FROM THE LEADER: Moving in the right direction?

By Cllr Clive Jones

Many residents will know that reducing numbers of new houses imposed on Wokingham Borough Council has been a priority for the Liberal Democrat administration that took over the running of the council in May last year.

My first action as leader of the council was to write to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up who has responsibility for housing policy, and the creation of the housing numbers that council must build every year.

Currently our housing number is just under 800 new homes in the borough every year. This is broadly the same number that it has been for several years, except for a few months when a consultation from a former Secretary of State put the number up to 1,600 a year.

It should be remembered these are housing numbers that are forced on Wokingham by the Conservative government.

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In my letter to the Secretary of State, I suggested that the government allows past overprovision of housing to be considered when looking ahead at a future local plan.

This was also included in the Council’s response to the government’s recent consultation on housing numbers which closed on March 2.

There have been indications the government were considering accepting this suggestion, this was mentioned as a very strong likelihood at recent meeting that I attended of council leaders from across the country.

At a recent Planning Inquiry, the Inspector rejected a developers appeal against the council’s decision not to approve 200 new houses in Hurst. This was a combined action by the council, Hurst Parish Council and many local residents.

It shows what can happen when we all work in partnership together.

One of the reasons for the rejection was that developers building in the Borough have been oversupplying new homes in recent years. This change of approach from a Planning Inspector could signify that the government may be about to change the rules on how housing numbers are calculated.

If this were to happen it will be a big victory for councils such as Wokingham, particularly in the south east where we have already taken large number of houses over the last few years.

Wokingham Borough has grown by more than 15% in population since 2011, one of the highest increases in the country. This change could see up to 2,000 fewer houses built in our area over the next 15 years.

This would help protect our green spaces and enable our area to develop in a more structured way.

I am hopeful that there will be a government announcement soon that housing numbers in Wokingham can be reduced.

If there is no such announcement, we must not forget that it’s the Conservative government that is forcing Wokingham to take so much new housing, destroying our greenfields forever.

We, of course, still have a need to provide new homes, and we shall focus on meeting the needs of our community.

In this difficult time, we shall be pressing for more affordable one-, two- and three-bedroom properties to support our local families, plus provide one- and two- bedroom bungalows to enable our older community to stay in this area. The latter approach would then free up the larger family homes, with less need to build on our green spaces.

Cllr Clive Jones is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council and Lib Dem ward member for Hawkedon