Our roads plan for the year ahead

WE have retained our highways maintenance budget of £1.82m (Reactive maintenance), £2.1m (WBC capital funded) and £2.2m of government capital grant) against significant financial pressures.

This is the same budget as the Conservatives had last year.

Nationally across England and Wales the latest Annual Local Authorities Road Maintenance study found that there was a backlog of over £12.6 billion in local road repairs, and its only getting worse.

This Conservative government and the previous Conservative-run council have under invested in local highways for the past decade. This is not something that has recently happened. We therefore call on government to reverse this now to stop the local road network declining further.

I would urge all residents concerned about potholes to write to their MP asking for more government support for Wokingham Borough council to sort this problem out.

The Conservatives have allowed Wokingham to be the lowest funded unitary authority in the country for the last 14 years. The government must do more to help residents.

Highway safety inspections

The Borough Council has a duty to maintain all adopted highway assets within its area.

To ensure the duty is fulfilled, it carries out periodic highway safety inspections of various assets, including the road to ensure they are safe for public use.

Any found to be safety critical will be addressed by carrying our repair work. These reactive maintenance services.

As the cost of living crisis impacts on local communities, council homelessness teams have experienced increased demand for their services.

Despite these pressures, councils are already doing great work to ensure veterans and their families get the support they need, and they will continue to work hard to make their offer for the veteran community even more comprehensive.

Councils play a key role in ensuring those who have served the nation have somewhere to live and ultimately get back on their feet.

It can be challenging for councils to identify and support veterans. That’s why the No Homeless Veterans campaign was set up.

It provides councils and housing associations with toolkits and training, packed with practical advice and best practice examples (www.NoHomelessVeterans.org.uk).

Our Armed Forces offer a dedicated service to us and our country. It’s our duty to support them as they become our neighbours and an important part of our local communities.

Cllr David Fothergill, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board

Air Vice-Marshal Ray Lock CBE, Chair of Stoll Housing which runs the No Homeless Veterans campaign

Give criminals porridge

People never get five years’ prison for cruelty to wildlife because the Magistrates are to lazy to send the guilty person or persons to crown court.

I say send the criminals to crown court to get five years of porridge.

Victor Rones, Bracknell

to a more preventative maintenance plan, to arrest the deterioration and prevent more roads ‘slipping’ into the much more expensive resurfacing category.

This approach maximises the cost effectiveness and allows us to maintain more of the network with the limited budget that we have.

Highway condition surveys

A second and separate inspection of the road network is carried out annually to capture the condition of the asset based on a national standard.

That data obtained from these surveys allows the council to maintain an up-to-date central record of the asset condition and programmed works within available budgets to extend assets longevity.

This funding comes from two sources: a government grant and capital borrowing, which must then be paid back through council tax revenue, plus interest.

Resurfacing and preventative maintenance

As I have said there has been significant under investment by both the Conservative government and by the previous Conservative council. While we would all like to see new resurfaced roads, these are very expensive. We have maintained the budget for resurfacing, but moved

Cllr Clive Jones

Moving in the right direction?

MANY residents will know that reducing numbers of new houses imposed on Wokingham Borough Council has been a priority for the Liberal Democrat administration that took over the running of the council in May last year.

My first action as leader of the council was to write to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up who has responsibility for housing policy, and the creation of the housing numbers that council must build every year.

Currently our housing number is just under 800 new homes in the borough every year. This is broadly the same number that it has been for several years, except for a few months when a consultation from a former Secretary of State put the number up to 1,600 a year.

It should be remembered these are housing numbers that are forced on Wokingham by the Conservative government.

In my letter to the Secretary of State, I suggested that the government allows past overprovision of housing to be considered when looking ahead at a future local plan.

This was also included in the Council’s response to the government’s recent consultation on housing numbers which closed on March 2.

There have been indications the government were considering accepting this suggestion, this was mentioned as a very strong likelihood at recent meeting that I attended of council leaders from across the country.

At a recent Planning Inquiry, the Inspector rejected a developers appeal against the council’s decision not to approve 200 new houses in Hurst.

This was a combined action by the council, Hurst Parish Council and many local residents. It shows what can happen when we all work in partnership together.

One of the reasons for the rejection was that developers building in the Borough have been oversupplying new homes in recent years.

This change of approach from a Planning Inspector could signify that the government may be about to change the rules on how housing numbers are calculated.

Potholes, resurfacing and preventative maintenance

Within Wokingham Borough around 5,300 openings of the carriageway are made each year, and approximately 75% of these are carried out by the utilities (gas, electric, telecoms and water).

Every time the carriageway is dug up, the joint between the reinstatement and the original carriageway becomes a weakness.

The weather can also have a significant impact on how quickly a road will deteriorate especially during very wet and cold/icy conditions.

Our biggest problem in Wokingham is lack of investment from the Conservatives.

We should also remember that the government keeps 100% of car tax (Vehicle Excise Duty) this money does not come to the council.

Cllr Paul Fishwick, Executive member for Active Travel, Transport and Highways, and Lib Dem ward member for Winnersh

If this were to happen it will be a big victory for councils such as Wokingham, particularly in the south east where we have already taken large number of houses over the last few years. Wokingham Borough has grown by more than 15% in population since 2011, one of the highest increases in the country. This change could see up to 2,000 fewer houses built in our area over the next 15 years.

This would help protect our green spaces and enable our area to develop in a more structured way.

I am hopeful that there will be a government announcement soon that housing numbers in Wokingham can be reduced.

If there is no such announcement, we must not forget that it’s the Conservative government that is forcing Wokingham to take so much new housing, destroying our greenfields forever.

We, of course, still have a need to provide new homes, and we shall focus on meeting the needs of our community.

In this difficult time, we shall be pressing for more affordable one-, two- and three-bedroom properties to support our local families, plus provide one- and two- bedroom bungalows to enable our older community to stay in this area. The latter approach would then free up the larger family homes, with less need to build on our green spaces.

Cllr Clive Jones is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council and Lib Dem ward member for Hawkedon