With a week to go until polling stations open for the local elections, JESS WARREN meets the three main party leaders in Wokingham to find out their views on the future of the borough. You can watch her interviews at wokingham.today/vote2021

AHEAD of the local elections next week, the leaders of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour answered key questions across five topic areas.

You can watch their responses in our leader interviews on our website, just log on to wokingham.today/vote2021

Cllr John Halsall, current leader of the council and leader of the Conservative group, said his key ambition for the borough is preserving and enhancing “the best in our community, and environment, and improving the quality of life of all who live here”.

Cllr Lindsay Ferris of the Wokingham Lib Dems said his aim is to put greater focus on providing services that are “value for money for the residents”, rather than “racking up great big borrowing levels”.

He said: “We don’t think the finances of the council have been looked after properly, we’re very concerned about the borrowing the council is going to be taking.”

Cllr Andy Croy from Wokingham Labour said he is “under no illusion” that Labour can’t take control of the borough council following the local elections, but said his party could provide a “genuine opposition” to the leading group.

He said: “We’re in a heavily Conservative area, and I think there is a sense that there are other voices in the community and other schools of thought that just aren’t being heard in council which need to be reflected in local decision making.”

WATCH: Each leader’s individual interview conducted by Jess Warren, ahead of the local elections

Local elections issue: Environment and Climate Emergency

In 2019, Wokingham Borough Council declared a climate emergency, under the Conservative leadership.

This included setting a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Cllr Halsall said: “This council commits to playing as full a role as possible [to reduce emissions]”.

The council should lead by example, he said, but cannot do it alone.

“What we’re doing at the WBC is planting hundreds of thousands of trees,” he said.

“We’re using alternative energy, including solar power, driving up the level of recycling, helping to eliminate the single-use plastics and protecting as much green space across the borough.

“We can build housing with the latest energy saving technology and materials, and facilitate electric vehicles and work with schools to get the message across. But there’s much more we can do.”

He described the climate emergency as a “dynamic agenda” that will develop over time, with some issues taking more precedence.

Cllr Croy said: “We have tried to persuade and to encourage the Conservatives to have a citizen’s assembly on the climate emergency.

“We think the decisions that we need to make about how we live are so radical and so far reaching that there’s a danger they will become politicised – you need to take politicians out of this equation.”

He said this is one of the Labour group’s biggest priorities this year, and wants to bring the idea back, after it was rejected during a council debate.

“The climate emergency plan has never ever been good enough. And that’s why we voted against it, we refuse to vote for something that isn’t going to do what it says on the tin,” he added.

Cllr Ferris said the Conservatives had “moved projects into the climate change area to give the impression the council is doing a lot on climate change”.

He said: “We are concerned that if the message given from the council is ‘we’re doing really good job’, then the public will think that we are and if in five years’ time, it turns out that we haven’t done what we really need to do, we will have even harder job to move forward.”

He said more progress needs to be made on “carbon negativity”, with actions to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

“We need to do much better,” he added. “I don’t think people realise how close we are to that tipping point. And we really do need to have that urgency.”

Closer to the everyday lives of residents, all three leaders were questioned over the decision to replace black recycling boxes with plastic sacks, in a move to boost recycling rates.

Cllr Halsall said the plan didn’t involve a borough-wide consultation, due to the timeframe decisions needed to be made in.

“We were faced with a huge problem of wet waste, which was costing the borough many hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time when our finances were very stretched and coping with covid,” he said. “There’s always decisions made which do not require consultation.”

Cllr Croy said the decision making process was “typical of the Conservatives”.

“There are big issues, in terms of the ability of people who have limited functioning in the arms and the fingers to open and close the bags and to use the bags.

“A proper consultation would have established this – we cannot have a system where because people are unable to use the green bags then their recycling is not being picked up.

Cllr Ferris said “imposing” something on residents is “not a way to run a council”.

He said: “The green bags are the classic example of what not to do at the council. Not only did they not consult, they didn’t even have a business case put together to work out how much these bags would cost and what the replacement proposals were.

“The green bags are just an example of how poorly managed and run the council is in certain areas.”

Local elections issue: Housing and Planning

When it comes to housebuilding, Cllr Halsall said his vision is to ensure the borough “retains the mix of residents that it has historically had”.

“It is fundamental to the local plan that the houses that we’re building will skew towards smaller units for first time buyers, and for downsizing.

“We’re also building some 1,000 council homes in the next four years, which will be rental properties.”

Resident concerns over housing numbers often include worries about a lack of infrastructure to support a growing population. This includes services such as GPs.

Cllr Halsall said the council has to be “realistic” about what it can and cannot influence.

He said: “We configured strategic development locations with medical centres. But the CCGs and the other health bodies decided they didn’t want to do that.

“So really wasn’t within our remit – and we can’t affect that.”

Cllr Ferris said there needs to be greater priority in building roads to support the housing developments.

“We saw the disaster of how things were done in 2017, 2018 and 2019, with all the long queues – there was no full thought as to how the work was to be done.

“It’s got to be done properly.”

Cllr Croy was also focused on roads.

He said: “We would like to move to a system where the council is much more proactive in putting some infrastructure in ahead development.

“It’s no good approving houses and then getting the money for the roads – you need to put the roads in first.

House prices and affordable housing were also of concern to party leaders.

Cllr Ferris said: “Our manifesto for 2019 was called Homes For Local People and we think that instead of the developers just building three-, four- and five-bedroom properties, we need the properties that local people need.”

He placed an emphasis on social and affordable housing that caters to the population.

“It is important to focus on local people,” he said. “Because if we just have the houses built and it’s four- and five-bedroom properties, people move into the borough from other parts of the country.

“That means that we get extra people coming into the borough, but we still haven’t managed to provide homes for those local people who can’t afford to get onto the ladder.”

Cllr Croy said the system of housing is based on a premise of profit from others.

“This is why we support a massive increase in the amount of council houses we build,” he said. “Because we think growing up in a council house, and having your first home as a council house, should be a normal part of moving through life.

“If you then decide that while you’re living in that house, you want to save up your deposit and move into the private sector – that’’s absolutely fine. But we can’t have private sector landlords being subsidised by taxpayers via the housing benefit and the Universal Credit system because that’s what we have at the moment.”

Cllr Halsall was questioned over the decision not to include affordable housing in the council project at Carnival Pool.

He said the one example was “unreasonable” to cite, when the current local plan calls for 40% affordable housing.

“Each development has to be taken on its own merits,” he said.

But Cllr Croy said it sent the wrong message to developers. And Cllr Ferris said it told developers they could “do what they like”.

“It gives a completely wrong message to developers,” Cllr Ferris added.

“I thought it was an absolute disgrace, and my colleagues who were on the council at the time have shouted that loud and clear for many years.”

Local elections issue: Regeneration and Business

Outside of Wokingham town, Cllr Halsall said the council could “establish some regeneration” in Twyford and Woodley if desired.

“There is a public perception that all the money goes to Wokingham town, and nothing goes to Woodley, Earley or Twyford, but this is far from the true during this administration.

“In Woodley alone, in two years we’ve invested £30 million plus, we’ve built the £14 million leisure centre and protected the town centre by purchasing the freehold of Waitrose for £10 million and various smaller town centre projects.”

He said the council has also invested £20 million in a new library for Twyford, purchased “two major stores” and is working to improve the air quality.

He added: “We are in a position where in both Woodley and Twyford, we could establish some regeneration, should that be desired.”

Cllr Croy said Bulmershe Leisure Centre and Addington School projects are “not a gift from the Conservatives”.

He said: The fact is these were going to happen anyway. These are part of the normal provision of borough services for all the residents in the borough, not for people in a particular area.”

He added: “[In Woodley] the only piece of development that we’ve seen, that can be considered an attempt at regeneration has been this little wall that they’ve built in the town centre to try and stop people walking on paving stones.

“This wall cost £66,000 and it came out of the highways budget.”

Cllr Ferris said Woodley town centre needs some “serious work”.

“We would have to find the appropriate resources and finance to do work on the Woodley town centre and to a lesser extent on the Twyford area,” he said.

“It would be a significant priority for the Liberal Democrat group to do something to improve that area.”

Local elections issue: Children, Health and Wellbeing

When asked whether there was a link between antisocial behaviour and a lack of youth services, all three councillors felt there was.

Cllr Halsall questioned whether “traditional’ youth services, such as clubs were what young residents of the borough wanted.

“I’m not sure the youth centre model fits today,” he said. “I was a pioneer in ensuring the survival of the Twyford youth centre. And while we’ve got the facilities there, and we’ve got the staff there, and we’ve got the enthusiasm there, young people don’’t find that environment that appealing anymore.”

But Cllr Ferris said the youth centre “is still going and it is vital”.

“I was a trustee at the Twyford Youth Centre for a number of years after the council decided to effectively no longer support a number of youth centres,” he said. “What was so disappointing is that back in 2019, I discovered that the officers in the council who were responsible for both antisocial behaviour and domestic abuse, one had retired and one had left.”

He said after raising the issue, the positions were filled.

“Now, two years later we’ve [got a community link],” he said. “But we’ve had 18 months where there wasn’t a link.

“I think there is a direct link between not providing the necessary support and facilities for young people, and the fact that we are getting additional and unfortunate anti-social behaviour.”

Cllr Croy said low-level anti-social behaviour is a result of withdrawing support from charities that work with young people.

Reflecting on the wider population, Cllr Halsall said the council has championed residents wellbeing this past year.

He said: “Our focus now is on mental health, loneliness, mobility.”

This will be led with schemes involving Mind, the mental health charity, The Link Visiting Scheme and the borough leisure centres.

“It’s an area where we will never do enough,” he said. “But the fact that we are allegedly the healthiest authority in the UK must say that we’ve done a reasonably good job over the last 20 years.

“We mustn’t be complacent because there’s always lots, lots more to do.”

Cllr Croy said “we cannot run society purely on the efforts of volunteers” and wants to push for better funding for community services.

“We can’t carry on after the pandemic, the same way we did, underfunding our charitable sector and underfunding our NHS, we want to build communities up rather than staff.”

Cllr Ferris said his party wants to reduce the CAMHS waiting time from two years to six weeks.

“People are waiting so long to get an assessment, not only does it have an impact on the child or the children involved, it has an impact on the family because of that,” he said.

Local elections issue: Highways and Transport

All three leaders contesting the local elections were questioned over ongoing road safety concerns in Finchampstead.

Over the last 10 months, Wokingham.Today has reported on fears from residents on the A327 Reading Road.

They say the issue has been ongoing for more than two years, and have yet to see improvements.

All three councillors said it was an unacceptable wait time for safety concerns.

Cllr Halsall said the council “can’t just do things instantaneously” as road matters are “usually complicated”.

Cllr Croy said highways decisions should have more resident influence.

“We need to bring more democratic control into things like highways, at the moment is pretty much potluck. You have this process you have to go through, and if it doesn’t meet criteria, then you’re finished.”

He added: “People must feel safe and secure when they’re walking. If they can’t do that we’re never going to get them out of the cars. That’s one of the things which we need to change – not just to make roads safer, but also as part of our climate response.”

Cllr Halsall added that the council is working on an intelligent traffic scheme to ease congestion.

“Our strategy is based upon optimising the use of our network quicker, smarter, better. But it really is saying, if we can get our traffic flowing more freely, then the environmental effect is less, and people are less frustrated.”

Cllr Croy said there needs to be a greater focus on public transport.

“The way to reduce journey times is to have less cars on the road,” he said. “It’s to not use your car so much, it’s to walk, to cycle, to work from home.

“We need to get people on to public transport, but it’s also about for the shorter journeys in particular, getting people not to use their cars.”