THE GOVERNMENT’S ongoing delays to publishing guidance over the future of planning rules for local councils is hindering progress of Wokingham council’s local plan update.
The document is a requirement as it allocates potential housing sites in the borough for a set period of time, in this case up to 2036.
The previous administration ran a consultation on its first drafts, which had to be withdrawn due to the Ministry of Defence vetoing a proposal to build a garden town in Grazeley. It had not published the results of its second consultation before the change of leadership in the council last May.
Cllr Charles Margetts (Con, Finchampstead North) wanted to know when the timetable for the new local plan would be published.
“As you will be aware that government is consulting on changes to the national planning policy, I cautiously welcomed some of the government’s proposals. However, it is important that we reflect on this before agreeing a revised programme for the local plan,” said Cllr Lindsay Ferris, the executive member for planning and the local plan.
“We continue to work on this so we are ready to push forward as soon as a national picture becomes clearer.”
Cllr Margetts responded by saying his ward has seen a number of planning applications which the council had, historically, been able to defend but now officers were recommending approval or appeals had been lost.
“My concern is that this position of things not moving forward, except for the background work, to the next stage of consultation is making this easier for sites to be developed which the council has historically fought against,” he said.
“What protection can you give in the short term?”
Cllr Ferris reminded Cllr Margetts that under the previous administration, he had organised a petition calling on the Conservatives to drop Rooks Nest from the local plan.
“We are only doing what residents requested, and looking at the objections made by people across the borough. It is what we promised to do: listen to the objections, ask the officers to see if there are any better options,” he continued.
“We lost the five-year-land supply (which protected the borough from speculative development) on February 18. 2-2022, three months before I took on the role.
“If the government proposals as they currently stand come into force in April, then overprovision (of housing) is taken into account … ours is calculated at 1,700.”
A second benefit is removing the housing buffer, which would reduce the housing allocation by 40 homes per year, or 500 over the lifetime of the local plan.
“The current proposal works on 780 dwellings a year, if we are able to get what I’ve just mentioned, we will have around about a figure of closer to 600, if not below,” he said. “I think it is worth fighting to have a local plan which is 2,200 plus lower than the original plan that was put together 12 months ago…
“I think it is 10 times better for us to have a local plan which is a much lower figure because of these proposals.”
He encouraged Cllr Margetts and his Conservative colleagues to lobby MPs to ensure the revised housing plan is passed by parliament.
Cllr Margetts responded by saying: “I’ve been lobbying my MP for about five, six years on these issues. You will not find any fight from me on that point.”
Cllr Jones quipped: “Has he listened?” before moving on to the next question.
