By Cllr Clive Jones
Partnership is the key theme of the new administration at Wokingham Borough Council.
It pervades our approach to all that we do, but this week I want to highlight its importance to reducing the housing numbers that the Conservative government has imposed on the borough.
Everyone recognises that some new housing is required. The local demand is mainly for affordable and social housing and we must do all we can to increase the quantity available for those who are priced out of the market.
Such housing is desperately needed as more and more people are being made homeless and waiting lists for council accommodation get longer.
But if we want to increase the proportion of affordable and social homes in our housing mix, we strongly believe that the total number of new homes the government expect the council to approve over the next local plan period is far too high.
We will work in partnership with anyone who will help us make the case to central government for a reduction in the quantity of new housing that government has decided we should take.
We will make common cause with councils facing the same situation as we are in – regardless of those council’s politics. The same is true of MPs. We will work with parliamentarians of any party who are willing to help us.
Productive meetings have already taken place with two of the borough’s four MPs – Sir John Redwood and James Sunderland. Meetings have been arranged with the others – Theresa May and Matt Rodda.
The MPs that we have met so far have been very open to working together. We may differ on many things, but we share a desire to persuade the government to reduce the housing allocation for Wokingham Borough. I am hopeful that Theresa May and Matt Rodda will be equally amenable to working together on a subject on which we are all agreed.
Similar efforts, some will say, have been made before, but to no avail. But there are new circumstances that give grounds for optimism.
The government is about to review its planning policies that determine where housing is allocated. We see this is an opportunity to demonstrate that the method used to calculate how many new homes should be allocated to Wokingham Borough is seriously flawed and needs to be changed. Wokingham is in effect being punished for taking more than it was asked to provide in the past; that over-provision has now led the government to assume that we can take the same amount – and more – in the future.
We also see the government’s levelling-up agenda as an opportunity. If it means anything, it must surely mean investment in areas of the north left out in the past.
There are large parts of the old industrial heartlands of the north that are crying out for redevelopment, including new housing. It must make more sense to encourage new housing to go where it is needed rather than cram more and more into the already overcrowded and congested south east.
