IN the last quarter of 2017 556 new homes were finished in the Wokingham constituency, nine times the national average build rate. The annual total of new homes was 1227. This is a fast rate which requires substantial investment in new roads, schools and surgeries to keep up with demand. I am trying to persuade the government that this high build rate should mean no more planning permissions on appeal in places where the local plan does not provide for more housing, and shows that Wokingham is more than doing its bit to help with the national homes shortage.
Category: Wokingham and West Berkshire Issues
Animal welfare
I attended yesterday the presentation by the Dogs trust of the need for better regulation to prevent electric shock collars and others devices that could do harm. I pledged my support to sensible reform to ensure no cruelty to dogs.
Better roads
The government is currently consulting on a network of A rods that have strategic importance, to supplement the national network of motorways and trunk roads. These strategic A roads will continue to be local roads under the control of the local Highways Authority – a County or Unitary Council. They will be able to bid for substantial funds for major improvement schemes for these roads. I have been a keen advocate of such an approach. The Transport Secretary has secured extra money for later in this Parliament to provide assistance with these works.
The government has set out in its Consultation document a suggested map of routes that could be included. These tend to be large A roads where there has already been some substantial upgrades and improvements, dual carriageways and recently de trunked routes. The main aim is to choose roads with substantial current road usage, that link substantial settlements. They also need to consider the role of busy routes where they act to take some local journey pressure off an adjacent national highway. I would also trust they will consider roads that may not currently have very high usage, but given likely growth in development will be hitting those levels within the planning period of this initiative.
You might like to look at what is being proposed for your local area and to make some observations to your Council. Councils also need to consider what improvements they would wish to propose once some local roads are designated. Some will need extra capacity by dualling, some better junctions to improve safety and flows, some will need bypasses round settlements and bottlenecks.
On Friday I spent time with Wokingham Borough Council, one of the two local Highways Authorities in my constituency, discussing their response to the Consultation. They too welcome the general approach. The government has set out an indicative map of routes, but is open to persuasion to add or delete roads from the draft. In my area they have proposed designating the A 329M/A3290 Bracknell to Reading route, the A 33 Reading to Basingstoke road, and the A4 into Reading from the east, a relatively recently de trunked road. I have suggested adding the A 327 and the A 329 to these routes, where some major improvement works are already underway with the Winnersh, Arborfield and Shinfield by passes. Wokingham Borough is considering the case for a B road, the Earley peripheral, as well. Anyone with thoughts on this locally should write in to the Council and copy me in to the submission at Parliament.
John Redwood visits Reading University
John Redwood visited Reading University on Friday and gave a talk on the constitutional and legal background to Brexit to a Politics class. He set out the two sides in the referendum, the positions taken by the three main parties in the 2017 General election, and the result of votes on leaving and on the Customs Union in the Commons.
Visit of Jacob Rees Mogg to Wokingham
Wokingham Conservatives were pleased to have Jacob Rees Mogg as their speaker at a luncheon today in the constituency. 193 people came and heard Jacob set out how and why the UK should leave the Customs Union and single market as well as the EU, on 29 March 2019. Mr Rees Mogg said the main argument he used to persuade some Remain voters that Brexit is a good idea was to point out that he cannot as an MP take up and sort out many problems which fall under the powers of the EU, stifling democratic opportunity for change and improvement.
Maiden Lane Post Office
The Maiden Lane Post Office will be closing temporarily on March 17 this year on the retirement of the Postmaster.
The Post Office are now looking for a retail partner interested in running the Post Office. They can be contacted on 0845 601 6260 by anyone interested. They might set up a new style Post Office local where the Post Office runs alongside an established local shop. It depends on future customer interest and who comes forward to run the Post Office.
Anyone wishing to tell the Post Office what they would like to see as users of the Post Office can email comments@postoffice.co.uk stating it is about Maiden Lane.
Transport of live animals
I attended a meeting to hear reports of problems for animal welfare through long distance lorry journeys. I am keen that Mr Gove should look into this and see what can be done to improve our law for animal welfare and ensure there is proper enforcement.
Money for Wokingham and West Berkshire Councils
I had a meeting with the new Local government Minister yesterday, Rishi Sunak.
I explained the poor deal both Councils received when social care funding was reorganised, and asked that DCLG and the Health department considered it again as part of their current review of social care finance. The Minister reminded me that the Councils should respond to the current consultation which ends in March, and was aware of the way the Councils lost out through the 2014 Care Act changes.
I also raised the issue of negative rate support grant, where the Minister again said he was well aware of the difficulties. I have lobbied for no move into negative grant, as our Councils have similar needs to Councils that remain in receipt of grant.
The Minister reminded me that we are part of the Business rates retention pilot which should offer more money. I pointed out that we would want that to continue after the pilot year.
Unemployment down again in Wokingham
The Wokingham constituency figures for unemployed people fell again in December 2017, and were 35 down on December 2016. Those between the ages of 18-24 saw a welcome decline of 25, leaving 45 now without a job. Total unemployment in Wokingham is at 0.7% of the workforce. This means Wokingham is the seventh lowest unemployment rate of all 650 constituencies in the country.
It is good news that unemployment is so low, and good news that Wokingham recovered well from the great recession at the end of the last decade which did cause substantial job losses. A number of local employers are looking for new employees, so those who remain out of work have opportunities to find something suitable.
The Worboys case
There were plenty of representations to the government against the Parole Board decision to let Worboys out of prison soon. The Justice Secretary promised to rewiew the situation to see if he could intervene. He has now concluded he cannot mount a successful legal challenge. The Parole Board is an independent body where Ministers do not involve themselves in decisions on individual cases. I assume the Justice Secretary thinks the Parole Board followed the proper process, even if he along with many other people think they reached the wrong conclusion. Judicial review concentrates on process, not on outcome.
This will be a disappointing conclusion to the constituents who wrote to me about this case, but they can be assured the government did know the strength of public feeling on this issue.