The government has announced up to £1.7m of additional money for Wokingham over a 3 year period, to help cover additional costs of new homes as and when they are built. The government accepts that new houisng adds to public service and infrastructure costs, and there they wish Councils accepting new building to receive additional cash support.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College, and has a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.
4 Comments
That will barely scratch the surface….. Wokingham is already behind on keeping infrastructure up to date with all the new houses it is having to take. The town centre is suffering chronic congestion a lot of the time and £600k a year is not a large enough commitment I fear. I notice the words “up to” so it could fall much shorter than that.
£1.7m for 13,000 houses. Or £130 a house.
Why is central government subsidising housing in an area like Wokingham at all.
If only govt would get out of the way, I’m sure private enterprise would be happy to build all Wokingham wants.
John
I am sure private enterprise has already coughed up £millions in Section 106 agreements as part of the Planning process.
Please remember private enterprise only gets its money from its customers, which in this case would be the house purchasers, who then also pay the Council tax/Community charge each year, to look after the services and maintain and improve the roads.
Thus the Council increase their annual income to spend as they wish, from all new development added.
Which is perhaps one reason why many Councils allow development in the first place.