Wokingham Borough Council is in the middle of putting its next Local Plan together to cover housing numbers through to the year 2036. I thought I would raise a number of issues and concerns which I feel readers might be interested in. I plan to raise other issues in due course.
The first point I raise is the Housing Numbers associated with the current Local Plan.
These were initially derived in February 2016 by a group of people, none of us know who, and since then the figure has changed slightly (both up and down) from an initial 856 homes per annum to a figure now around 790 homes per annum.
The problem with this is that there has been no local input and when anyone dares raise their concern about the figures involved, we are just told in effect ” to take it or leave it – You have to work with it”.
This figure is an increase in housing of circa 15,000 until 2036 and represents an increase of over 20% on our current number of properties.
No one is opposing the need to new homes in our area, particularly affordable homes, but no one has been able to advise why we have a potential increase of 20%, when the national projection for increase in population is only circa 5-6% during this same timeframe.
The second relates to Climate Change.
While we accept that there is a national policy and framework around which a local plan is developed, we believe it is deficient when it comes to Climate Change and associated issues.
As an area we are being expected to take an increase in population of circa 20% at the same time, as a country and locally (via the Council’s Climate Emergency), we are expected to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and head towards Carbon Neutrality.
A Local Plan that adds an extra 20% to its housing numbers means that the Borough needs to make an even greater reduction just to keep to the current levels, when it is already necessary to make cuts in the current figure. This makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to achieve our targets.
Surely any new Local Plan should have detailed sections in it to explain the position arising from the current Housing Numbers. I have asked many questions on this topic and, while it is acknowledged it is an issue, I have not seen any response to a situation where a new Local Plan ends up increasing CO2 emissions and air pollution.
We believe there needs to be some form of adjustment to the Plan to prevent a new local Plan being developed which is detrimental to the local area.
In other words, why develop a new local plan when it is known it would cause serious detrimental damage to the local area.
The third relates to biodiversity. It has recently been identified that in the UK over the past 200 years since the start of the Industrial Revolution, our wonderful Nature, (also known as biodiversity) has dropped by 47%.
This means we have lost nearly one half of our natural habitat, wildlife, insects, and the like during this period. As the World average is a drop of 25%, it shows that the UK is already more depleted than most parts of the World. Instead of further depletion which comes with excessive housing development, we urgently need to increase our biodiversity.
While we acknowledge there are proposals to plant up to 250,000 new trees in the Borough over the next 10 years, other types of habitats also need to be increased.
Again, this is in direct opposition to the building of so many additional homes. So how do we square the circle if there is no flexibility within the process?
There needs to be a clear message from the Council on this topic.
Cllr Lindsay Ferris is the Lib Dem lead on the Local Plan at Wokingham Borough Council and ward member for Twyford
