More than 2,000 extra homes have been built across the borough than needed, the council has said. But it warns government rules will force it to allow even more than required.
Wokingham Borough councillor in charge of planning Lindsay Ferris said the houses had been built ‘over and above our requirements since 2006′.
He said he’d hoped that the government would take oversupply into account when updating rules on how many homes councils had to supply.
But Cllr Ferris said that despite hints and teasers from the government, that won’t happen. When secretary of state for housing Michael Gove announced updates in December, he said the government would only make those changes ‘in due course.’
It means Wokingham Borough Council must allow however many houses an algorithm devised by the government says it must.
Cllr Ferris said: “Little has changed. As before the government will tell councils how many councils how many houses should be built through an unchanged algorithm.
“This means we cannot take account of the near additional 2,000 homes that have been delivered over and above our requirement since 2006.”
Cllr Ferris had been waiting for the government’s announcement before pressing ahead with a new ‘local plan’ for Wokingham Borough Council. This sets out where the council thinks development should take place in the borough over 15 years, meeting targets set by the government.
But he also said the new local plan would designate 13 ‘valued landscapes’ in the borough that could be protected from development. He said it could be ‘a very useful and innovative way of I believe protecting areas for the future’.
He made the comments at a meeting of Wokingham Borough Council’s ruling executive on Thursday, January 25.
