24 Winter 2018
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What has developer funding actually done? As our Borough grows from the new homes being built to meet the housing need, the developers are also making a huge investment to specifically build and enhance schools, roads, sports facilities and do other local improvements.
• Five substantial new roads, including a bridge over the M4 motorway and another over the Wokingham to Waterloo railway line • Significant improvements to the cycle network and ‘greenway’ bridleways that improve connectivity across the Borough
We insist that this developer funding, also known as Section 106, is at the core any new large housing development coming to the Wokingham Borough.
• Two new park and rides
This financial input amounts to about £500million worth of infrastructure (or £1billion if affordable homes are included), with significant funding coming from Section 106 as well as more recently the Community Infrastructure Levy. We are now bringing in about £40,000 per home built – a tenfold increase compared to eight years ago. The major communities currently being built across the Borough have also attracted other funding from Homes England, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Department for Transport, and the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership.
This funding has so far (or will) pay for:
• Seven new primary schools as well as Bohunt School Wokingham, which is now open. And in September the developer in the new north Wokingham community handed over the site to us where the new Matthewsgreen primary school will be built
Greenway
• Seven new community centres, including one at Matthewsgreen (see above) • Three new sports hubs (see page 27), as well as improvements at Cantley Park • Nearly 90 hectares of new public open space, play areas and parks have already been opened to the public (see page 27)
Bohunt School Wokingh
Executive View Cllr Simon Weeks, Executive Member for Planning and Enforcement “We make sure that we get the maximum amount of S106 and Community Infrastructure Levy to spend on the right infrastructure. And if the funding isn’t yet in place, we sometimes fund a project ourselves to make sure it’s in place when people need it, and then recoup that cost from the developer.”
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As well as these large scale projects, developer contributions have also been used for: • Primary school expansions across the Borough • Improvements at Dinton Pastures Country Park and California Country Park (page 18) • Replacing tired and old equipment at St Crispin’s Skate Park
