July

CONTINUED concerns over the safety of removing the school crossing patrols led to one school governor publicly asking why they hadn’t had the courtesy of a reply to their letter to WBC.

Unrelated but in the same week, former council leader Keith Baker resigned his post as executive member for Highways, while WBC Mayor John Kaiser, acting as a ward councillor, helped launch a petition against another 1,000 new homes being added to Barkham.

A completion date of mid-August was announced for Wokingham’s Market Place and WBC’s third executive member for highways in 2018 announced that the 19a/c bus service suspended in 2017, would be coming back.

But as the hot spell continued, one six-year-old in Winnersh got fed up with the litter on her walk to school and promptly wrote to the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the road closures continued as Southern Gas and South East Water each added to motorists’ woes by tearing up roads in Woosehill and Winnersh, then causing gridlock in south Wokingham by shutting the junction of Molly Millars Lane and Finchampstead Road.

Light relief was on hand for visitors to the Marvellous Festival at Dinton Pastures in Hurst while on a slightly more serious note, party activists welcomed the visit by Sir Keir Starmer – Labour’s national Brexit front bencher – at a Wokingham town centre restaurant.

Following the loss of yet another planning appeal, WBC’s leader Cllr Charlotte Haitham Taylor pledged that the council would be holding a public consultation on new housing as part of the Local Plan update.