Why turn Wokingham into a concrete jungle?
I would Iike to add my voice to the many objections against the proposal to build flats at Denmark St car park.
I am a Resident at Sale Garden Cottages who came here to spend what will probably be the time I have left on this earth.
Along with other Residents here I feel we deserve better than this. I have lived here for 10 years and also overlook the car park. There are so many empty unoccupied flats around the town that is there really a need for this?
Why continue to turn Wokingham into a concrete jungle?
We are just beginning to get our Town back so please let us enjoy this. While enjoying an evening out in the town Denmark Street car park is a convenient place to park for so many people. It really is not much to ask in our lovely town.
Jean Olney, Wokingham
The word on the street
I have just received a very cut-price local elections campaigning sheet from Philip Mirfin on behalf of the Conservatives.
I would like to take issue with several of the ‘claims’ in this leaflet.
- a) All but 2 retail units not currently going through acquisition or fit out! Names to be announced very soon.
This reads to me that only 2 retail units ARE going through acquisition or fit out! Also ‘Names to be announced very soon’ has been the status of this for several months.
- b) New town toilets . . .
This is a bit rich for the Conservatives to claim credit for since they removed the old town toilets (against public opinion) some time ago.
- c) Aldi at Elms Field opens in late June this year with an 85 space car park.
Nice to see Aldi providing a public car park for Wokingham shoppers!
However this is disingenuous. Most Aldi car parks are strictly limited to 90 minutes and administered by Parking Eye who rigorously enforce this and give rise to numerous complaints. This is not the council providing new parking.
- d) Carnival Pool being demolished 2020 and rebuilt by 2022.
So we are to be without a swimming pool for 2 years! What about Children’s swimming lessons, especially given the closure of Pulse 8 swimming club in Sindlesham. I recall watching my own children learn to swim here at Carnival Pool several years ago.
- e) 55 additional apartments ideally for Key workers.
“ideally” has no meaning whatsoever here. How will this be achieved?
- f) Please read our leaflet on Tuesday April 16th.
The leaflet actually refers to itself. This whole leaflet is just a cut and paste from somewhere else!
I’m all for saving money on campaign expenses but this leaflet really takes this a bit far.
George Scott, Wokingham
Meeting the police
I contacted Matthew Barber who is the Conservative Police & Crime Commissioner Candidate for Thames Valley (TVP) to discuss the increase in ASB and what can be done to reduce this.
It has also been pointed out to me by residents that part of our annual council tax increase has gone to increase police budgets. Matthew explained that there is about £8.5 million going directly back into police funding and provided some information on where the money will be spent.
£1.3 million to improve service to the public through content management. We will be reducing call handling times particularly for 101 calls by recruiting additional staff to deal with the additional demand and more complex crime incidents being reported.
£2.5 million for Increasing local front line policing. Recruiting additional officers and staff to increase visibility and respond to increasing demand and complexity.
£2.2 million for improving investigative capacity for complex crimes. Recruiting more investigators and investing in appropriate new technologies and tools.
£2.5 million into increasing digital development programmes. Exploiting the modern platforms that are already being invested into by TVP and to ensure the best results for frontline officers. Expanding mobile capacity to give more flexibility to officers and improving investigations.
We also discussed the perceived local hotspots for anti-social behaviour (Train Station, Morrisons, Shops by Woosehill Lane) and TVP will be looking to increase police presence there alongside the whole of Wokingham to try to reduce these issues we have been having. I’m not assuming this will be the last discussion and to be honest whether I’m elected in May or not I will continue to push this agenda.
People should feel secure walking to the shops or home after a night out and this is not the case at the moment and that should never happen.
Alongside this I feel the recent announcement from Wokingham Town Council of the CCTV cameras in the town center is a welcomed one. Alongside this Peach Place and Elm Park will also be having CCTV cameras to hopefully to curb future issues in town.
Daniel Hinton – Evendons Conservative Candidate for May 2019 Elections.
Magic money trees
Over the last few months, Wokingham Borough Council has used the term contingency to cover additional costs associated with the Market Place Development and Regeneration Project as a whole.
In most businesses, there is an allowance of +10% in approved authority to cover any emergencies that may arise, this is called a contingency. However there is an expectation that the costs would be covered by the actual amount approved and that the contingency is in effect an overspend authority above the figure approved.
The Peach Place contract is circa £14M, so the Council’s contingency would on this basis be circa £1.4M.
In practice, most contingencies are not used, so for WBC, or anyone linked with the Peach Place project to say all costs covered within contingencies (to cover the recent Dawnus administration issue), while true does not mean that there has not been an additional cost to the Council.
In the case of Peach Place, the Council could use up to £1.4M. However the cost would then be £15.4M. This increase still has to be covered by the Council Tax payer. It is not a magic money tree!
Cllr Lindsay Ferris, Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Leader of the Opposition on Wokingham Borough Council
Easter and faith
Easter Sunday was a beautiful day – as it should be every year. But behind our worship of the Risen Lord this year, we can see Christianity threatened in this country as well as in other parts of the world.
We are so glad the structure of Notre Dame has remained, albeit suffering from stresses, and hope it will be restored to its previous beauty. Why? Christianity to me has two main pillars – that of our Lord Jesus, Our Father in Heaven and the Holy Spirit, plus our House of God. The latter is plural in that there are many Houses.
What is particularly important is that it is in his House that we meet our Lord and feel the peace and His presence therein.
Non-worshipers are always feeling that peace that ‘passes all understanding’ frequently not understanding it. For example there were more than 500 visitors to the Christchurch Priory last Wednesday.
Two items in the press have raised my anger and objection. The first concerns a letter where a writer states he is ‘Shocked by the amount of money being pledged to rebuilding the Cathedral’ He then states ‘for all its historical value and beauty, Notre Dame is just a building’.
He has no knowledge or idea of the troubled souls and visitors from around the world, who find refuge and guidance in that House of God.
The second concern is Jeremy Hunt. In a letter he claims the Easter story begins with ‘a man is crucified for his faith, only to rise from the dead and rejoin his followers, a miracle we celebrated today’.
His dismissive and ignorant attitude is anathema to any Christian and shows a typical politician’s view of the people and their faiths. He should be fired for blasphemy.
Reg Clifton, Wokingham
Second class post
It has now been confirmed that the Post office plan to go ahead with their relocation of the Wokingham Post office from its current site to WHSmith in Market Place in early June.
Following a Lib Dem proposal to Wokingham Borough Council in November, the council demanded that all the services currently available in the Post Office were transferred to WHSmith if the relocation went ahead. If this was not done then the council would oppose the re-location. We now wait to see exactly what services are going to be available in WHSmith.
The leader of the council, myself and our local MP met with the Post Office earlier this year in an attempt to stop the move. They were in no doubt that we opposed the move.
It was agreed that the Post Office would consult with local disability groups to ensure proper disabled access to the new Post office. Hopefully these meetings will take place in the next few weeks. The Post Office approached the Council before Easter.
In Kendal the local Lib Dem MP Tim Farron personally delivered a petition to Senior Post office managers with more than 4,000 signatures. The Post Office was saved and it isn’t going to a branch of WHSmith, a great result for the people of Kendal who have a Lib Dem MP who works hard for the local community.
In Wokingham the Labour party collected a 5,000 signature petition to stop the relocation of the Post office to WHSmith. I wanted to know the value that the Post Office had put on this petition.
Bearing in mind the Wokingham one had more signatures but hadn’t been successful in changing the Post Offices mind.
I was told by Senior Post office managers that the petition had not been received by anyone at the Post Office. This begs the question, what has happened to it. Who was it given to, or is it still with the Labour party?
It appears that the petition has not been taken into consideration in determining whether the Wokingham Post Office should be relocated or not. 5,000 people who signed this petition have been seriously let down by the Wokingham Labour Party.
Cllr Clive Jones, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dem group on Wokingham Borough Council
Political choices
The decision to close Wokingham’s Crown Post Office is ultimately a political choice.
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable separated the Royal Mail from the Post Office with the aim of privatising both parts of the service. The Royal Mail was privatised in one fell swoop. The Post Office side is being privatised piecemeal via the franchises.
That this is fundamentally a policy set in train by the Liberal Democrats may go some way towards explaining the tepid and ambivalent response of local LibDems to the closure of Wokingham’s Crown Post Office.
The Liberal Democrats may have given up, but their heart was never really in the fight. They have done nothing but snipe.
The local Lib Dems may believe that 6,000 Wokingham people are wrong.
I do not. The Labour Party does not. The signatories are right and the Post Office needs to stay in its historic location. Local Conservatives, including John Redwood, also agree.
As well as the LibDems not listening, it has also been clear that the Post Office was never, ever, going to listen to the views of Wokingham people.
With reference to Wokingham, they have made this clear both verbally and in writing.
The Petition was offered to Post Office management at their dismal consultation in February.
The point of a petition of this size is to exert political pressure and I am delighted that John Redwood MP has used Labour’s petition as evidence of community opposition to the closure and I am sure, that when he meets with the Minister, he will continue to do so.
It will be at this meeting, or by Downing Street, that the ultimate fate of the Post Office will be decided. The Post Office is still, after all, a state owned company.
Cllr Andy Croy, Labour group leader on Wokingham Borough Council
Toasting victory
On Good Friday, we celebrated our advocate’s latest victory – with Champagne, and hot cross buns.
At a Capability for Work assessment, he advocated, successfully, for a severely mentally ill lady to be transferred from the ‘Work Related’ Group, to the ‘Support’ Group – of those eligible to claim Employment Support Allowance.
A private Consultant Psychiatrist has confirmed that this lady is mentally ill; she has great difficulty in coping with daily life, and is unemployable.
Our advocate is extremely thorough in preparing the papers.
Also, on Good Friday, we completed a ‘Capability for Work’ assessment Application Form, for a second lady. Earlier in the week, she had taken this to the Statutory Mental Health Service, at The Forge, in Peach Street. They refused to complete it for her. We were happy to. Hopefully, her assessment for entitlement to Benefit, will also, thus, be successful.
I shall be going for more champagne, when each town has its own, local, mental health services. Just look at the towns in Berkshire.
Does Hungerford resemble Slough? Newbury resemble Bracknell?
Windsor resemble Reading? Maidenhead resemble Crowthorne? – Or any of them, resemble Wokingham? They all have diverse needs, and these are best met by each having small, localised, voluntary mental health services of their own.
Pam Jenkinson, The Wokingham Crisis House, Station Approach
Spring. That time of year when “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”.
Cherry trees wear blossoms in their hair and, this year, with local elections being held, candidates emerge from hibernation, blinking into the world of reality.
Suddenly appearing on doorsteps to make dubious promises assure us that they are on our side listening to our concerns and they, and they alone, can make the impossible possible if only we will cast our vote in their favour.
However cynical we may be about the dark art of politics, both nationally and locally, politicians are like it or not a fact of life we, until someone comes up with a better idea, have to live with accepting that good, bad or indifferent they and the decisions they make will affect our lives, the lives of our families and others for as long as they are in office.
For that reason, whatever our party political allegiances, it is incumbent upon us that on Thursday, May 2, we make time to exercise our privileged right, hard earnt for us by others to cast our votes at local polling stations.
Before however we make our cross, fold the voting paper and place it in the ballot box, we should pause to consider the possible consequences of the choice we make, bearing in mind the idiom “be careful what you wish for”.
Whatever the future may hold, we will have influenced it and will have no one to blame for it other than ourselves.
J W Blaney, Wokingham
