 Cash boost will help beat housing shortage
We’ve been awarded £3.1million to help towards us buying 17 homes to help fight the local housing shortage for refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan.
This comes from the Government to help those under the Ukraine and Afghan resettlement scheme as part of its £500 million Housing Support Fund.
It has been allocated towards at least 15 two- to four-bed family properties, as well as two four-bed properties for Afghan refugees in bridging accommodation.
They'll all be let on an affordable rent for up to three years, when the current Ukrainian visa scheme ends, then become part of our general housing stock for others who need affordable housing.
The purchase will be topped up by £2million from developers’ statutory contributions towards affordable housing, plus £3.7million borrowing.
Welcome back to Infrastructure News, which returns to its regular schedule of every fourth Wednesday morning. This follows our pre-election period, during which there were restrictions on how we communicated with residents. Your next edition will arrive as usual on Wednesday, 14 June.
 Solar schemes put at risk by announced delays
Our proposals for new solar farms have been put at risk following an announcement by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) that connections to the National Grid could be delayed until 2037.
This represents an 11-year delay on the agreement we signed with SSEN last year, which gave a network connection date of 2026 at the latest for their first solar farm on land between Barkham and Finchampstead.
New solar farms are a key part of our Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP), producing enough clean and renewable energy to power thousands of homes and making a significant annual saving in carbon emissions.
The proposals were also set to generate millions of pounds in income, which would have been put towards essential services for residents.
 Green improvements still coming despite recent news
New community orchards could start to blossom across the borough, thanks to our partnership with Freely Fruity to establish a new tree nursery on land between Barkham and Finchampstead.
The new orchard will sit beside the site earmarked for our first solar farm and compliments our plans to plant thousands of new trees across the borough, helping improve biodiversity and reducing local carbon emissions as the trees grow.
The land will be used by Freely Fruity to propagate new saplings with a range of fruit trees proposed including apples, plums and pears of all different varieties.
Freely Fruity will work closely with schools, businesses, churches and communities to plant new community orchards across the borough. Fruit from the orchards will be donated to local food banks and charities.
 Roads keep safe and moving with extra funding
We've been allocated a much-needed boost to our highways maintenance funds by the Government, which is allocating £589,200 of its additional £200million for highways maintenance in 2023-2024.
This additional funding comes at a time when, like local government organisations nationwide, we're facing huge financial challenges to ensure vital services are protected and you receive the help and support you need.
You can report problems, such as potholes, damaged street lights or even an obstruction in the road on our website using our 'report it system'.
This map-based system is the simplest and quickest way to report issues with the roads and we can even update you on the progress of your query if you request it.
 Fantastic new library on the books for Twyford
We're really pleased to share an update on our plans to provide a permanent home for Twyford Library at the town's Old Polehampton Boys School.
Contractors have now set the site up, groundwork investigations have been carried out and work on laying the foundations for a modest new single-storey extension is now ready to begin.
The work also includes an accessible entrance and we're planning to make the premises as energy efficient as possible, given the constraints of the Grade II listed building and the site.
The former school is one of our borough's most historic buildings, and we hope to give it a new lease of life as a library that residents have long campaigned for, as well as a hub for the community.
We're leasing the building for 99 years at a "peppercorn" (very low) rent from the Polehampton Trust, which owns it.
 Walking and cycling vision takes big step forward
We’ve published our long-term plan to make it safer, easier and more accessible for residents to walk and cycle around Wokingham Borough.
The Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) identifies which routes would help more people get around and suggests ways to improve them.
Nothing’s set in stone as the plan will always be open to updates and no works would go ahead without consulting residents.
However, by publishing our vision for the years to come, we’ll be best placed to secure funding for any improvements which will also help the environment.
Schemes could include better lighting, wider footways or cycleways, routes fully separated from the roads, better crossings, dropped kerbs, pedestrianised areas, wider junctions, new bridges, reduced speed limits, tactile pavements and more.
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