Category: Wokingham and West Berkshire Issues

Dear Eric

Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State. It is good to have someone who knows about local government in the role.

In our Manifesto we were proud to include the abolition of regional planning quangos and the top down housing targets. This proposal was one of the most popular parts of the Conservative offer to voters in Wokingham. Local people and the Council would like to have more influence over what we build and where we build it.

I would be grateful to have your reassurance that this will also be the policy of the Coalition government, and that we will be able to make the necessary changes soon so that local councils and communities can start to have the plans they want.

Yours ever

Dear Graham,

I am writing on behalf of constituents who live in the Crescent, and along the A4 from Lower Padworth to Aldermaston.

The residents are concerned about the impact of the tip on their amenity and on the highways in the area. You have set up a liaison group for them, but they feel it is a talking shop which does not take their problems seriously or provide answers.

They have two particular demands, which seem to me reasonable, and which might help a bit. The first is to improve the road access from the Crescent onto the main road, as they find it difficult to get out onto the main highway network given the intensification of traffic on the A4. The second is to improve the screening of the waste site to help with visual impact, noise and other effects.

I would be grateful if you would look into this for me, and help residents to achieve some modest improvement in their local environment, as they feel their interests have been neglected.

Yours sincerely

Dear Liam

Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Defence. It is good to know our country’s security is now in safe hands.

I am writing to you concerning the Defence Review and the future of Arborfield Garrison. The Garrison was scheduled for closure by the previous government, though the date has been delayed. The plan was to send REME to Wales and to seek disposal of the site for housing development and re-development.

The local community is both happy to be host to REME or an equivalent army unit, or to see the disposal of the Garrison land with the re-development of the brownfield sites. It does not wish to see development beyond the current garrison perimeter wire and brownfield sites. Assuming more powers over local planning are delegated to Councils, the local plan will reflect this.

I would be grateful for an indication of the Review’s intentions on the following questions:

1. Is the move of REME to Wales subject to review or is it going ahead?

2. Is a further military use for the Garrison to be discussed, or is the site bound to be surplus to requirements?

3. What is the likely timing of the answers to these important questions, which will be crucial to our local plans?

Yours ever

The government has imposed targets for many more homes in Wokingham Borough. The Council has had to decide on where these could go to comply, and has pointed out it will also need a new secondary school to provide the school places the new developments require. This is costed at £80m during the next Parliament.

During this election I have been pointing out that the present government has not found the money for this school, and has made no promise to find it in due course. Given the government’s plans to slash capital spending after the Election if they get back in I think it very unlikely they will find so much money for such a project. I do not wish electors to think that a new school has been promised by Labour or is an immediate realistic aim, given the state of the public finances.

If the Conservatives get into government they will change planning requirements and leave Wokingham free of regional targets to increase housing numbers. My advice to the Council in such a situation is to cut the numbers of new homes and cut the pressure on school places. A Conservative government is unlikely to suddenly find £80m of capital that the last government was unable to guarantee, in the next three years when the overriding need is to cut the budget deficit.

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

My recent visits to Arborfield have underlined village opposition to large scale development on greenfields outside the MOD brownfields.

The Council’s Core Strategy which identifies Arborfield as a location for substantial new development is the Council’s response to Labour government requirements to build extra houses.

The Conservatives have stated that if elected to government they will abolish regional planning quangos and the regional housing targets that require Wokingham to build on this scale. The Council would under these proposals be free to draw up a new local plan with less development in it. I would urge them to draw up such a plan keeping the sensitive greenfields adjacent to the existing settlement free of new building, and to take into account transport and flooding constraints on housing numbers. They would be free to do this for any land where planning permission had not yet been granted under the existing government targets and plans.

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

The Independent Boundary Commission decided to put Englefield and Beenham into the Wokingham constituency for the 2010 election. They did this because the Newbury constituency had grown too large from new homes and new residents. They allow Parliamentary constituencies to go across District boundaries but not across County boundaries. In 1997 they transferred Burghfield, Mortimer and the adjacent villages into Wokingham so I am used to working with West Berkshire as well as Wokingham Council.

I understand that some residents think this odd, as their loyalties and lives take them to Newbury town rather than to Wokingham. I would like to assure all that I fully understand these different feelings and loyalites, and will if elected work hard to represent all people in the constituency equally, wherever they live or whatever their allegiance. There are no changes to the District Council boundaries, so people in West Berkshire will still look to Newbury for local services, planning and other local matters.

With my team I delivered invitations to the new residents of the constituency to join us on Monday night in Burghfield Village Hall for the Open meeting there. I have spent one afternoon in Englefield and Beenham and another afternoon in Beenham to meet as many as possible and to walk the areas so I know them. I will be a regular visitor after May 6th if returned to Parliament.

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

Following last night’s debate between all the candidates in the Methodist Church in Wokingham I am holding a meeting tonight in Burghfield to give electors in the West Berkshire part of the constituency more chance to come and ask me about the election and to raise any national or local concerns. All are welcome from any part of the constituency. It is in the Village Hall at 7pm.

On Wednesday morning at 9am I will be debating the Wokingham General Election with the Labour and Lib Dem candidates on Radio Berkshire.

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

Many of the local issues people raise with me in the emails and on the doorsteps come from planning problems. Wokingham experienced a rapid rate of new development in the 1980s with the construction of Lower Earley and Woosehill. The campaign I and others waged then scaled Wokingham down from a fast growth area. Under the Labour government development still continued at a pace which eroded green gaps, placed more pressure on our stretched road and transport system and increased the demands on public services generally. Two of the worst features of this government’s approach has been to insist on much higher density development and to allow town cramming with backland development.

The attractions of Wokingham and West Berkshire include a lot of good housing with decent plots and quiet residential roads, green gaps between villages and towns, and that pleasing mixture of town and countryside. There comes a point where intense development with high density new projects changes that characteristic too much. That is why I have worked hard to persuade the Conservative party that we need to change national planning policies if elected to government.

A Conservative governemnt would end the top down housing targets set by Whitehall and regional government. It would give to West Berkshire and Wokingham Councils powers to make local decisions about how much development is appropriate and where it should go. Given the pressures on four different areas within Wokingham Borough today, the sooner we get such a change at the top the better. I would then press the Councils to draw up new local plans that are sensitive to local wishes.

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

Dear Lord Adonis,

I am writing on behalf of constituents in Wokingham whom I represented in the last Parliament who are stranded abroad. There are many people away on business or on holiday who now need to return to the UK as soon as possible. They have jobs to attend, school lessons to go to, exams to sit – they need to resume their normal lives. Most of those stranded cannot spare either the time or the money to pay for extra nights in hotels. I am also writing on behalf of people whose businesses need to use flights to receive and visit customers and potential customers, or to receive and distribute parts and goods.

Several days have now passed with people waiting and with goods piled up in warehouses pending shipment. There can be no firm date given for the resumption of normal flying. I would like your assurance that the government now regards this matter as urgent, and is looking at solutions to get people and goods moving again. If flying is going to remain impossible into the leading UK airports, can arrangements be made to fly people to the nearest open airport, and then to create sea and rail services from that nearest airport to destinations in the UK? Isn’t this now a national emergency? Can’t we bring more transport into use, including military transport if necessary? Can arrangements be made to ensure the transit of important import and export items by whatever means can be made to work?

I do hope you as an unelected Minister can give this matter your urgent and prime attention despite the Election, and can act in the national interest, keeping the Opposition parties informed as you develop a response.

Yours sincerely

John Redwood
Conservative Candidate for the Wokingham constituency.

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

Dear Elector,

I am very concerned about the rate of new building in our area. This could lead to more floods, cut the availability of green open space, overstretch transport systems, and place further strains on other public services.

The Council, with the agreement of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups of Councillors, has backed a Core Strategy to concentrate new housing development in four locations, instead of spreading it around the whole District. They have chosen this approach as they think it will be easier to provide extra roadspace, school places and the other important services if housing is concentrated. At local level the political disagreement has between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems over the number of homes to go to North Wokingham and the number for Arborfield. The majority Group proposed 3500 for Arbofield and 1500 for North Wokingham. The Lib Dems favoured more at Arborfield and less in North Wokingham.

The Council has done this to comply with the Labour government’s instructions, relayed through the regional planning bureaucracy, to build a specified large number of extra homes. The government has not confirmed that it will make the £80 million available to Wokingham for new school construction, put into the Council’s budget for 2012-13, despite the obvious need for more school places if we have to take more homes.

As your MP in the last Parliament I made unsuccessful attempts to persuade the government to reduce or remove the regional housing targets, as I think they are too high. I was more successful lobbying the Conservative Opposition, who have placed the following in the Conservative Manifesto:

“A Conservative government will introduce a new “open source” planning system. This will mean that people in each neighbourhood will be able to specify what kind of development they wish to see in their area. These neighbourhood plans will be consolidated into a local plan. We will abolish the entire bureaucratic and undemocratic tier of regional planning, including the Regional Spatial Strategies and building targets”

This means that if you help elect a Conservative government under these proposals people in Wokingham Borough will be able to choose fewer homes and lower densities of development. This would be something the Council could put into its plan without outside interference from the Region or Whitehall.

I suspect under such an approach we would opt for less and for lower density development, to ease the pressures on green space and flood plain. It would also help resolve the problem that the government is not offering us the large sums required to build schools and roads which new housing on their scale will need.

Yours Sincerely

John Redwood

Promoted by Christine Hill on behalf of John Redwood, both of 30 Street Wokingham RG40 1XU