Following on from the comparison of Green and Labour manifestos last week and Liberal Democrat and Conservative manifestos the week before, this week gives a similar treatment to the policies from the three Independent candidates in Arborfield, Norreys and Shinfield.
However, before anyone starts “chuntering from a sedentary position” with dark mutterings about “partisan bias”, they’re not the only candidates, so here’s a reminder of everyone standing in those three wards, presented in alphabetic order by surname, with the incumbent’s name in bold:
Arborfield: Gary Cowan (Ind), David Edmunds (Con), Christopher Everett (Lab).
Norreys: Rachel Burgess (Lab), Philip Cunnington (Ind), David Lee (Con), Morgan Rise (Lib Dem)
Shinfield South: James Frewin (Ind), Christopher Johnson (Lib Dem), Marcus McDowell (Lab), Barrie Patman (Con).
House Building
Ind Arbor: Don’t destroy the green-ness of the borough and limit the level of new housing being built to 661 per annum up to 2026. Challenge the Grazeley proposals for 15,000 houses, also the University of Reading’s proposals for large scale development. Rescind the formal agreement to cooperate with neighbouring councils.
Ind Norreys: Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) needs to be stronger
in managing quality of delivery from all developers at all stages – from pre-planning through to hand over.
Ind Shinfield: Provide infrastructure before building more houses and support smaller developments from local builders and residents by providing proactive help for them.
Social Housing
Ind Arbor: WBC to build affordable houses on council owned land rather than use it for other developments.
Ind Norreys: Implement some basic maintenance for WBC’s older stock of council houses. Councillors should be providing “avenues to assistance” for less well off residents.
Ind Shinfield: Push for transparency of social housing needs and action, together with a policy of using existing empty buildings to support social needs where appropriate.
Regeneration
Ind Arbor: Keep the market town identity of Wokingham separate from Reading and Bracknell by e.g. niche shops (like Marlow).
Ind Norreys: WBC needs to remember that regeneration isn’t only about Wokingham Town Centre. Some parts of it need to be paused and allowed to bed in.
Ind Shinfield: Improve WBC project management so that it delivers to promise. Make local engagement meaningful for regeneration projects and support local businesses that are directly impacted.
Roads & Traffic
Ind Arbor: More roads, more car parking and more public transport – but not at the expense of car travel. Improve the measurement of emissions and create action plans toward Low Emissions Zones.
Ind Norreys: Reduce congestion around the borough by taking a lead in managing how, when and where new roads get developed, together with better planned roadworks for existing roads.
Ind Shinfield: Stop multiple digging up of the same bit of road and reduce traffic disruption. Deal with highways repairs before they become safety issues.
Environment & Leisure
Ind Arbor: Challenge the gravel extraction and cement production at Bridge Farm and its environmental damage. Work out a way in which Planning doesn’t end up trumping Tree Protection Orders.
Ind Norreys: Ensure that drainage on existing roads and new developments are better thought out. Tackle the causes of fly tipping and inappropriate waste disposal. Cease the continued destruction of mature and veteran trees.
Ind Shinfield: Improve water and flood management across the borough and support residents and businesses being impacted. Reduce fly tipping by making recycling and rubbish disposal easier with lower/no waste tip charges.
Schools & Education
Ind Arbor: WBC staff to keep Councillors informed of schools in their wards.
Ind Norreys: Improve children’s chances to get to school safely. Change the attitude and approach on the way in which schools are run and managed.
Ind Shinfield: Improve schools infrastructure and minimise trip distance to and from schools with better choice for parents.
Health & Care
Ind Arbor: Major development sites MUST have proper medical, fitness and health facilities. Developer contributions for a site should not be transferred for the betterment of medical facilities in other places.
Ind Norreys: Ensure appropriate care is given in a timely and efficient manner and provide better interaction between schools, parents and CAMHS for early intervention when children first show signs of anxiety, depression etc. Also, make better use of Healthwatch and voluntary organisations locally to improve family and community wellbeing.
Ind Shinfield: Review care policies to seek how best to encourage care at home while reviewing how care costs are recovered, to reduce the impact on life savings, family stress and the public purse.
Finance & Fairness
Ind Arbor: Represent residents to the council and its officers, not the other way round as instructed in the past. Large scale spending should be approved by full council, not a small group.
Ind Norreys: Scale the grand schemes back to what the borough can actually afford.
Ind Shinfield: Change WBC culture with Councillors as well as staff. Move to a ‘we do what we say and we deliver when we promise’ style in order to improve resident and community engagement. Communicate openly and engage with residents at all times, not just at election time.
The Last Word
There’s a mix of good news, not so good news, and downright stinky news this week.
For us all, the good news is that “that’s all folks” – we’ve now compared all the main policies for the Conservative, Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, along with the three Independents.
So if anything is unclear, or if you want to find out more about a particular manifesto, you can read all about it in one place because The Wokingham Paper is making everything easy to access at www.wokinghampaper.co.uk/manifestos
The website will also, over the coming days, start producing webpages for each ward in this election, detailing each of the candidates and how previous votes went.
And on the night, we’ll be working through the night to bring you the results as they happen, plus interviews, reaction and analysis.
For some, the not so good news is that you can only vote for a party or an individual if they’re standing in your ward.
For the politicians, the downright stinky news is that the choice is yours on May 3.
