Category: Wokingham and West Berkshire Issues

The government has announced progress with completing coverage of fibre backed faster broadband throughout the country. 3m homes have now benefitted nationwide from government cash to provide superfast broadband in less commercial areas. In some cases the take up of this service was better than expected so subsidy is being repaid, allowing more homes to benefit from this approach. In the South east 531,093 homes have benefitted so far from this. In total 23 million homes nationwide now have superfast broadband from commercial investment, as well as the 3m from government assisted investment.

If there are problems with access to good broadband locally please let me know so I can take it up with the Minister.

I have received this letter from Ministers regarding the proposed devolution of Sunday trading laws:

5 August 2015

Dear Colleague,

Re: Sunday trading laws

In the Summer Budget the Government announced that it would be consulting on proposals to devolve powers on Sunday trading rules to a local level. I am pleased to announce that today we are launching the consultation document seeking views on the options for devolving these rules. This consultation presents an opportunity for you to get the views of your local community on Sunday opening hours.

The current Sunday trading rules were established over 20 years ago, but the consumer environment has changed enormously since then and high street shops are facing growing competition from the rise of online and mobile phone shopping. Internet sales now account for 11.5 per cent of all retail sales and have more than quadrupled since 2006. The current rules have not kept pace with these changes and stifle business’ efficiency and competitiveness, reducing consumer choice and also limiting the ability of our major cities to compete for international tourism.

Also, local high streets need to adapt and change in order to thrive in an internet age. Government has a wide package of policies to support high streets – from cuts in business rates for small shops to stopping over-zealous parking restrictions practices.

Local decision-makers, for example, elected metro mayors or local authorities, are accountable to their local communities and understand the wishes of their local citizens and the needs of local businesses. Devolving this power to local areas means that they can ensure that the rules reflect local preferences, shopping habits and economic conditions and will give them greater flexibility to make decisions for themselves. This means that local areas would have the discretion to zone which part of their local authority area would benefit from the longer hours, for example, allowing them to boost high streets. Extended hours may not be right for all communities and local decision makers are best placed to judge this.

The options set out in the consultation are as follows:

1) Devolving powers to local areas through ‘devolution deals’, for example, to elected metro mayors, so that they can determine the Sunday trading rules within their local area; and/or

2) Devolving powers to Local Authorities more generally across England and Wales.

There will be no changes to Sunday trading law in relation to Easter Sunday or Christmas Day.

As with the current rules, these proposals extend to England and Wales only, as the matter is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The consultation document can be viewed on the .gov.uk website at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/devolving-sunday-trading-rules.

This consultation will give provide an opportunity to consider all relevant issues in more depth. As you would expect, the outcome of the consultation will help shape the final proposals.

Yours sincerely,

Brandon Lewis MP
Minister of State for Housing and Planning

&

Rt Hon Anna Soubry MP
Minister of State for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise

The government has issued a consultation paper about Sunday trading. They are offering the right to local communities to make their own rules about Sunday trading hours for various types of shop. They are asking whether this should be done as part of a general devolution deal to a large area with an elected Mayor (Greater London, the new Manchester arrangement) or by means of a general power to all local authorities in England and Wales.
If you have views on this you can respond directly to the government’s consultation or let me know on this site your opinion. I would also be interested to know if constituents want change to the current hours or think the present law has the balance right.

Rt Hon Mr John Redwood MP – Member of Parliament for Wokingham

24 July 2015

Dear Mr Redwood

Lower Earley Post Office®
Martin McColl’s Retail Group, 5 Chalfont Way, Earley, Reading, RG6 5HQ

Modernising your Post Office

I’m delighted to tell you that we’ve decided, with the operator’s agreement, to change the above Post Office branch to one of our new main style branches.

This change is part of a major programme of modernisation taking place across the Post Office network, the largest in the history of Post Office Ltd. The Programme is underpinned by Government investment and will see up to 8,000 branches modernised and additional investment in over 3,000 community and outreach branches. Our aim is to create a more modern and convenient retail experience for customers that will include longer opening hours.

What will this mean for customers?
• a newly refurbished branch providing a modern open plan environment for customers
• the same products and services
• longer opening hours
• selected Post Office services will also be available at the retail counter outside main counter times

Your new-look Post Office is scheduled to open at the current location on Friday 11 September 2015 at 13:00 – it will need to close for refurbishment on Saturday 29 August 2015 at 12:30.

If there are any unforeseen schedule changes which mean these dates change, posters will be displayed in branch to let customers know. I’ve included details of other Post Office branches in the area that customers can use during the refurbishment and some useful information about the change. During the refurbishment period of the Post Office, the store will remain open as normal. Posters will now be displayed in branch so customers are aware of the change.

Getting in touch

I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about the new service. Please email or write to me via our Communication & Consultation team, whose contact details are provided below.

We look forward to welcoming customers to their new main Post Office branch.

Yours sincerely

Alan Ridoutt
Area Manager

How to contact us:
comments@postoffice.co.uk Customer Helpline: 03457 22 33 44

Wokingham Borough Residents Services – Pauline Jorgensen – Executive Member and Wokingham Borough Councillor for Hillside in Earley

As the lowest funded unitary authority in the country Wokingham Borough has to be very careful with our residents money but we are also passionate about providing good and continuously improving customer service. These two aims are not contradictory, in many cases poor customer service leads to wasted effort and additional cost in dealing with queries and complaints. My view is that the most efficient way to deal with residents issues is to make reporting problems online as easy as possible, to streamline processes and systems and to introduce elements of self service, this is what we are striving to do. I also recognise that with the variety of local residents we can’t force all queries down the online route and we must continue to provide choice of methods of access to serve people who are not able to use online methods.

As part of our drive to improve customer service I also feel it is important to get some customer service staff out from behind their desks and into the local towns so that they can talk face to face with local residents and hear their views and frustrations and deal with their problems first hand. My experience, from my job in the commercial world, is that this sharpens up their response as they hear first hand the frustration when things are not handled properly together with the praise for a job well done. To this end we are holding town centre stalls in the local population centres. The first was held recently in Wokingham and got a really good response from the public and we will hold another in Earley on the 1st August and are planning another in Woodley. The event in Wokingham generated more than 40 queries to follow up on and also some good suggestions as to how we can improve further. Some of our services and people were also singled out for praise by residents which always makes you feel good.

We are also driving to improve our website learning from good practice in other areas such as the Government internet portal, we are gradually linking up our service request systems up to our suppliers to reduce the opportunity for queries to get lost and also the effort involved in passing them on. We have a long way to go to meet the standards of commercial customer service websites but we are on the way.

Earley Conservatives: https://www.facebook.com/earley.tories

I have received the following letter from the Post Office:

16 July 2015

Dear Mr Redwood

Spencers Wood Post Office®
Basingstoke Road, Spencers Wood, Reading, RG7 1AD
Changes to your Post Office® – tell us what you think

We’re talking to the Postmaster about making some changes to the above Post Office and we’d like you to tell us what you think about the changes before we finalise our plans.

What’s happening?

There’s an exciting programme of investment and transformation taking place across the Post Office network, helping to make our branches more modern and convenient for you and for the Postmasters who run them. We’re talking to the Postmaster about changing to one of our new-style local branches and if the change goes ahead:

• Post Office services would be offered from a low-screened, open plan style service points, integrated into the retail counter
• The branch would be open for longer: Mon – Sat 09:00 – 20:00 & Sun 11:00 – 17:00. (Current opening times are: Mon – Fri 09:00 – 17:30 & Sat 09:00 – 12:30)
• You’ll still be able to get most of the Post Office products and services you’re used to however for a small number of services you may need to visit an alternative Post Office, go on-line or, telephone our customer helpline. Details of product availability are provided overleaf
• To get the new branch ready, it may need to close for up to seven days during September/October 2015 for refurbishment

What’s next?
We want to know what’s important to you and would like you to tell us what you think, particularly on the following areas:

• Why you use this Post Office and what you like about it
• What you think about the proposed new-look Post Office. For example the Post Office service point would be on the retail counter, so is there anything you’d like to ask us or would like us to take into consideration about the proposed location of the Post Office till or the queuing area
• What you think about any changes to the opening hours
• If you have any comments about how you will access the Post Office products and services that won’t be available at the branch if the change goes ahead
• If you have any comments about the potential closure period during the refurbishment or access to other branches in the area

There’s also a list of frequently asked questions provided at the end which you may find useful.

It’s easy to let us have your feedback by completing our convenient online survey via the following link postofficeviews.co.uk and entering the unique code for this branch 12393999

Customer information materials are also being displayed in branch and details are published on our website too at postofficeviews.co.uk
We’ll be accepting comments up to and including 14 August 2015.

You can also let us have your comments in the following ways:

Please note that items sent by Freepost take 2 working days to arrive and don’t include Saturday or Sunday. Therefore please do allow sufficient time for your comments to arrive before the end of the consultation period, as we are unable to consider feedback received after the deadline.

We won’t be responding to you individually however the feedback received will be taken into consideration as we finalise plans with the Postmaster. We’ll write to you again outlining the main comments received and our response to these and also to explain the final plans for the branch. All of the responses received will be provided to the independent statutory consumer watchdog, which in Great Britain is Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, the Consumer Council.

When would the changes happen?

We’re planning to make these changes in September/October 2015 and we’ll put a poster up in branch at least two weeks before to let customers know the exact date and to tell them how we’ve considered the feedback. We’ll make sure any disruption caused by the refurbishment is kept to a minimum.

The following branch will be happy to provide customers with Post Office services during this period.

• Three Mile Cross Post Office, Basingstoke Road, Three Mile Cross, Reading, RG7 1AT

We’ll also be asking customers for their feedback once the changes have taken place and details will be available in branch shortly after the new look branch opens.

Yours sincerely

David Gold
Area Manager

I have received the following update from the Government on Schools Funding:

16 July 2015

The Government is committed to developing world-class schools across the country, so that every child, everywhere, can fulfil their potential. That’s why in the Conservative manifesto we committed to protecting the money following children into school, to confirming the extra £390m fairer funding uplift from 2015-16 into budgets for 2016-17 and beyond, and to making funding fairer.

Today we are taking the first steps towards meeting these commitments by publishing the per pupil funding rates for each Local Authority’s schools budget for 2016-17. This protects the per pupil funding in each authority from 2015-16, meeting the commitment to protect the national schools budget and to base-lining the £390m extra funding from last year. You can see how this affects each Local Authority at the following address:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-funding-arrangements-2016-to-2017

We are also publishing the Education Funding Agency’s Operational Guide; to allow Local Authorities to start the process of consulting with their schools on how the funding should be distributed in their area.

Final funding allocations to each authority will be made in December, in line with the latest data on their pupil numbers.

Base-lining the 2015-16 Minimum Funding Levels in 2016-17 is an important step towards making funding fairer. However it remains the case that a school in one part of the country can receive over 50% more funding than an identical school in another part of the country.

We are therefore committed to making schools and early education funding fairer and will put forward our proposals in due course.

We recognise the links between funding for early education, schools and pupils with high cost Special Educational Needs. These are complex issues to consider, and we will consult extensively with the sector and the public on them.

Yours sincerely

Sam Gyimah MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Childcare and Education

ROAD ISSUES FOR WOKINGHAM BOROUGH

EAST/WEST ROUTES

The main traffic flows in our area are east/west. There are three main routes, the A329M/A3290, A329, and the national M4 . The A327 in conjunction with the B3349 also provides a Wokingham to Reading east/west link around Arborfield/Shinfield. To the north of my constituency lies the A4 and to the south the A 30 and the M3. The A4 has reduced capacity following de trunking and the imposition of traffic calming measures. Both the A 30 and the A 4 have short sections of dual capacity with pinch points elsewhere. There is insufficient capacity on all these roads individually and in combination.

The government has announced plans to increase capacity on the M4 by one third, but local roads also need extra capacity.

The A327 will benefit from the Shinfield and Arborfield by passes. It also needs flood prevention measures to the east of Shinfield, and resolution of the delays caused by aggressive traffic lights on the south Reading section.

The A 329 blocks regularly thanks to light controlled junctions in Wokingham and Winnersh. A Winnersh by pass might tackle the Winnersh issue but we need to see whether there is a sensible route. Shorter term and cheaper options are a roundabout at the Broad Street junction in Wokingham and remodelling of the Winnersh junction with changes to phasings of lights with traffic sensors. The double light sets for the foodstore and the junction create considerable difficulties and delays.

The A329M will need more capacity in each direction and better access from the Winnersh Triangle entry in due course. Immediately the traffic lights should be withdrawn from the two approach roundabouts to the motorway at the Winnersh exit and from the Winnersh Triangle approach roundabout or the lights made peak time only.

NORTH/SOUTH ROUTES

North South traffic is lighter than East/west, but road capacity is far too small for current volumes. The main obstacles are the river and two East/west railway lines with inadequate bridges. There are two principal routes, the A 321 from the M3 in the south to Henley via Wokingham, and the A 327 from Eversley to Reading via Shinfield. The B3030 route from Arborfield to Hurst where it links with the A 321 is also an important north/south corridor.

The river crossing at Sonning has just a one way at a time bridge with one mile queues as a regular peak feature.There is little that can be done about this given the nature of the bridge and setting. The back bridges and approach road from the north could be improved further by Oxfordshire which would help.

The two way bridge at Henley is backed by a light controlled junction, which creates two mile tail backs during the long rowing/festival periods, and one mile tail backs at normal peaks. The route of the minor road intercepting the A 321 by the riverside in Henley and the traffic lights are a bigger cause of the jams than the bridge itself. Wokingham has long supported a 3rd crossing but neighbouring Councils remain opposed.

People wishing to go north on the national highway network from the Wokingham constituency are more likely to use national roads, by heading east on the M4 to use the bridges on the A 404(M) over the river and railway, or heading west to the A 34 trunk which also has good bridges over river and railway. Both these routes can entail substantial detours and place additional strain on the east/west national highway for what are south/north journeys.

The railway crossing at the Finchampstead Road does not permit two way traffic flows with large vehicles and is now scheduled for improvement. One rail bridge crossing in Wokingham is insufficient and an additional one is scheduled. The rail crossing in Winnersh does flow. The three sets of barrier controlled level crossings in the Wokingham area are major impediments to traffic flow and are potentially dangerous, so additional bridge routes that take most of the flow are necessary.

Twyford is a major north/south bottleneck on the A321, including parking on the main highway to pick and put down passengers for the station. This is outside my constituency.

Cycle lanes and routes should be segregated from these main roads. London has experienced an alarming increase in cycling deaths with cycle lanes and more cycle use of main roads without physical separation from traffic. The Council should identify footpaths and pavements that could be converted, and verges and alternative routes that could provide safer segregated capacity for bikes.

The government has set out its proposals and will debate and vote on them on July 15th. I promised to speak for England and to seek ways in which English matters can be settled by English MPs. These changes to the way the Commons will consider English laws, English budgets and English taxes are a good start which I will support next Wednesday.

On Monday I attended a meeting with the Secretary of State for Communities and local government, and the Housing Minister. I explained the need for more affordable homes to buy in Wokingham, and asked for more information on the government scheme proposed in the Conservative Manifesto to offer 20% discounts on new  homes for first time buyers.

 

The Ministers confirmed their intentions to press on with this. I have written to Councillors urging Wokingham and West Berkshire to co-operate with this scheme. I will follow up with further meetings.