Creating quality council homes

YOUR Labour Council’s on-going drive to do everything it can to create more affordable homes in Reading continues apace.

Last month, planning approval was granted for 62 new homes on the former site of Central Pool, just off the Oxford Road. These new, affordable, Council homes will cater for those on the housing waiting list, as well as providing sheltered housing and homes for adults with additional care needs.

Sites in Reading are at a premium, which is why the Council has to be imaginative and innovative in identifying pockets of land for smaller sites.

In housing parlance, these are known as ‘infill sites’ and in Reading they include various pockets of brownfield wasteland.

Tenants have recently moved into seven homes in Southcote, Whitley, and Church wards, with a further site in Caversham now close to finishing. They range from attractive 2-bed homes, including an accessible bungalow, up to a big 4-bed home with a large garden. We know that large family homes are particularly needed, so it is important we try to identify possible sites on which to build them – quite a challenge in a Borough like ours. It would be easy to take shortcuts on quality and cost. Our aspirations, though, are to build comfortable, high quality and energy-efficient new accommodation for our tenants.

Our local response to the climate emergency means all new homes are being built to what are known as Passivhaus principles in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

Triple glazing, air source heat pumps and solar panels are some of the techniques we use, and just one of the reasons Reading Borough Council was crowned Homebuilder of the Year at the 2021 UK Housing Awards.

Over in my home patch of Southcote, I’m also pleased that the former library building is set to be redeveloped for new affordable housing. Locals will remember that the old library was relocated into the Southcote Community Hub, a very short stroll away, back in 2018 as part of a Council project to provide a modern library, children’s centre, play area, and upgraded community facilities all on one site.

Since then, we had been trying to progress a deal with a local housing association partner for affordable housing.

EARLIER this month, I attended the Special General Meeting of the Caversham Park Village Association.

It’s clear the Association has had its Pandemic difficulties, but as I listened, I was struck by the strength of feeling of the members and their support for getting the Association – whose Milestone Centre is a nucleus for the community – back on its feet.

This strength of community feeling can be seen across Reading, yet sadly it is all too often ignored by our Labour-ruled Council. Despite its unpopularity with drivers and cyclists alike, the cycle lane on Sidmouth Street has been made permanent.

It received nearly 650 objections – which were ignored.

I am a cyclist, and I have not used Sidmouth Street once. I want to see a safe, integrated and coherent cycle network across Reading.

What we have at present is a collection of unconnected lanes frustratingly scattered across the town.

Reading Golf Course is another example of Labour letting the local community down.

An unprecedented and recordbreaking number of objections (over 4,000) were submitted, yet Labour councillors pushed through the scheme to redevelop and build more than 200 houses on the former golf course.

Our Conservative councillors have opposed the scheme from the beginning, and, with them, I have met the developers and local residents whose concerns about this extensive development are justified.

They rightly draw attention to the strain on infrastructure all these houses will produce and the impact of dangerous construction traffic – to say nothing of the congestion once the houses are occupied – on narrow Kidmore End Road.

What about Reading Gaol? As a historian, I am acutely aware of the historical significance of the Abbey

Quarter and the Gaol in particular.

I am strongly in favour of it becoming an arts and heritage centre. Reading Conservatives support it. The whole town supports it.

Our Reading MPs East and West support it.

Even Kenneth Branagh and Banksy support it.

Granted the Council has bid to buy the site, but where is the local leadership on the issue? It has fallen to volunteers in the group Save Reading Gaol to raise awareness and campaign for the preservation of this historic local landmark.

Given that Labour flip-flopped on the Golf Course development, can we trust them to do the right thing with the Gaol?

Labour have repeatedly let down communities across Reading. In contrast, the Government has been investing in our town: last year it provided £26 million to improve bus services in Reading; the Levelling-up fund is spending £19 million on overhauling The Hexagon and rebuilding the Central Library; the Government’s New Station Fund contributed to building Reading Green Park station; and the Pothole Fund has and will continue to pay for improving our roads. Therefore, if you want representatives who will resist insensitive and inappropriate planning applications, who will stand up to developers and protect our green spaces, who will actively defend our historic landmarks, ensure Reading receives its share of national funding and who will deliver on problems raised by residents –then vote for your Conservative candidate on 4th May.

Stephen Goss is the Conservative Party Candidate for Emmer Green ward on Reading Borough Council

We have now switched to transforming the site into the Council’s own housing stock in a project which could deliver up to 15 two-bed flats as part of a £3.8 million scheme for more new Council homes at Coronation Square.

Local councils like Reading have no influence on things like the high cost of land, private rental rates, or indeed national planning policies – the things that dictate house prices. What they can do is try to build as many affordable council homes as possible to make a difference in their local area, and I’m proud that is what we are doing in Reading.

When we pull all the various schemes for new Council homes across Reading together, it amounts to around 400 new affordable homes and an overall investment of £110 million over a five-year period up to 2026. This includes homes already delivered and those in the pipeline.

There are currently over 5,000 people on the Council’s waiting list in Reading. Every few years this list is reviewed with people asked to re-register if they still need to be on it. That review is due to take place shortly and, whatever the outcome, we can be certain that it will still be a very high figure, in common with most London boroughs and towns or cities in the south east.

We also know the figure would be even higher – as, indeed, it was in recent years – without the significant investment being made by Labour in new affordable homes for people in Reading.