Last week’s Full Council meeting exposed the full extent of just how much Wokingham Borough’s Liberal Democrat administration has been misleading residents about housing development. After more than two years in power, the Liberal Democrats have apparently only now decided they can’t change the draft Local Plan – despite having asked people to vote for them so they would change the sites.
At the Full Council meeting on 25th July, the Leader of the Council, Cllr Stephen Conway, claimed that he had received verbal legal advice that it would not be possible to remove a site for the draft plan for future development. I immediately challenged this, reading the advice from the Council’s Monitoring Officer stating that a change in strategy could be made if further consultation takes place.
Rather than accepting this, the Liberal Democrat Leader continued to refer to a later stage of consultation, known as ‘Regulation 19’. He ranted about how he was being accused of lying. However, I pointed out that he said that “exceptional circumstances” were required for changes – before changing this later on to say the Plan would not change “unless circumstances materially change, unless evidence comes forward that the Plan, the draft Plan is unsound, or has failed to take proper account of certain circumstances”. In short, he admitted that it was possible to make changes after all.
Why does this all matter? Because the statement by the Leader of the Council is both confused and completely undermines everything the Liberal Democrats previously told residents.
Firstly, despite his bluster, the Leader later admitted that the advice I’d received was correct, that it is difficult, but possible, to change the Local Plan based on further consultation and evidence. The Liberal Democrats are trying to convince residents that the draft Local Plan is somehow ‘locked in’, and they’re powerless to change it. But it’s simply not true. They’re trying to hide behind a consultation process that can seem complicated, even to councillors with years of experience in planning – obscuring the truth that the power is still very much in their hands.
There’s also a bigger point about honesty with local people. The Liberal Democrat Leader stood in the chamber and said he hoped parties would not ‘promise what is undeliverable’. But promising the undeliverable is precisely what the Liberal Democrats did in order to get into office. Residents were told to vote for the Liberal Democrats on the grounds that they would change the Local Plan.
As recently as February this year Liberal Democrats were putting out leaflets proclaiming, “your Lib Dem council is” followed by a series of bullet points that ended with “setting out our plans for house-building and development, to replace the Local Plan that expires in 2026.”
The same leaflet also said, “The Lib Dems want housing that meets local needs, more affordable housing, and more green spaces protected from development”
So, they told residents the Lib Dem run council was working on a plan.
Now, suddenly, the Liberal Democrats are claiming that they can’t do it. You have to ask why, when Wokingham Borough has been under threat from speculative development and the Liberal Democrats were supposedly making the Local Plan a priority, they waited two years after taking power before they sought this legal advice.
First the Liberal Democrats misled residents by claiming they would change the sites. Then they are trying to mislead them again by wrongly claiming that they can’t change the Local Plan. It’s yet another example of the Liberal Democrats trying to pull the wool over residents’ eyes to avoid making tough decisions and avoid taking responsibility.
Where does that leave us? It appears that there’s little chance the administration will listen to residents and change course, especially based on past experience. That means two Liberal Democrat Council Leaders, including the current MP for Wokingham, have broken their promises.
While the Liberal Democrats remain the largest party on the Council, kept in power by Labour councillors, this is not going to change. But your Conservative councillors will continue to fight as best we can to change the approach on the Local Plan. We’ve already made clear that we wouldn’t include Hall Farm, and we will carry on representing the views of residents who want a Local Plan with a sustainable number of homes in the right locations.
Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives
