New petition aims to tackle borough’s housing numbers
A NEW petition is being launched in a bid to make Wokingham borough’s housing target ‘fairer’.
At the moment, the government sets a target of new homes to be built per year, and the feeling is that, at 759, it’s too high. This was revised down in December last year from 1,635 new homes a year.
Two years ago there was a consultation run by Wokingham Borough Council shortly after Cllr John Halsall became leader, in which residents overwhelmingly called for housing numbers to be reduced.
He also threatened to parade naked down Whitehall should the government not take action.
Cllr Halsall said at the time: “We stood to lose so much had the government gone ahead with the proposals and doubled the number of houses we needed to build every year in the borough from 789 to 1,635. This is even more important now than it was before, now that it appears we may not be able to build a new garden town at Grazeley.
“Although the number is still too high, the proposed increase has been removed.
“So now we go back and look at all our options and go back to our residents when we come up with a plan B.”
Now there is a new communities secretary in the form of MP Michael Gove, Wokingham’s Liberal Democrats are saying it is time for new action to be taken.
The group’s leader, Cllr Clive Jones, said that it was time that the government changed the way it calculates local housing needs and the number of new homes forced on a borough.
“Wokingham borough is expected to allow developers to build almost 16,000 new houses in the next 20 years. This is on top of the 11,000 houses that have already been built by developers in the last 15 years,” he said. “16,000 New houses in the next 20 years just is not fair.”
And he said that Wokingham needed more one-, two-, and three-bedroom homes, as well as bungalows and affordable homes, but didn’t need the high numbers expected from the Draft Local Plan update.
Although the party is launching a petition, at the Executive meeting of Wokingham Borough Council, held on November 12, Cllr Halsall said that the Conservatives would not be taking them into consideration during the local plan consultation.
“This is very undemocratic and its wrong for the council leader to take this attitude,” Cllr Jones said.
“Local residents are entitled to express their opinions and take what action they feel is appropriate to support their areas
“Local Lib Dems have decided to petition the Secretary of State for levelling up, housing and communities to lobby them to reduce our numbers in Wokingham.
“We need as many Wokingham residents as possible to sign our petition.”
To raise awareness, the party will deliver 40,000 leaflets over coming weeks to provide residents with more details.