Monthly Archives: September 2010

This year the Conference season has come to disrupt a new September session of Parliament. Taking three weeks off so all three main parties can have their conference seems an old fashioned indulgence. It has been made more vexatious by the changing nature of party conferences. The Conservative party conference used to be a big [...]

I attended an interesting meeting a few days ago with local resident groups and Councillors to discuss the future housing numbers for Wokingham. The government is abolishing top down targets, regional plans and Whitehall inspired requirements. Wokingham can make its own decisions about how many homes to put into its forward plans. The Council points [...]

I am fed up with all the talk about cuts of 25% or 40% in public spending. It is alarming people who depend on public money needlessly. The budget figures are clear and are not going to change. Public spending on current services will rise by £90 billion over the course of the next five [...]

I received some better news today from the Environment Agency. They tell me they are now working on a paper to submit to the October flood prevention meeting to propose an Emm Brook flood prevention scheme in Wokingham. Nothing is guaranteed until the paper is written, the case is successfully made and a decision to [...]

As so many people have public sector spending on the mind as we approach decisions on next year’s budgets, I thought it might interest readers to know a bit more about the financial health of our Borough Council. I am pleased to report that they enter the budget review with £29 million in reserves and [...]

For many years my electors have told me that they like living in the Wokingham area, but they think development has been too fast. We have seen many new houses built. The last government did not send our Council money for new roads, railway lines, schools and surgeries to go with all the development. I [...]

There’s good news from the government. They are honouring their promise to free Councils to make decisions on behalf of local people. Out goes the regional top down housing targets, as we have discussed. But also out goes the whole grisly package of the Comprehensive Area Assessments, a raft of boxes to tick, forms to [...]