FUNDRAISING FAYRE HELPS PIG SANCTUARY DREAM

SUE RYDER is encouraging residents to don their trainers to raise funds.

The charity is asking people to get outdoors and run, jog, or walk 5km (3.10 miles) each day throughout December, whatever the weather. The aim of this year’s challenge is to raise more than last year’s £320,000.

Caroline Graham, director of fundraising at Sue Ryder, hopes that the December Daily Dash will boost the mental and physical health of participants during what can be a busy and difficult month.

She said: “It is a great way to take some time out to think and reflect.”

She added: “Whether you do it alone, with friends, family or your furry companion, every step you take and pound you raise this winter helps Sue Ryder support people when it matters most.”

Sue Ryder offers a range of services from two sites across the area: Duchess of Kent Hospice, Liebenrood Road in Reading and its Palliative Care Hub in Wallingford. n For more information, visit: decemberdailydash.com

A FUNDRAISING Christmas Fair is being held later this month for the borough mayor’s charity of the year.

Chance to Dance Stars is hosting an indoor fair at Carnation Hall in Bracknell on Sunday, November 28.

It will run from noon until 4pm.

At the event will be a range of Christmas gifts including jewellery, candles, and soaps.

The free event will fundraise for the dance school, which teaches students with disabilities.

Wokingham borough mayor, Cllr Keith Baker said he is delighted to invite residents to the event.

“It’s the perfect opportunity to start your Christmas shopping early, while participating in the many fun activities Chance to Dance Stars have arranged, including Santa’s Grotto.

“I am looking forward to meeting as many Wokingham borough residents at the fair.”

Tickets must be booked in advance via Chance to Dance Stars’ Eventbrite booking website.

A Santa’s Grotto will be open at 12.20pm and 1.10pm. To purchase grotto tickets, email: sendanceclub@hotmail.com

For more, visit: Convention success for domestic abuse charity in Finchampstead

EXCLUSIVE

By LAURA SCARDARELLA news@wokingham.today

A DOMESTIC abuse charity hosted a special convention at the end of October, and founder Vickie Robertson said it was a “truly remarkable” day.

Finchampstead-based organisation Kaleidoscopic UK presented its Domestic Abuse Prevention Convention at the FBC Centre, on Thursday, October 21, as part of Domestic Abuse Awareness Month.

The annual event, on Gorse Ride North, aims to encourage more people to talk to each other about the issues surrounding domestic abuse.

Visitors were welcomed by BBC Radio Berkshire presenter Michelle Jordan patron of Kaleidoscopic UK.

Charity founder Vickie Robertson said: “We are so grateful to all who attended and took part, showing how vital it is we open up the conversations around domestic abuse, being trauma informed, and removing the taboo, barriers and victim blaming.

“We are delighted to be able to highlight the realities and keep victim survivors voices heard. Domestic abuse doesn’t happen once a year, it happens every second of every day and costs the economy around £74 billion a year.”

Guest speakers included Dr Jessica Taylor, Nicole Jacobs, Chris Green, Jennifer Gilmour, Lisa Lee, Jake Morrison, Karin Walker and more.

Miss Robertson added: “Thank you to Finchampstead Baptist Church for their continued support, for all the team at Kaleidoscopic UK, and the charities and services that want to work holistically and make a difference.” She also thanked Wokingham Borough Mayor Cllr Keith Baker, deputy Mayor Cllr Abdul Loyes and MP James Sunderland for their support on the day.

A remembrance tree was also created, including all the names of those killed this year so far due to domestic violence.

Wokingham borough mayor, Cllr Baker, said: “I am delighted that so many professionals and residents attended the Domestic Abuse Prevention Convention event run by Kaleidoscopic UK.

“The event was delivered

SUCCESS:

The convention was a remarkable day Pictures: courtesy of Vickie Robertson

Dance school hosts winter fair

by inspirational survivors and multi-agency professionals who highlighted signs of domestic abuse through a series of talks and videos and illustrated the help that is available to victims.

Cllr Baker added that domestic abuse is an important topic for the council.

He said: “We are reminding residents that support is available to all victims, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, faith, disability or financial situation.

“I would like to thank Kaleidoscopic UK for hosting this truly inspiring event and congratulate them on the excellent work they have done to raise awareness of domestic abuse within our borough.”

Information and support is available on the Wokingham Borough Council website. n For more details, log on to: kaleidoscopic.uk

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Executive to vote on local plan consultation

PLANS: Wokingham Borough Council is planning a consultation on new housing projects, a scheme called the Local Plan Update Picture: Phil Creighton

RESIDENTS’ views on the new draft of the Local Plan Update will be welcomed once the executive approves it at an extraordinary meeting held on Friday evening.

The consultation runs from Monday, November 22, through to January 17, and the council wants as many residents as possible to take part.

The council is organising a series of public meetings, both physical and virtual, where there will be presentations and a chance to ask questions.

The council is delivering information cards to every home in the borough.

“We’re suggesting a revised plan which reflects preferences expressed in earlier consultations for most new development to be focused in carefully planned major new communities, allowing suitable infrastructure to be provided,” it reads.

This was echoed by council leader John Halsall who said: “It is a real consultation.

“The first was well received and well responded to. Without the first, we would never have known about the Ministry of Defence’s objections to Grazeley.”

The first session, on Monday, November 22, takes place at St Crispin’s School in London Road, Wokingham.

On Tuesday, November 30, the venue will be the Arborfield Green Leisure Centre. Both these take place between 7pm and 9pm.

There are virtual sessions on Thursday, December 2, and Monday, December 6. These run from 6pm-7pm and 7.30pm-8.30pm. n For more details, log on to engage.wokingham. gov.uk

Hall Farm homes plan ‘dovetails nicely’ says council leader

By PHIL CREIGHTON pcreighton@wokingham.today

PROPOSALS for 4,500 homes at Hall Farm in Shinfield could become a reality if the new Draft Local Plan is adopted.

Tomorrow night, Wokingham Borough Council’s ruling executive committee will be asked to approve the public consultation on the second stage of the new plan, outlining where housing could go across the borough in future years.

Cllr John Halsall said that Hall Farm was being put forward “for a variety of cogent reasons, and it dovetails nicely with the investment we’re putting into jobs in that area”.

He added that developers would be required to put in appropriate infrastructure, if it goes ahead.

The Draft Local Plan would also help protect the borough from speculate developments.

“The vast majority of our borough is not protected land (such as green belt), therefore speculative development would increase the amount of housing that goes into the borough hugely,” he said. “By publishing a local plan and getting it accepted, that number is minimised.”

He added: “I think what we’re putting forward for consultation is a good compromise for all of the borough.

“We’ve tried to put housing sympathetically in the areas which have been promoted (as suitable for development) and are possible.”

One aspect of the new local plan is trying to allocate more than 70 areas as green spaces, which would help protect them from future projects.

“One of the benefits of development is that you can create green space which is accessible to the public,” Cllr Halsall said.

Hall Farm is, he said, “a very different development from that which was envisaged in Grazeley”, and would be “a bit more Wokingham than Grazeley would have been”.

He also hoped that the council would be able to encourage developers to make homes greener, and hoped that the Government would make it easier for homes to be greener in future.

“Our climate emergency is really based upon us doing as much as we possible can to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030,” he said. “We will never achieve it on our own.

“Current building guidance doesn’t encompass everything that we were hoping to do.

“After COP26, it should be easier to introduce those ideas into new bills. I’m pressing minsters very hard to go down that track.”

Cllr Halsall felt that another important reason for having the local plan in place was because Wokingham was a popular place for people to live.

“Pretty much all the housing is sold before it’s built,” he said. “We have people eager to come and work here.

“Building homes means meeting those needs.

“We have tried in our planning to ensure the right homes are built in the right places. We can’t micromanage developers, but we can influence what they build.”

Alongside this, he said, runs the council’s strategy to build more social and affordable housing.

The overarching desire with the local plan is, Cllr Halsall said, to keep residents at the forefront of everything.

“The only reason we’re here is to serve our residents, so this is a local plan that should enrich lives, protect our local and valued environments,” he said.

“We are getting better at conserving the countryside, playing a key role in maintaining biodiversity.

“We want the borough to feel like a healthier place because it will be a healthier place.”

Friday’s extraordinary executive meeting, which will be broadcast live on the council’s YouTube channel, was being held because the council wanted to get the consultation up and running as quickly as possible.

“The supporting documents have to be current,” Cllr Halsall said. “We had always envisaged that as soon as the work was done, we would have a special executive meeting, dedicated to one topic, a topic of extreme importance to the entire borough. We do the same for the budget.” n To watch the meeting, log on to Wokingham.gov.uk and search for meetings.

PLAN: Wokingham Borough Council leader John Halsall Picture: Stewart Turkington

Lib Dems welcome plans for 70 new green spaces

WOKINGHAM’S Liberal Democrats will be looking at the new draft local plan “very carefully” before making any in-depth comments and, like their Conservative counterparts, want to encourage residents to have their say.

On the proposal for 4,500 homes on Hall Farm, Lib Dem leader Cllr Clive Jones said: “It is called a garden village, the same description they had for Grazeley.

“There must be some sort of proposal like the one for Grazeley. We want to know what’s in it.”

He also wanted to see any developers behind the scheme paying for all infrastructure needed.

“We’re going to need a lot of new roads (to accommodate it),” he said. “There’s got to be a link to the M4, but we need to know who is paying for that – is it going to be Highways England, Wokingham Borough Council or the developer. Who is it?”

His deputy, Cllr Steven Conway, wanted to reassure residents that Wokingham did have a five-year land supply, which makes it harder for speculative developments to take place. This details the number of houses expected to be built per year over the five years.

The new draft local plan, which is due to go out to consultation, has come about after the rejected of a plan for garden town in Grazeley.

“We’re back where we were many, many months ago with a draft local plan. Basically, Grazeley derailed the process and has put it back a long time. We’re kind of where we were a couple of years ago.

“As far as I’m aware, we’re okay on the five-year land supply, we are not under threat, but the longer time goes on, the greater the risk gets.”

He also had concerns over the rate of housing that Wokingham borough is being forced to accept by the Government. The party feels it should be no more than 600 new homes a year, and that housing should be based on local need rather than projections of population growth.

“Numbers are still far too high,” Cllr Conway said. “We’re now at real risk of approving building in areas which are, at the moment, not in flood risk areas but in a few years most definitely will be if current trends continue.

“All the projections looking ahead suggest we’re going to have an extension of floodplain.

“There is a serious issue here not just about the overall numbers and the impact on local infrastructure, and whether we can accommodate the numbers that have been talked about without it having a significant impact on flood risk in many areas.”

He added: “Every new build upstream on the Loddon Valley has a really significant impact downstream. We already have some really quite severe flood incidents in the borough and these will be made worse if ‘were actually continue down this route of building lots and lots more houses in areas that, in the future, are going to be a prime risk, either flooding or displacing significant amounts of water so that other areas flood.

“I’m very concerned about this.”

Cllr Conway felt that areas at risk could include Charvil and Ruscombe.

“This is going to be quite a serious problem in the lifetime of the local plan and I’m very concerned we’re not really addressing it. It seems as though the council is blindly proceeding without much reference to the very likely risk of much greater flooding in the future, if all this housing is approved and built.”

The Lib Dems did want to highlight the local plan’s desire to protect some parts of the borough.

“The good thing the local plan is doing is saying we need to designate over 70 areas as green space,” said Cllr Jones. “That is really good news because it gives those precious green spaces some protection.”