Wokingham Borough Council has been patting itself on the back this week for completing a cycleway on Woodlands Avenue in Woodley that residents made clear they were unhappy with.
Previous consultations had resulted in 74% of respondents saying they were opposed to designs put forward in 2022. As Executive Member for Highways at the time, I decided to listen to residents, cancelled the scheme as it stood, and sent the Highways department away to think again.
The Liberal Democrat administration elected that year decided to press on regardless. They changed designs and held another consultation. More people opposed the new proposals for Woodlands Avenue than supported it and 69% of residents rejected the proposal for a 20mph speed limit. Despite all this, the Liberal Democrats approved revised designs in 2025, and work got underway.
The delivery of the cycleway since then has been nothing short of chaotic. Residents have endured months of disruption. Dropped kerbs outside individual homes that the owners paid for have been replaced with a different type of kerb – so steep builders used a ramp to move a wheelbarrow! Other new raised kerbs have repeatedly damaged car tyres.
A temporary pedestrian crossing has narrowed the width of the pavement, meaning wheelchair users can’t get past. A crossing for Woodley precinct has also been blocked off. Changes to road markings, while consistent with design principles, have not been properly explained to residents and have caused confusion.
The cycleway is a symptom of everything that’s wrong with the Council’s Liberal Democrat administration. Whenever an opportunity presents itself to ask residents what they think, if a consultation doesn’t produce the answer the Liberal Democrats want, they simply ignore the outcome.
We’ve seen it with development across the Borough, particularly at Hall Farm, where residents’ opposition was ignored.
We saw it when the Council scrapped weekly bin collection and hiked parking charges, despite residents being opposed.
Back in March, Conservative councillors put down a motion to require the Council to properly take into account the responses given by residents in consultations. The Council would have needed to either not proceed with a proposal opposed by the majority of residents in a consultation, or else clearly set out why it wasn’t possible to follow residents’ stated preference. Instead, the Liberal Democrats and Labour voted it down.
Residents need a Council that listens to them. They are not getting it from the Liberal Democrats.
P.S. – It doesn’t seem like the Labour Government is listening either, despite ditching a Prime Minister seen as out-of-touch. While the country is crying out for more decision-making at a local level, the Government is instead taking it away. They’re abolishing councils and creating ones over much larger areas, meaning decisions will be made much further away from communities. They are also removing the ability of councillors to refer planning applications to committee meaning faceless officials will decide.
Their latest so-called ‘devolution’ idea is to allow regional mayors to override local councils on planning applications for large developments. This will mean that big urban areas can force swathes of housing on semi-rural areas like Wokingham Borough, against our will.
The Conservatives are strongly opposed this. So far, the Liberal Democrats have been pushing to have a regional mayor who could force these kinds of decisions on our Borough. They should withdraw their support if they are serious about protecting our area from over-development.
By Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
