Numbers game

I refer to the borough’s housing numbers in Wokingham Today, November 25, where the figure of 759 and even more new houses per year is out of all proportion and will affect the quality of people’s lives wherever they are built in Wokingham.

It is made worse by Cllr Halsall’s revised update of the plan which is a shambles from start to finish. It neither provides the right kind or affordable housing and it will bring chaos and gridlock on the roads and to the existing facilities already overladen in the areas proposed.

The only good news is that the council may not be able to build a new garden town at Grazeley. The people there might have escaped now but it depends who might be in charge at the next time this comes up.

The situation in Shinfield is very serious as the attitude of the University with their highly paid experts has already been responsible for thousands of houses being built. They have destroyed the wishes of the families who bequeathed the land for agricultural use. Shinfield has been turned from a village to a large town and the area will be totally decimated with Cllr Halsall’s proposals.

If this Council is still in power after the next election, Wokingham will have Europe’s largest housing estate. Everyone who lives in Wokingham should be supporting the residents of Shinfield and understand their plight.

Wokingham have launched a petition to get residents opinion on the plan but we know that conflicting opinions will not be taken any notice of. This is totally wrong and undemocratic of a party who ignores any opinion that doesn’t agree with theirs. The petition was just wasting people’s money.

There comes a time when the existing infrastructure cannot take any more. Residents told the Council this two years ago as they have a right to object. But they weren’t listened to.

The mass influx of new residents to the Borough as well as trustees of the University are taking away our farms and green spaces along with greedy developers. Now the Council is destroying democracy. The basis of local government is on the verge of collapse.

Cllr Kaiser boasts how wealthy Wokingham is and that they have underspent.

Isn’t it time that the residents needs come first to give a proper road surface to walk, cycle and ride on? as stated by Cllr Jorgensen. The council cannot even return and put right shoddy workmanship which didn’t last even six months.

A member of staff from Wokingham Highways Alliance arrived to see the writer and one would expect them to have some credibility and to understand that somebody might have a different opinion to the algorithm on the computer. If Cllr Jorgensen is correct in what she states in Wokingham Today and she has a conscience, we might get some satisfaction from a member of the Council to settle a complaint in the near future.

Cedric Lander, Woodley