These last few weeks have seen encouraging developments in several projects that Wokingham Borough Council is pursuing.
The Gorse Ride redevelopment scheme in Finchampstead aims to deliver new high-quality Affordable Housing, which is desperately needed in the borough. The first families have started to move into the newly constructed properties, and after visiting them recently, I can say that the homes are impressively designed, well built, and will be cheaper to heat than most older dwellings.
The project is a great example of partnership working between the council, its tenants, and the builders. A steering group of residents, councillors, and council officers has overseen the project and been involved in the decision making. As Affordable Housing is in my portfolio of responsibilities, I feel proud to be in post when (thanks to the hard work of others) this important community project starts to deliver the results we have hoped for many years to see.
Last week, I visited another new council housing scheme, this time in Woodley. Much smaller in scale – just one dwelling – it provides supported living for three young disabled residents. The scheme is the product of a partnership between the council’s housing department and the council’s adult services directorate. Adult services need accommodation for disabled people to enable them to live more independent lives and the most economical way to provide that accommodation is through council-owned housing.
From my point of view, one of the great pluses of the scheme, besides the improved quality of life that it will bring to the residents, is the creative working together of different parts of the council to address a corporate priority. The siloed thinking of the past is being replaced by a much more joined-up approach to help meet needs in our community.
Later in the same week, I saw the new planting at the Covid Memorial Wood, in the south of the borough. The idea of a woodland to commemorate those who lost their lives in the pandemic originated with Clive Jones (now Wokingham’s MP), who argued for a memorial wood while an opposition councillor. When the Lib Dems took the lead on the council in May 2022, we reviewed the draft Local Plan that we had inherited, and the then executive member for Planning, Lindsay Ferris, decided that the council-owned land at Rooks Nest Farm, allocated for 250 new houses in the draft Local Plan, should instead be the site of the Covid Memorial Wood. Thanks to funding from the Woodland Trust, the Covid Memorial Wood’s new trees have come at no cost to the local taxpayer.
The wood will help the council with its Climate Emergency Action Plan ambitions, by increasing canopy cover in the borough, and will at the same time provide a place of quiet contemplation for those who lost a loved one to Covid.
It was a great pleasure to visit the newly planted woodland with Clive, Adrian Mather, the borough mayor, a representative from the Woodland Trust, and one of the council’s tree officers. It will take some time, of course, for the trees to mature, but we could see that the planting had been well laid out with pathways and open spaces between the areas of trees. It will be a wonderful oasis of calm in a turbulent world.
Cllr Stephen Conway is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council
