FOR THE past two years, Wokingham’s Conservatives have been in opposition after losing their majority. They are keen to regain it this year, and hoping that the May 2 all-out elections will see voters re-elect Conservatives.
Their platform is three-fold: keeping weekly waste collections, scrapping increases in car parking fees, and providing value-for-money services to residents. Pauline Jorgensen, who leads the Wokingham Conservatives group, is hoping this is a winning formula.
She would like to see a review of the way government grants are formulated, saying the process dates back to Gordon Brown’s days in Downing Street.
“At the moment it is very biased in favour of inner cities, and people in the depths of the countryside,” she says. “I’d like to see a reform of the formula, so it covers the cost of providing services.
“The council’s core spending power when we lost control of the council was £151 million, this year it is £174.8 million, this year Government funding increased by 7%, while inflation is currently at 3.4%. Our core spending power is more than any other council in Berkshire apart from Slough. That’s the amount we have to spend per resident, so we are relatively well funded when you take council tax and grants into account.
“The government have given the council an extra £1.6 million after the funding announcement to try and help the core funding.”
Regardless, the party wants to make savings with the way the council spends money.
“There’s a few things,” she says. “For starts, there is a very high level of spend with consultants. We have been pushing very hard at personnel board and at scrutiny about this cost and the number of consultants employed. It is slowly coming down, we want that to be faster.
“There are some extravagant projects in the budget. For example, moving the headquarters to the former Marks & Spencer building in Peach Street, which isn’t suitable because there isn’t a big enough space for council meetings, and there isn’t enough parking for residents.
“That’s £5 million wasted to start with.”
The changes to waste collections, which is already in progress, is £2 million. “We don’t think it’s been properly thought out, we believe it will reduce the amount of recycling because the lorry will come around and collect every week, but it won’t take everything. In the week you’re not getting your recycling collected, it is likely some people will put it in the wheelie bin. We think it might damage recycling levels, rather than increase.
“There are plenty more examples: California Crossroads is another.”
So why are Wokingham’s Conservatives wanting to keep weekly collections when 85% of councils collect fortnightly or three-weekly?
“Fundamentally, a lot of houses in Wokingham borough are not designed to store two weeks’ worth of recycling waste. A lot of people are coming to us saying they just don’t know where they are going to put it,” Pauline says.
“The likelihood is you’re going to put it in your wheelie bin and leave it out.
“The council did do a consultation, and less than 25% of people were in favour of changing to bi-weekly waste. Of the councils that have bi-weekly waste collections, some have the worst record on recycling, I’m not convinced there is a correlation between wheelie bins, bi-weekly waste and recycling performance.
“The administration has admitted if you collect wheelie bins, it takes longer and costs more, so there is a cost in terms of amount of time and number of bin lorries needed to collect it.
“It’s a badly thought-out scheme and we still have seen a detailed business case. It’s very noticeable they are implementing it this summer, after the elections, rather than earlier in the year.”
The Conservatives also say they are committed to keep litter bins in place.
“We will not reduce the number,” Pauline promises, but said there may need to be a review of where they are put. “I would like to see a better spread of litter bins so people have options in terms of putting litter in bins, rather than throwing it on the ground.
“I also think it’s important as it helps parents to educate children to use bins.”
There have been issues with the auditing council accounts, with EY causing delays to Wokingham’s, something that flashed across the world last month.
“The first thing I’d like to understand is what the contract with EY actually says,” Pauline explains. “I’m brought up in an old-fashioned position where if you’ve got a contract to do the job, you have to do it.
“I think it’s important councils are audited properly and promptly.”
When it comes to increased demand on adult social care and children’s services, what would Wokingham Conservative do differently?
“We had a record when we were in charge of being innovative in terms of our in terms of our approach to these problems,” Pauline says, citing Optalis as a service that was returning £500,000 a year in 2020-21.
“These sorts of things – where you provide a really good service – are provided at a good quality and a good cost. It is these sorts of innovative things we would use to try and reduce the cost of adult social care.”
She is also looking at changing the way the council funds care home places. “This is a massive cost on the council. What I think we need to do is give people a choice of council-funded care homes at a reasonable cost. The council has to pay the cost of care for people who can’t afford it themselves, so it’s a way of reducing a cost we’d have to pay for anyway. (Actually I mentioned this because you asked me what I thought of the olicy not because I said it was something we would do – would be good to add teh question not just the answer)
“I’m not against buying care homes or building them.”
The council is also working on building new SEND schools, with one due to open in Winenrsh Farm, and two planned for Rooks Nest.
“The government has given us £20 million to build the new SEND schools,” Pauline says. “But there is a bit of problem with where they are planning to put them. The roads are really not up for that level of development.
“But in principle, we’re very, very happy the Department of Education has provided this money, and to increase the SEND school in Woodley, it’s really good news.”
Pauline may have concerns about siting the schools on Rooks Nest, but with a finite land supply in the borough, where else could they go?
“I think we’d have to look at the full extent of the land available in the borough,” she says. “There is land available, which would be zoned for housing. We need a good strategic look with the planners.
“At the moment, it may be too late as I think the site (Rooks Nest) could have been agreed. I just have concerns about how they are going to access it.”
One of the Conservatives’ big pledges is to reverse car parking charges. If they do, it would leave a hole in the council’s budget, and there would be the cost of replacing the signage. Is it a sensible policy?
“We were very conscious during covid that a lot of businesses in the towns were hanging on by a thread, the last thing we wanted to do was push them over by increasing car parking charges. That’s not the right thing to do,” Pauline said.
“The Liberals have massively increased the car parking charges, and they are about to consult on roadside parking meters as well.
“What we are saying is we would roll back the increases. We have heard from a lot of businesses they are really suffering because of the reduction in footfall. I talked to people who run small newsagents. Nobody wants to spend a pound to park to go and buy a newspaper.
“We talked to one shopkeeper who had branches in Wokingham, and Bracknell. The one in Wokingham saw business go down considerably when charges were increased, the Bracknell one remained stable.
“So, we want to be sensible, we will roll back these massive increases and we’ve said we won’t increase car parking charges by more than inflation, which I think is reasonable.”
The Conservatives will also look to do more to repair potholes.
“During the three years I ran highways, when the Conservatives were in control of the council, I more or less tripled the spend on road maintenance. I think it’s important to get ahead of the curve and try and get into preventative road maintenance.
“Some of the of the residential roads had not been maintained from the day they were built, and the amount of claims for pothole damage on Wokingham borough’s insurance had gone up by 500%. It is a serious issue.
“The government has recognised it’s a serious issue and given Wokingham Borough Council £12 million over 10 years as additional money for road maintenance. The road maintenance spend in the budget is, as far as I can see, flat. Inflation was 10% last year, so that is a real time cut.”
Summing up, Pauline says: “We believe we can do what residents want in terms of running the council, with a balanced budget. We’ve had 20 years of running the council, we didn’t cut services, and we kept the council effectively and efficiently, providing good value for money and good services.
“We will promise to maintain weekly waste. We will spend more money on road maintenance, and we will roll back car parking charges – all these things people tell us on the doorstep that is what they want us to do.
“We’re very much very keen to listen to people and do what they want.
“We’ve seen the Liberals double car parking charges increased parked car parking charges over the weekends, they’ve reduced the spending in real terms on road maintenance. They’ve reduced street cleaning people are telling me on the doorstep. Grass isn’t being cut not often enough.
“We don’t think that the services are being managed properly either.
“We will sort out the issues of not having enough land supply, which means that housing is being approved on appeal, which means that it’s going in greenfield sites.
“And we will make sure that housing is in the right places and provides good value for residents, and that the services and the infrastructure are there to help make the borough a good place to live.”
