Question
Wokingham has been subjected to significant development over the past few years. The planning process provides for community amenities and planning conditions build on these amenities. Shinfield has waited for nearly 10 years to get a promised supermarket, only recently approved and significantly varied from the original promised amenity. We also await other amenities such as sports pitches, pavilion, community focal point etc, all late and much changed from the original promises. Shinfield is not alone in this wait. I also understand that Wokingham are not meeting the planning levels for allotment provision. What are Wokingham planning doing about meeting the agreed amenity targets for our communities?
Minutes:
Question:
Answer:
You are right that all the major developments we have planned for in recent years has secured new infrastructure to be designed in and delivered alongside the much-needed new homes we have been providing.
In respect to the Shinfield major development specifically, the new infrastructure delivered to date includes upgraded outdoor sports facilities at Ryeish Green, new public open spaces including allotment sites at both Three Mile Cross and Shinfield, the new Aldergrove Primary School and the Eastern Relief Road. The new Shinfield Community building has also been delivered through funding secured from the development in addition to other projects delivered by the Parish. The provision of allotments and public open space is in accordance with our policy and is either being provided as new facilities and/or through enhancements to existing facilities.
It is recognised that some elements of the planned infrastructure are still to be delivered including further allotments, cricket/sports pitches and the supermarket. These will be delivered as the development continues to progress. For example, the allotments at Orchard Rise were delayed due to soil compaction and other remedial works which needed to be put right before opening. These will open in early 2023 following final approval from the Council.
I sympathise that the delayed delivery of the supermarket at Shinfield is frustrating, but it is great news that it is now planned to come forward. My understanding is that the delay to the supermarket has primarily been caused by economic uncertainty following Covid and this resulted in a lack of commercial interest for a period.
I am pleased that the proposed supermarket is progressing and whilst slightly smaller than that originally planned, it is much closer to the original vision with the change reflecting how the retail market has changed over time.
We will continue to do all we can to hold major developments to the agreed vision, recognising that any move away should be fully explained and justified, and not done without a look of whatever as I would call it.
Supplementary Question:
The question was more whilst I used examples at Shinfield, it was wider. It was across all development across the whole of Wokingham, where we fail to deliver the amenities promised.
As a Council, along with our Town and Parish Councils, we have many obligations to our communities. These include such things as keeping areas clean and safe, simple things like keeping roads and open areas clean of rubbish and evidence of dog walkers, and street lighting to keep our residents safe. We also have obligations to deliver what we promise, and what we approve through the planning process. We may not always do this, but we can always be held, and rightly so to account. What do we do to hold developers to account where before we adopt some of these new developments? The developers are not keeping some of our residents safe. They are not keeping our streets clean, and they are not allowing the communities to flourish.
Supplementary Answer:
The Council does have a team particularly to deal with the SDL activities where they work with the developers to ensure that they do provide the services that are required. However, you do raise a very important point, and that is about the calibre of the different developers across the Borough. In fact it is one of the things that is in the new MPPF that has been issued just before Christmas, where the issue of the calibre is now being considered as an issue as to whether we can consider them to be suitable or not in future. I think that is something that is very good because it makes developers, and there a number that I could name, but I will not at the moment, that have not performed on doing things on various parts of the Borough. I might look at someone who is not very far away, who has been affected by a particular developer, and there is others in other parts that have been very laggard.
One of the things that really does give me a lot of problems, is the way that they set up these companies to charge residents up to £3,000 a year to do things, where the roads are not in a very good state. You drove me around the Shinfield area and some of the roads were in an appalling state. In fact, the central road point that you showed, actually had a car hit it about two days afterwards. Some developers are a lot worse than others, but there are some good developers, and I think we need to build on this with the developers and work harder and push them so that when they say they will develop and provide x, they provide x.