 Milestone reached with completion of Montague Park
All planned housing is now built at Montague Park, which is the first phase of our major new community at South Wokingham.
Developers David Wilson Homes and Barratt Homes have completed 636 houses and flats at the development off London Road and most of these are now lived in.
Montague Park is also served by a range of amenities including a primary school, shops, nature parks and more.
We awarded outline planning permission in 2012 and it has steadily grown since then, with the last few flats off William Heelas Way finished a few weeks ago.
Our South Wokingham major development will have about 2,500 homes when it is complete, with the rest allocated to the south of the railway line.
It's part of our Local Plan, a document that determines where new homes and other types of development should go over the 2010-2026 period.
 Amenities available to residents
Floreat Montague Park Primary School opened in September 2016 and operates from purpose-built premises off William Heelas Way. It has an all-weather artificial sports pitch which may be booked for community use outside school hours.
Buckhurst Meadows, a 12.5-hectare nature park, offers a 1.7km circular walk, a community orchard and wildlife habitats plus one of Montague Park’s four play areas, with another at the neighbourhood centre and two others elsewhere.
The recently completed 800 sq m neighbourhood centre includes a large shop unit, occupied by the Your Co-op food store since February, and space for smaller shops.
Next to this is a small community space, which we'll take over and decide a use for soon, and a public square hosting one of Montague Park's three public art works.
 What's next for South Wokingham?
As long as we can reach legal agreements with the developers to provide infrastructure, among other conditions, we're set to give permission for about 1,800 more houses to the south of the railway.
This new neighbourhood, between Finchampstead Road and Waterloo Road, would include improved walking and cycling routes and the developers would also have to contribute towards public transport.
There would also be a new nature park to the east of Buckhurst Meadows and a greenway, which is a generally traffic-free route for various users including walkers and cyclists, connecting to Wokingham town centre, Barkham and Arborfield.
We're planning to convert Grays Farm, off Heathlands Road to the south of Wokingham town, into an outdoor sports hub serving the development. We'll conduct a survey to get a better idea of what residents want and will share more details soon.
The South Wokingham Distributor Road, of which William Heelas Way is part, will serve this new community. The Eastern Gateway, another section with a bridge over the railway to help pedestrians and cyclists cross safely, opened earlier this year.
Access at the other end will be via the Western Gateway, an improved junction on Finchampstead Road near the Tesco supermarket and the junction with Molly Millar's Lane. We'll keep you updated as this progresses.
 Drivers warned to leave gap for cyclists
Motorists on Finchampstead Road in south Wokingham town were taught a surprise lesson in overtaking cyclists safely under a recent joint scheme between us and Thames Valley Police.
Those who left too little space when overtaking a plain-clothes officer on a bicycle were pulled over and given advice by a police motorcyclist and members of our My Journey Wokingham active travel team.
This year's operation coincided with recent changes to the Highway Code which requires a gap of at least 1.5m at speeds of up to 30mph or 2m at either above that speed or while driving a long vehicle.
Six motorists were stopped on the morning and the police also checked that their driving licences and motor insurance were valid. In future, anyone caught passing too closely could be fined or get points on their licence.
Three more drivers were stopped for mobile phone offences while driving and one cyclist was stopped for going through a red light.
 In case you missed it...
We recently opened the penultimate sections of the North Wokingham Distributor Road, which will serve our major development on the other side of Wokingham town as well as relieving congestion in the centre.
The final section of this is built and we'll set an opening date as soon as we can. For now, we're keeping it closed because of the volume of construction traffic building new houses on a neighbouring site.
 Celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee
We're inviting all our residents to share their celebrations on our Engage Wokingham Borough platform in a number of ways. We'll ask you to create a free account if you don't already have one, but this won't take long.
If you take pictures on the day, email them to cem@wokingham.gov.uk with a short description of the event and you could appear in a future edition of this newsletter.
Please note we'll need written consent from anyone appearing in a photo, including parents or guardians of children, and we'll contact you to get this before publishing.
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