The public has been invited to help shape the master plan for thousands of homes between Shinfield and Arborfield.
Bold strides are being made towards the formation of a new community south of the M4 in Reading, after a first planning application was submitted in October.
The first part of the ‘Loddon Valley’ Garden Village’will be built on Hall Farm in Arborfield and is expected to include 2,800 homes out of 3,900 in total.
The homes will include up to 100 custom and self-build plots with two primary schools with early years provision, one secondary school, a district centre, a local centre, a sports hub with sports pitches and pavilion space.
But the new community is between three different ownerships and there will be a different planning application for each one.
Yesterday, Wokingham borough council leader, Cllr Stephen Conway, signed off a public consultation for their strategic design code to attempt to give an architectural consistency to the buildings.
He said: “It’s effectively a master plan to provide what the council thinks is necessary to ensure a high quality and successful new development.
“We’re establishing the principles to create a healthy and successful new community.”
Cllr Conway is an enthusiast for creating what he calls a country park within Loddon Valley Garden Village.
He said: “It’s a big area with lots of space for preserving green spaces. In reality we’ve been able to preserve lots of green areas.”
Within the site, a large academic institution which owns great swathes of land is expected to retain ownership of the ‘Eco Valley’ – a large country park within the Garden Village.
Meanwhile Wokingham Conservative opposition leader Pauline Jorgensen attended a public meeting about the development in Shinfield at the weekend, and presented an analysis of how access to the community would affect the surrounding road network.
She said: “I am interested to see that the council are planning to take the strategic design code for the Hall Farm development to public consultation.
“I hope that the Lib Dems will consider the response to their proposals carefully, rather than simply dismissing them as they did with the woodlands avenue cycleway.”
