Homes ... we’ve had enough!

Your front page on 9 March 2023 “234 Homes Plan for Winnersh” came on the same day as the appeal for 200 houses in Hurst was dismissed.

Our petition against Hall Farm was just tossed aside as well.

So once again there will be no building in Hurst but we will outside of the parish boundary to Popes Meadow, thus giving the area the colloquial moniker which became its official name - Binfield.

I hope you can join with me and Mr Holdsworth in defending Wokingham’s traditions and, in the words of Dr Dre, “No diggity, let’s bag it up.”

Tim House-Pardy, Wokingham Living History

Climate science v fiction

I always look forward to reading the Wokingham Today letter section for the wide range of views provided by the people of this area.

But I was quite shocked to see professional climate disinformation featured prominently in the first letter of the March 9 edition.

Masked as a letter about wheelie bins, the letter quickly shifts to an allout attack on climate science.

Of course, people have their own views on the response to climate change, but this letter prominently lists two known disinformation vectors.

First is a long-retired MIT

In the past, there have been occasions where we councillors have discussed petitions on planning matters.

Members of the Planning Committee leave the room, so they can make a decision on a later planning application without having pre-judged the issue. The practice is straightforward, and whether we agree or not with the petition, we can all agree on the petitioners right to have their issue debated, surely?

Well, apparently not.

The campaigners have been told by officers that they can’t have a debate because it relates to a planning decision.

As I’ve already shown, this hasn’t been a barrier before.

Why has the Liberal Democrat-led administration, backed up by their Labour and Independent coalition colleagues, suddenly decided this issue can’t be discussed? I’m sure that it has absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming local elections… keep building all over the South of the Borough. If only the tens of thousands of pounds that WBC must have spent on appeal barristers to protect Hurst had been spent to defend Shinfield and Winnersh.

When the coalition administration isn’t shutting out residents’ voices, it continues to tear up its promises.

Wayne “no houses in Hurst”

Smith continues somehow to protect Ruscombe while at the same time meteorologist who was involved in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ...22 years ago.

He’s presented as “probably the most famous climate scientist in the world” although few readers will have ever heard of him.

Second, readers were provided the website and encouraged to get “a very wide flow of information” from an anti-climate change charity with an impartiality warning from the Charity Commission and evidence of US dark money funding. This shady group is currently chaired by a shipping magnate.

Even the most cursory search into these groups shows a very long history of discredited misinformation.

While I don’t expect the Wokingham Today staff to edit the letters, they should think twice about being used as a channel for spreading anti-science propaganda.

Man made climate changes are wrecking terrible havoc on the planet. This is widely understood and repeated by governments, businesses, Sir David Attenborough and the body that is truly the collection of best

Last year, Liberal Democrat council candidates guaranteed that if their party took control of the Council, there would be no development at Rooks Nest Farm in Finchampstead. We Conservatives warned that Liberal Democrat plans to delay progress on the Local Plan would put the site at risk of being built on by developers.

Now we discover the administration is planning to build a school at Rooks Nest Farm.

The Conservative Group absolutely believes a new school needs to be delivered, but why there? There are plenty of other available sites. Instead, the Liberal Democrats are wedded to removing yet another green space in the Borough.

All the while, the Lib Dems, Labour and the Independents continue to wring their hands on the Local Plan, rather than moving forward with creating a new one.

Their policy seems to be to do nothing for as long as possible, say it’s all somebody else’s fault, and hope that wins them votes. But all they are doing is leaving the door open for developer after developer to win applications on appeal, landing communities with too many houses of the wrong type in the wrong place, and without the necessary infrastructure to support them.

The Liberal Democrats have argued that they must wait to see if the Secretary of State reduces the numbers of houses Wokingham is required to build, but this is not the preventing any building in Hurst. He is responsible for the lack of a local plan and for the lack of an adequate five-year land supply. Shinfield, Winnersh and Arborfield have surely had enough. But people need places to live. The selfish attitude of some Hurst residents is a disgrace.

Fiona Talbot, London

science minds on the planet, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

You can get true, peer-reviewed facts via their reports at ipcc.ch. Their conclusions are strikely clear. I applaud Wokingham Borough Council for its ongoing attempts to reduce it’s impact on climate change. And, while we can all do our part to help, the greatest damage is coming from a small number of corporations, mostly in the power generation industry, who are desperately and dishonestly trying to avoid change. We can’t let them deceive us into inaction.

Tom Ross, via email

A question of trust

I read with interest the Wokingham Council Leaders ‘we achieve more together’ article in Wokingham Today. Any partnership is built on a foundation of trust should trust be undermined then partnership working becomes very difficult.

Local politicians need to be trusted. Not predicted or expected, the last local election provided case. The Council can push ahead with a plan, and if or when changes to the numbers is announced the plan can be adjusted to reflect those changes.

Not only is this possible, but it would be the most pragmatic and sensible thing to do.

Plan for the worst and campaign for the best, a reduction in housing numbers.

On top of that, even a draft Plan before it is formally accepted would afford the Borough a level of protection from speculative development that it does not currently have.

This delay has got to stop. Residents deserve better than an administration that ducks accountability, stifles legitimate concerns, and shirks action in favour of empty posturing.

If the Conservatives are returned to power after May’s elections, we’ll get on with a Local Plan that will deliver sustainable communities and protects the Borough from unwanted development.

We’ll build on our previous success to get our housing numbers down to an achievable level. And, unlike the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives will ensure that residents are always put at the heart of the Council’s planning policy.

Cllr Wayne Smith is the shadow member for planning, enforcement and strategic development, and Conservative ward member for Hurst the opportunity for partnership working between political parties and independents. No one can predict what this May’s election will provide. If it delivers a ‘single party rules’ result, who ever the winners might be, can they be trusted? Or will Wokingham simply drift back to the older ways of working?

Multiple promises were made during the last election, mostly to get your vote. How many promises have been kept?

I have proactively pushed for ‘collaborative’ working throughout my four years as a councilor.

What has been clearly highlighted, by trying to work in this way, is the significant lack of trust across political parties.

Too many meeting minutes wasted by party political points scoring rather than achieving together. Too many things behind closed doors. Too many promises made but then broken. Too many things done for the benefit of party not residents.

Where is the priority, party or residents?

So my question to all political parties is simply ‘Can you be trusted’?

Or is it time to take the party out of local politics and vote Independent?

Cllr Jim Frewin, independent councillor for Shinfield South, Wokingham Borough Council

When do they attend?

I have tried to find out where you can obtain the Parliamentary attendance records for MPs. However, it seems there aren’t any available to the public. I watch PMs questions and important debates and while I look closely at the Conservative back benches, I rarely see John Redwood.

Surely us “taxpayer employers” need to know what our “employees” are doing for the well above average UK salary paid by us.

Perhaps MPs should produce timesheets so we can all see what they have been doing.

How can we ensure we are getting value for our votes and taxes if we don’t know when or even if they are working for us during reasonable “employment” hours?

Pam Gregory, Wokingham resident

An inappropriate site

The Wokingham Today headlines last week were 234 Homes Plan for Winnersh.

The plans is for an inappropriate development on a site in a floodplain on the side of two noisy polluting motorways in a climate change environment.

This is the sort of planning application we should all be fighting and well done the local Borough Councillors and their Parish Council as that is exactly what they are doing.

What is sad is that ‘No Houses in Hurst’ Conservative Councillor Wayne Smith instead of coming out against such a proposed development he just plays the political card by saying, “We look forward to the Lib Dem administration keeping their promises to the electorate”.

Cllr Smith was the Executive Member responsible for housing when the Conservatives ran the Council and is the architect of the plan to build 4,500 houses on the banks of the River Loddon that floods spread over 30 years below a big dam in a climate change environment.

What is hard to understand is only half would be needed to meet the Govt. targets so this will be a building site that will go on until 2055, and all the problems that will bring to us all.

What is also hard to understand is the Conservatives represent thousands of residents in Shinfield, Lower Early, Woodley Barkham and other parts of the Borough who will all have their lives ruined if Hall Farm and other developments in the South of the Borough go ahead.

It makes one think why should anyone South of the Borough vote for a Conservative unless they want their local green areas all concreted over.

Sadly the Lib Dems who replaced the Conservatives, with help from Labour and the Independents, have done nothing to correct this plan and they have just sat on the fence for reasons best know only to them.

As the two big parties (Lib Dem and Conservative) stick to their idealogical excesses Wokingham’s residents suffer. This time the Independent Group intend to challenge them in Mays elections.

Residents deserve choice and we will give them that. A vote for anyone next May who is neither a Conservative or a Lib Dem is a vote for Wokingham. It’s local politics and they are very different to national politics.

Let’s break this two party club.

Cllr Gary Cowan, Borough Councillor For Arborfield at Wokingham Borough Council.

Preventing homelessness

Local councils work hard to prevent people from facing homelessness, so it’s worrying to see the latest figures which show a 26% rise in rough sleeping in England.

More than 3,000 people are rough sleeping, and some will be former Armed Forces personnel.

Most people leaving the Forces make a smooth transition to civilian life, but sadly some fall through the net.

We know there are veterans who end up sofa surfing, in unsuitable hostels or even living on the street.

Every local authority in England has signed the Armed Forces Covenant, a promise to people who’ve served in the Armed Forces that they’ll never be disadvantaged when accessing public works, such as filling in ‘potholes’ are paid for using revenue funding that comes from your Council tax.

In between scheduled highway safety inspections defects will be reported by highways staff at WBC, but the public can also report these on the borough council web site. Any that are found to meet the criteria for repair will be fixed.