be a road that follows the M4 onto Lower Earley Way. There has been no planning application submitted for much of this work yet and no land has been purchased. Granted, when it eventually does get built it will take some of the traffic directly into Earley. But, it is very likely most of the traffic will still be heading to the A329M/M4 though the notorious bottleneck of Winnersh Cross Roads.

I also don’t see anyone linking up the facts about the developments at Emmbrook, Arborfield, Sandford Farm and Hatch Farm Dairies, all of which are like to converge traffic onto the Winnersh/Showcase junction when everyone heads to work in the morning.

I think if the council is going to spend a lots of taxpayer money building roads, it should be on the ‘right’ solution, not just sticking plaster that will dump the problem elsewhere. We are currently looking at some alternatives. But, whatever happens, it is looking like the houses will get built before any of the new roads, forcing the new traffic into the already overcrowded streets.

Welcome to the town of gridlock and tailbacks….