Question
With the Leadership change within the Conservative Administration which sees you now as the Executive Member responsible for Strategic Highways and Planning can you advise me if the existing various housing policies adopted by this administration will have the continued support of the administration.
I refer in particular to the following;
• The increase of the Core Strategy approved housing numbers from 661 to 856 without any public consultation to which Officers now say this is a minimum.
• The secret plan to build up to 15000 houses at Grazeley
• and finally continue to support the plan announced recently in Wokingham Town Hall to support Bracknell, Reading and West Berks should they have any housing shortfalls up to 2036.
Minutes:
Question
With the Leadership change within the Conservative Administration which sees you now as the Executive Member responsible for Strategic Highways and Planning can you advise me if the existing various housing policies adopted by this Administration will have the continued support of the Administration.
I refer in particular to the following;
· The increase of the Core Strategy approved housing numbers from 661 to 856 without any public consultation to which Officers now say this is a minimum;
· The secret plan to build up to 15,000 houses at Grazeley; and
· finally continue to support the plan announced recently in Wokingham Town Hall to support Bracknell, Reading and West Berks should they have any housing shortfalls up to 2036.
Answer
As I am sure you are aware we are required to use the most up to date housing assessment figures, and this has been confirmed by Government in various guidance, and that is the most recent and also the most recent planning appeals. GL Hearne carried out a revised housing needs assessment in October 2015 and we are now compelled to use that as the most up to date information that we have. As this is an objectively assessed piece of evidence the public consultation was not required and it is not something that we could have achieved anything by carrying out any public consultation on it.
We are forced, as I am sure you know, to accept these figures. We will challenge them but we are being constantly challenged at appeal and they keep pushing those figures up and those appeal inspectors are backing those people and still doing it. But we are not sitting back doing nothing we are challenging this.
Supplementary Question
One of the concerns I do have is although I see leadership changes within the Administration two of the key architects of the above disastrous housing policies which I have listed in my original question, supported by the Conservative Group, one has to worry about the future for Wokingham’s green fields.
If you look at Windsor and Maidenhead it has 53 Conservatives out of 57 Councillors yet they are in the same drive like us in support of the Hearne report housing numbers which has actually fractured that Council and its residents.
My supplementary question is how can our residents have any confidence at all in a Conservative Administration which is positively supportive of massive housing building on an epic and unimaginable scale that will lead to concreting over vast tracts of our green fields.
Supplementary Answer
If I actually go back you had two other points in your original question so let me come back to that. The first one was the secret plan to build up to 15,000 houses at Grazeley. Grazeley was thought to have potential to be considered as a joint venture with neighbouring authorities to accommodate some of the housing requirement the Government is forcing us to accept; and that is Governments of all colours – Labour Government, coalition government of Conservative and Liberal and the Conservative Government. They are all forcing us to accept housing. This site is not totally in the Borough and it is not designed that we are taking anybody else’s housing; which I think the third part of your question comes on to. It was as many other projects considered in a confidential environment to understand if it could be of benefit in alleviating some of our housing pressures; exactly what you were saying about building on greenfield sites. I totally agree with you on that and it is certainly not my objective. It is now a formally submitted site and is being assessed alongside the other some 200 sites.
Finally you talked about something announced and I am totally ignorant of this in Wokingham Town Hall to support Bracknell, Reading and West Berkshire should they have any shortfalls. This Authority has over many years complied with Government requirements to assess our housing need and accommodate such need within our boundaries. While we have a responsibility under law to work together with our neighbours as part of the duty to co-operate, it is not our intention to take on any further un-necessary housing in our Borough; especially as we are the highest within our housing area, which is the west of Berkshire. We have the highest number of houses that has been pushed on us at 856 which is 221 more than Bracknell which is just down the road.
I will not sit by and see this area concreted over and I know Gary that you will make sure that none of us do that but you have my assurance because we will be writing to Government and we are arranging meetings with them. This Authority has granted some 10,000 planning applications and the appeals that we fail on are because the Inspectors challenge the affordability. Affordability, as everybody knows, is all to do with delivery. If you have more houses being delivered the houses are cheaper. Well, 10,000 planning applications out there you have to ask yourself, and I hope the press pick this up, who is it who is holding back on the delivery. It is not Wokingham Borough Council it is the developers and if they actually built what they say they would build you would have cheaper houses in this area. However we are constantly losing at appeal and the Government have got to change their attitude and we are going to make sure that they are aware of our frustrations.