 Welcome, and a happy new year to all residents
As you probably know by now, we’re asking for your views on a revised growth strategy for our new Local Plan – a strategic document that will set where new homes and supporting services should be built to meet Government requirements.
We’re aware from early feedback that some of you would prefer us to accept far less or even no new housing. But that is simply not an option – we must meet the Government's expectations for the years to come.
Building new homes is an emotive issue, particularly when many are proposed on green land, but we’re confident that our suggested approach is in everyone’s interests and makes the best of a situation we have virtually no control over.
We hope this special newsletter will make things clearer and allay some of your concerns. Thank you in advance for reading it, and please visit our Engage Wokingham Borough platform for more detailed information on our proposals, including studies and other supporting evidence.
 The national picture - and how we fit in
We can’t refuse to take these homes, nor insist on a lower figure, because this is set according to a national formula. As with all other parts of England, we’re legally obliged to find suitable sites. If we don’t look ahead and do this before our existing plan runs out in 2026, the process will fall out of our hands and they’ll be built anyway.
We can always refuse planning applications which we consider unsuitable but developers can appeal to an independent planning inspector and, with only an old Local Plan in place, they are much more likely to find in their favour and overrule us.
In the worst case scenario, the Government can step in and take over our planning department, as it has done elsewhere. For example, South Oxfordshire District Council recently adopted its latest Local Plan - despite disagreeing with certain aspects - because the Government had threatened to step in and it wanted to keep the final say on planning matters affecting its residents.
This would result in the wrong kinds of housing being built in the wrong places and without suitable amenities such as new roads, schools, green spaces, sports facilities, shops or community halls to accompany them.
It’s therefore far better for us to have a plan than not. Without one, a far larger part of the borough will be in line for development and there is huge interest from developers because it is such a desirable place to live. This is proven by a recent study by the Legatum Institute which concluded it was the most prosperous part of the UK.
 Fighting back and the limits of our powers
We’ve challenged the Government in the past, most recently last year when it proposed changes to the planning system which would have forced us to accept more than 1,600 new homes a year instead of our current figure of just under 800.
Thanks in part to our decisive action, including the cross-party Fair Play in Housing campaign spearheaded by our council leader John Halsall, this wasn’t followed through. We still believe our annual quota is too high, and that the borough faces excessive development, but we’ve been advised by leading planning barristers that we have no further grounds to challenge this.
The Government wants the UK to be building 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the decade and has set out measures to achieve this.
That target is divided among local authorities according to a mathematical formula and each council must consult its residents, businesses and other community stakeholders before deciding where they should go. We must work to these figures.
Authorities can argue for a reduction if there are reasons which are recognised in planning law but few of these apply to Wokingham borough. Only a small portion lies in the Green Belt and none falls within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty so it’s practically impossible for us to claim we don’t have enough space.
Our target of 768 new homes a year, or 15,513 over the new Local Plan period, is less than half the number required under last year’s Government proposals and, thanks to our proactive efforts, far lower than many other boroughs and districts.
 Making development work for you and your children
While we don’t have any real sway over the number of homes we have to take, we can make sure they’re built in a way that benefits residents and builds strong new communities equipped with a rich variety of services – and get the developers to pay for these.
This is the approach we took in our current Local Plan, which covers the period 2010 to 2026, and it has paid off with thousands of high-quality new homes now being built in our four major developments at Shinfield Parish, the former Arborfield Garrison and North and South Wokingham, and our annual new homes survey shows a high level of satisfaction with these developments.
It’s also set to deliver an investment package of almost £1 billion in infrastructure, including £250 million in major new roads, £240 million in affordable housing, £170 million in green spaces, almost £100 million in new or extended schools and £45 million in new sports facilities.
Before we took this bold step, we found it harder to control development in a way that residents found acceptable and large numbers of new homes were being allowed anyway, often in sites like back gardens, with few amenities alongside them. If we spread new housing more widely, this will simply happen again and would return to the era of “garden grabbing”.
We’re therefore suggesting the same approach in our updated Local Plan because it will continue giving residents all they need to live balanced and healthy lives - and not just a roof over their head.
It will also reduce the need for vehicle journeys and increase opportunities for travel through active means like walking or cycling, improving air quality and helping us to meet our objective of doing all we can to become a net-zero carbon borough by 2030.
 Shaping your borough's future in a sustainable way
Our proposal, which covers the period to 2038, includes a new garden village of about 4,500 homes on about 282 hectares of land south of the M4, between Shinfield, Arborfield and Sindlesham, as well as another 800 or so within our existing major development at South Wokingham.
At least 2,200 of the homes in the garden village would be built during the plan period and there would also be smaller housing allocations across the borough.
We appreciate that some new homes are occupied by people moving from outside the area but others, including an affordable element of at least 35 and up to 50 per cent, will be there to ensure your children and grandchildren have the option of living here when they grew up.
By placing Wokingham borough at the heart of the nation’s economic recovery, accepting new housing will also ensure that plenty of jobs are available across a wide range of industries when they enter the workforce.
When we consulted on our Local Plan Update last year, we were proposing a new garden town of about 15,000 homes at Grazeley, which would have covered our assessed requirement well beyond the plan period.
This isn’t possible now because the emergency planning zone at the Atomic Weapons Establishment’s (AWE) Burghfield site was extended to include this area, which meant military and nuclear authorities no longer supported the idea.
Instead, we asked independent experts to consider three possible sites for another large new settlement, at least one of which had to be developed to meet our housing target. Each had opportunities and constraints and, inevitably, none was perfect.
 Our preferred option - the best available choice
However, we decided the land off the M4, known as Hall Farm / Loddon Valley, was best because the likely benefits of development outweighed the drawbacks by the greatest margin.
The site is highly accessible and allows us to provide homes alongside jobs because it’s near the Thames Valley Science and Innovation Park, which is set to house a large film and television studios after we gave planning permission last autumn. A full or partial relocation of the Royal Berkshire Hospital from Reading could follow.
It also enables the creation of a large green space or park along the River Loddon, parts of which aren’t currently accessible to the public and which would comprise more than one-fifth of the site area.
This can and will be supported by a wide range of infrastructure including walking and cycling opportunities, such as a new link over the M4 to Earley, as well as primary and secondary schools and neighbourhood centres.
In all, it presents the opportunity to bring in £143million in developer contributions towards community infrastructure, guaranteeing a high quality of life for new residents.
 What were the alternatives - and why reject them?
Another site was offered to the east of Twyford and Ruscombe but this falls in the Green Belt so development would only be allowed in exceptional circumstances. There are limited job opportunities locally and development would also have to overcome potential air quality problems in the village centre.
A third, north of Wokingham town around Ashridge Manor, would have resulted in the loss of quality farmland with far fewer benefits to make up for it and is also sandwiched between two major roads, the M4 and A329(M), which provides a significant barrier to access from the north, south and west because of how near it is to the motorway junction.
We're often asked why we can't just build all our housing on previously developed (brownfield) land and the answer is simple: there isn't enough. We currently provide about 100 homes a year on smaller sites across the borough, some on previously developed land, but this leaves a significant gap compared with our housing target.
We'll always take advantage of brownfield development opportunities when they arise - particularly in more built-up areas, where there is scope for more trips to be taken by walking or cycling. In some cases this may also offer more flexibility on the height of development, depending on local feeling.
However, we've looked extensively at all vacant brownfield sites across the borough and we're confident that there are too few to meet the demands being imposed on us by taking this approach.
Additionally, many of our employment areas remain extremely attractive to their landowners as commercial or industrial space, so it's unlikely they would sell them for housing. We've also got to make sure there are enough jobs for future generations, so brownfield land is equally important for that purpose.
 Flooding and other common concerns
Some of you are worried that Hall Farm / Loddon Valley is prone to flooding because it sits on the River Loddon. It's true that some land floods, as anyone living in the area knows, but we carefully planned the development with the Environment Agency’s guidance so no new homes would lie within the flood zone.
We’ll also include natural measures to offset the risk of flooding further downstream, which won’t be increased by the garden village because developers have to include measures to ensure surface run-off from new housing stays the same as before.
Taking everything into account, we believe Hall Farm/Loddon Valley is the most sustainable and readily deliverable option for the required new housing, although we invite anyone who disagrees to tell us where they would build it instead.
Additionally, we’re proposing to designate almost 80 valued open spaces as Local Green Spaces, including numerous country parks, playing fields and recreation grounds across the borough.
This would grant a similar level of protection as land in the Green Belt and is a far higher number than the eight proposed in last year’s Local Plan Update consultation. We increased this following feedback because your views matter to us and we want the plan to reflect your hopes and needs as closely as possible.
Finally, we’d like to clear up a misunderstanding about the future of the Pinewood Centre near Crowthorne, a valued community facility that we are committed to maintaining and potentially improving. We’ve proposed allocating it for self-funded regeneration, which could allow the facilities there to be improved if funding is available and people support the idea.
To be absolutely clear: we aren’t advocating any development, but are offering development as an opportunity for the current leaseholders to obtain funds if they need them.
Regeneration funding could come from any source but if Pinewood did take a small amount of development to attract funding, the council will commit to investing in the facilities to ensure that future generations can benefit.
 Don't miss the chance to have your say
While we realise that there’s concern and even upset about our preferred growth option because of the loss of green space, and we accept that no option will ever be ideal because of this, we promise you that we’ve thoroughly weighed up our options and devised a course of action that will maintain and improve the high quality of life we all currently enjoy.
However, we still want to hear what you think and would urge you to respond to our consultation before it closes at 5pm on 24 January.
If you would like to see our councillors and planning officers explaining this in further detail, we have also shared a video from a public engagement event which was held online in December.
More useful information...
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