WOKINGHAM MP Sir John Redwood has hit out at the borough council, claiming they cancelled a meeting with him at short notice – something they deny.
Wokingham Today understands that no such meeting had been arranged and, the borough council has been trying since May to have a meeting, offering Sir John a number of dates, but his office had not confirmed and scheduled such a gathering.
On Friday, September 22 – a day when many of the Lib Dem councillors were heading to their party conference in Bournemouth – the veteran Conservative MP posted his disappointment in a blog.
“Today was the first date they could give me over a seven-week period when I had considerable flexibility over dates and times, and it has been reserved in my diary all that time,” he wrote.
He expressed a desire to have a meeting, saying he is available to meet when he is not required to be in parliament, but can also do online meetings if something urgent comes up.
“I represent (the council) to government over a range of matters from planning to budgets and find it easier to do so when I know their case,” he wrote.
However, Wokingham Borough Council said that they had been trying to arrange a meeting regarding the Local Plan Update. This is a document that sets out the borough’s plans for housing developments over the next 15 years, and has seen a number of delays partly caused by the government not publishing final guidance on the National Planning Policy Framework.
This had been due to be published earlier this year, but has yet to be finalised.
The council says it wants to see an allowance for over-provision of homes, which would take into account what has happened in Wokingham Borough over the past decade.
Executive member for planning and local plan, Cllr Lindsay Ferris, said: “We have been trying to meet Sir John since May on this issue of huge local importance and have offered numerous potential meeting dates, but it has proved frustratingly difficult to get him to engage.
“We are still hopeful he can spare some time to talk to us about a change to Government policy that, if not implemented, we believe could impose far more housing development on the borough than is necessary.”
