Campaigners plan path procession
Maidenhead: Great Park group will walk golf course footpaths
The Maidenhead Great Park group is organising a footpath procession across Maidenhead Golf Course in protest of the Borough Local Plan.
The procession across the course will take place at 6.30pm on Friday, April 22, and coincides with Earth Day.
It will be the fourth protest by the group since November, having demonstrated outside Maidenhead Town Hall prior to council meetings.
It will also be the first protest since the group launched a legal challenge against the BLP in March.
Tina Quadrino, leader of the Maidenhead Great Park campaign, said: “At the recent South West Maidenhead Development consultation event focusing on community needs, an officer of the council admitted that most of the trees, except those in Rushington Copse, will have to come down ahead of the development. It’s going to be very expensive to compensate for this senseless biodiversity loss.
“This massive over-development of our town will turn it into a major construction site, causing significant disruption and stress to the people of Maidenhead, and surrounding villages.
“There will be more traffic, congestion, noise, flooding and air pollution, as well as more pressure on local infrastructure, health and social services.
“The golf course development
will destroy woodlands and wildlife habitats, as well as Maidenhead’s green lung. It will also take away our opportunity to create Maidenhead Great Park, and to take steps to make our town a better place to live in the face of climate change.
“We urgently need the support of as many people in Maidenhead and the surrounding villages as possible to demonstrate that this massive loss of green space, trees and wildlife habitats in our town is unacceptable. And we invite people from across our town to come to the golf course to see for themselves the beautiful publicly owned woodlands and greenspace that are set to be bulldozed.”
The procession will begin at the Shoppenhangers Road end of the footpath, next to Frederick’s Hotel & Spa, at 6.30pm.
Councillor Phil Haseler, cabinet member for planning, parking, highways and transport, said: “Thank you to everyone who has attended our online events designed to involve the community in informing the next stage of planning for South West Maidenhead.
“This allocated development area will bring forward muchneeded new homes, community facilities, infrastructure, employment space and improved public access to green space.
“Our online events for the community to help inform the Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for the area have focused around the key considerations of sustainability and the environment, connectivity, and community needs.
“We welcome constructive feedback to ensure we fully capture and understand the key considerations in preparing a draft SPD for consultation this summer, and to ensure that ultimately we achieve the vision already set in the adopted Borough Local Plan to create a rounded high-quality place where people will want to live and enjoy living.
“Most public questions asked at these sessions were answered live during the events themselves and we also have an ever-expanding written FAQ on our website providing facts around matters such as sustainability, air quality, traffic, biodiversity and trees, among much else.
“If you were not able to attend one or more of the events, please do visit the website where you will shortly be able to watch back all three of the online events.
“Please visit rbwm.gov.uk/ SWMaidenhead-SPD. You can still submit comments as part of this stage of the SPD process until April 27, 2022. Hard copies of information and public access computers are also available in Maidenhead Library.”
For more information about the campaign, go to www.maidenhead greatpark.co.uk