Wokingham Borough Council approves draft local plan for public consultation

A draft local plan which could ensure the protection of the Wokingham borough’s greenbelt was approved to go to public consultation at an extraordinary executive meeting last week.

The draft proposes a commitment to refrain from ‘random development’, protection of the green space in the area and a priority to provide ‘genuinely affordable’ homes.

A lower housing target for the borough than that of the ‘Government’s standard methodology’ is also being proposed, alongside no housing developments on the greenbelt located in Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe.

While more than 300 locations have been put forward by developers, under the plan the council would only propose ‘very few’ as the majority of the additional housing would be in a proposed garden town at Grazeley.

But smaller-scale developments would still be on the cards where agreed locally. These developments would include 345 proposed homes across Twyford, Ruscombe, Hurst and Charvil.

The  plan proposes 150 homes for Twyford, 160 for Charvil, 15 for Hurst and 20 for Ruscombe.

Council leader John Halsall (Con,  Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe) told the Advertiser ‘all colours of political parties believe that the homes need to be built in the UK, particularly starter homes for young families and older people’.

He added: “Our proportion of that is 450 homes a year and on the statistical calculation, however, the Government says that we need to build more homes, in order that the relationship between the price of a house and the median income earned in the borough comes down.

“Our share of the homes which they believe we should be building is between 800 and 1,000 a year. We believe that's unreasonable. And we believe we've got arguments to move that down to about 750.

“The borough as a whole doesn't want anymore large scale developments throughout the borough so we've concentrated on the borough building between now and 2055 in Grazeley.

“Grazeley gives us the opportunity to build a low carbon town with all the

climate change criteria, close to communications links so that people won't need a car if they live there and we will be able to provide a substantial amount of affordable housing, low cost housing and housing which people on a median income can afford to buy or rent.

“It's ensuring the protection for the whole of the rest of the Wokingham Borough until 2055.”