Flat out of Wokingham

I read with interest last week’s article on the building of flats by the Radian Group on the site previously of Sorbus House, Fishponds Road in Wokingham and in particular the lowering in provision of affordable homes within the development of 38 new apartments.

I totally agree with Liberal Democrat borough councillor Sarah Kerr when she states in your article her disappointment that approval has been given for the developers to provide nine instead of 11 affordable apartments due to lack of viability, when 11 affordable apartments meets Wokingham’s policy requirements. As Cllr Kerr says, the council ‘is not here here to help developers increase their profit margins’.

This issue has come full circle as you kindly published a letter from me in July 2019 on the topic of the lack of provision of affordable homes in the Borough.

I’m not sure when Wokingham Council will wake up to the call from many of its residents that more affordable homes are necessary so that young families, single parents and our public sector employees such as our NHS and care workers can afford to live in the borough.

When I wrote to you last year, my understanding was that 7,200 new homes had been built in the borough since 2011 but only 305 of these had been sold through the Help to Buy scheme. Yet according to Cllr Wayne Smith, the target for affordable homes in new builds in Wokingham is 35%.

How is this Council ever going to achieve this target if it is swayed by the developer’s arguments that they cannot afford to build affordable homes?

The Reading and Wokingham branch of the Women’s Equality Party attended the Wokingham Winter Carnival last year. We asked visitors to our stand what were the most pressing issues for them living in this borough. The top answer from all age groups was affordable housing.

For the young, housing was so expensive in the borough they were struggling to get onto the housing ladder.

For older residents, they wanted their daughters, sons and grandchildren to live near them but the only way they could foresee this happening was by more affordable homes being made available for them to buy.

Lack of affordable homes affects women more adversely. According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 67% of the statutory homeless are women, and of homeless families, single mothers make up 66% of the figures. The Child Poverty Action Group states that there are 4.2 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2018-19. That’s 30% of children. Childcare and housing are two of the costs that take the biggest toll on these families’ budgets.

A report published July 2019 by The Women’s Budget Group states that ‘rising house prices and the gender pay gap mean that there is no English region where a single woman on median earnings can afford to rent or buy an averagely priced house’. According to their report, an average home to rent or buy is affordable for men on median earnings in every region except London and the south east.

In these areas women need 18 times their annual earnings to afford to buy a house. In the South East the gender pay gap is at its largest, again making house buying unattainable for women buying on their own.

I want to endorse Cllr Kerr’s view that WBC’s ‘commitment is to the people of Wokingham Borough, and as a local planning authority, it has been determined what level of affordable housing is required for developments. Your job is to uphold that requirement’.

Wokingham Council does need to uphold its requirement to provide affordable housing, to put peoples needs before developers’ profits and create a fairer housing market for everyone.

A housing market affordable for young women, for young men, for single parents, for young families, for NHS workers, for care workers, for our children who want to move to be near us and for our community.

Louise Timlin, Leader of the Reading andWokingham Branch of theWomen’s Equality Party