According to a piece in Wokingham.Today (Featured Wokingham) by Ruth Lucas, today (23 November 2024) Wokingham Borough Council will appeal to the government over new housing targets which it fears will ‘change the character and nature of Wokingham forever’. They must build 560 more homes a year under new housing targets set by the new government taking the total from 748 to 1308. Some councillor comments from last night’s full council meeting are worth reading.
Councillor Charles Margetts said the the targets are ‘not deliverable’. Well that statement is incorrect. I think he means the land to build all these homes does not exist. It does. There are various spatial options in Wokingham and neighbouring authorities. . But it seems he rejects them all. And he ignores the question, if the homes needed locally are not built where instead will they go? Or does he abdicate responsibility for providing affordable homes for the future families of existing residents? But he is upset, and with good reason, pointing out that Wokingham’s population has increased by 15% in the ten years 2012 to 2022. Significantly and importantly he adds ‘Based on my experience residents are not opposed to new housing but are firmly against new developments occurring without the necessary infrastructure growth’.
Councillor Marie-Louise Weighill also made important, balanced observations. She said ‘I’m going to make the controversial suggestion that housing is good, actually -we should have more or it. We often hear about the threat of housing. Housing is presented very often as something that is imposed by an external force. But the character of the borough for many people is a constant and agonising worry’.
Another view came from Councillor Alex Freeney who said there are 1337 people on Wokingham’s social housing register and therefore he considered the motion to reduce the housing targets to be ‘completely tone deaf to the problems people in this borough are actually facing’.
It is plain there is a lot of frustration. The Liberal Democrats who now lead Wokingham’s council proposed an amendment saying they will ‘lobby the government for changes to the planning system to give councils more control’ because they oppose the new, higher housing targets and instead are seeking more reasonable and realistic ones.
In 2014 I published a proposal for a new urban extension to Reading mostly on environmentally unprotected land south of the M4. Even though it was simply an essay for a new town competition organised by the Wolfson Foundation it was rubbished by Labour’s ruling councillors at Reading borough council and ignored by Wokingham’s Conservative councillors, the relevant spatial authority then and now. Crucially since 2014 some to the land I identified has been blocked by the Minister of Defence due to fears of a nuclear incident at their Burghfield facility.
In the following years, after my retirement and as Wokingham’s long term growth dilemma was so obvious on different occasions between 2015 and 2022 I made full length professional submissions during public consultations into Wokingham’s local plan to accommodate the housing and infrastructure growth according to a long term, two generations growth plan. These were also in writing put before the local MP, Sir John Redwood. Due lack of response on one occasion during a Covid 19 lock down these initiatives were also put directly to local Wokingham councillors. One councillor responded. No other responses were ever received from the council.
Before 2014, when I retired and during my time as Senior Partner at chartered surveyors Campbell Gordon in Reading I published various public reports into managing and directing the growth pressures in the Thames Valley for the benefit of investors and its local residents. The persistent theme was the need for long term master planning to preserve and enhance the spatial characteristics of a green and pleasant region whilst delivering the homes, jobs and infrastructure in a fast growing economically vibrant region needed to balance conflicting pressures. Councillor Charles Margetts remarks last night above show that my efforts, and those of other like minded experts in change were in vain.
I no longer live in Wokingham.When I did, in the seventies it already had the largest private sector housing estate in Europe, now know as Lower Earley under construction with minimal infrastructure. There was no evidence of long term planning which is why much of Lower Earley is blighted by noise from the M4, which so easily could in a planned new garden town style masterplan have been removed. Subsequently further new haphazard extensions to accommodate Reading’s growth over several decades explain why Wokingham’s residents are worried by the prospect of more haphazard change. They are right. Over several decades Wokingham civic leaders have shown little ability to see ahead in spatial terms. They are not alone. In high growth, fast change locations which generate prosperity opposition to more change is deeply rooted, and with good reason. The Starmer government will not deliver the homes and economic growth central to England’s future prosperity until they can change this sentiment. Wokingham is an example over a generation of what happens if they fail.
I feel shame at both personal and and professional level as I view Wokingham’s spatial failure. It is daunting to look back 35 years to understand the scale of the spatial failure. On Friday, 3 March 1989; the front page of the Reading Chronicle had a headline. M4 Shock- £3 Billion Homes Plan referring to a Report by Joe Wise describing a plan by leading chartered surveyor Ian Campbell for a realignment of the M4 to enable the release of 3000 acres of building land as part of 20,000 acre new community extension to Reading. Wise quoted me as saying ‘…unless a radical approach is taken there is gloom ahead for Reading’. adding ‘…that with clogged up roads, people travelling to work or school in the 1990’s will find their journey times doubled. He also predicts that a new housing shortage will force up property prices well beyond the reach of today’s children when they grow up’.
At least I tried. These failed attempts mitigate my shame as I see the shocking prices buyers must now pay for their first homes.
Ian Campbell
23 November 2024
