Minutes:
Any Local Plan which is more than five years old is considered by National Planning Policy Framework to be out of date. As ours is more than five years old even though we continue to deliver more homes than neighbouring authorities, developers can claim that we do not have a plan and therefore appeal to planning inspectors that the development that they are promoting should be allowed. We have a veritable epidemic of appeals. To fight them we have engaged the top planning Chambers, which is both very expensive and very consumptive of Officers and Executive Members’ time.
We have published the draft Local Plan for consultation. It is based upon meeting a lower figure than the standard method, which we feel we can justify. It protects the Green Belt and the countryside by concentrating development in only a few places across the Borough and proposes a new Garden town at Grazeley, which would be designed and built to cutting edge environmental standards with sustainable transport links into Reading and massive investment in facilities – schools, community centres, sporting and leisure facilities with huge swathes of green space opened up for public use.
To not adhere to the National Planning Policy Framework and not having a plan means that we will have planning by appeal – developers putting houses where they want and government taking our planning department into special measures, as has happened in Liberal controlled South Oxfordshire. We will get more houses not less with no infrastructure. I do not like the situation we are in, but unless Parliament relents, we must do the best we can, with the tools we have.
Consequent upon the development, but not necessarily completely due to it we have congestion which is plaguing every resident’s lives. We need several billions and many years to build the capacity we need. Without that, all we can do is to optimise our use of the existing network. We are completing five major new roads which when finished will enable travel across the Borough avoiding Wokingham Town Centre. We are acquiring the tools so that an intelligent transport system will keep traffic moving as well as helping the environment. We will install responsive traffic light systems with smart software allowing signals to work intelligently based on traffic demand. Residents should notice reduced delays and improved journey times thanks to a combination of cameras and sensors within the network.
Mr Mayor, climate change is an issue for everybody. We have declared a Climate Emergency. The recently approved plan starts to make significant inroads into our ambitions to achieve carbon neutrality. As a Borough, we cannot solve it, but we can make sure that we are doing everything we can to play our part in its resolution including generating clean renewable energy. The Council has published its first plan and this Budget sees that plan put into action. In the future, this plan will be modified taking account of the measurement that we will be doing and the results of the actions that we are taking. It will of course introduce other actions that will come to light. This is very new to us and to others, but we are determined to be at the leading edge as I am sure residents would wish us to be. It is too important an issue for our future and our children’s future.
It is an ambitious but robust budget. It achieves the careful balance of safeguarding the vulnerable in our community and delivering services to everybody. The revenue budget is in surplus and the capital budget reflects our ambitions.
Mr Mayor, not only have we invested all this additional resource in much needed services and facilities for our community, we have maintained a strong and stable financial platform through our continued excellent stewardship of the Council's finances and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my Deputy Leader and Lead Member of Finance John Kaiser, for doing this. Our proposed General Fund balance is restored to a healthy position in excess of £10m, we have a fully funded 3 year Capital Programme and we are ranked in the top 20 of all upper tier authorities in the country in terms of our overall financial standing. We are not without our significant financial challenges and we remain the lowest funded Unitary Authority in the country, however we remain financially responsible and well managed. This should not prevent us, across all parties, lobbying for a fair funding deal in next year's long-term settlement and getting the level of funding this community deserves.
Mr Mayor, notwithstanding the interruption, I am delighted to present this Budget to Chamber, a budget which provides much needed investment into our community, whilst being a budget proposal that is safe, sound and responsible.