Is Maidenhead going to be another Bracknell?

When I was elected to be a councillor in the early 2000s, I believed that I was elected to do the best for the electorate of my ward and indeed the wider population of Maidenhead.

Rather than treating the people of Maidenhead with the respect that they deserve, this council seems to be treating them with absolute contempt.

There are a few examples of this recently – it was reported in your paper last week that the town manager believed that Maidenhead was going to be a fantastic place to celebrate the jubilee.

We went into town a couple of times over the weekend, and it was far from fantastic.

It was a very dull place; I saw more bunting on people’s houses on the walk in, than I actually saw in the town and there was NONE in the Nicholsons Centre!

They could learn a lot from Marlow, who had bunting jig-jagging all the way up and back down their High Street.

Perhaps more importantly, is the way that the council seems hell bent on violating the town centre and wider area with so many flats and, before anyone jumps down my throat about hating all flats, I don’t.

Although I have never been a great fan of Berkshire House, I applaud the way that the council encouraged that to be converted into modern-looking flats. Since then, however, they seem to have lost any sense of responsibility, to ensure that developments are done sympathetically to the town.

They should be ashamed of the decision to allow flats to be built at the end of St Ives Road that look more like apartment blocks in Spain, allowing proposals to build several apartment blocks that are substantially higher than Berkshire House and finally the appalling decision to try and build on the GOLF COURSE!

I hope that the power of the people prevails.

There is a common theme to all of these decisions: council tax, council tax and more council tax. The more flats and houses the council build the more council tax they will receive in the future.

This is unfortunately at the cost of changing a large market town into another town like Bracknell, that is rapidly spreading towards Wokingham.

IAIN BUCHANAN Raymond Road

Maidenhead