TONY JOHNSON

The November syndrome, part 2

RESIGNED. Resigned. Ashamed. As you read last week, November’s Borough Council meeting was far from ordinary - starting early and finishing late. As the main debate of the evening was to show, things went so far beyond unusual they met themselves coming in through the exit.

Spud quality in council chamber

Spud quality? Pardon???

If you’d have been there you’d have understood.

Getting four messages about the sound quality in the first half hour resulted in my sending a brief email to a senior Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) officer to express collective concern.

Even on a quiet night some of the speakers aren’t the most audible. However it seemed harder than ever to make sense of what Cllr Mumble-Mumble had just said, or how Cllr SoftlyWaffling had replied to a question, and please, please could Cllr Talks-to-their-boots shout up a bit?

But that would be really unfair as the prize prawn was this writer: concentrating on listening to barely audible speakers; ignoring the noise of the air circulation fans; sending an email; failing to notice the spill chucker’s correction of sound to spud.

The recipient must have thought that I was listening via potato – or perhaps I that was writing from the bottom of a spud barrel – if not completely bananas even, (having such poor quality potatoes).

The Barkham Square petition

The reason the place was so packed was the housing debate driven by the borough’s biggest petition yet, news of which was reported in last week’s paper.

A record 4,000+ people had opposed the development of 1,000 houses at Barkham Square, on top of the 3,500 houses already being developed at Arborfield Green (the former REME Garrison) over 80% of which is in Barkham, despite its name.

Too much traffic; too little countryside; and a lack of sustainability; all received adverse comments in the opening speech.

The mayor, as the sole councillor for Barkham, was next to speak. He pointed out that the Arborfield Green developers had over nine years worth of unbuilt planning approvals already, without adding more via Barkham Square.

He reminded everyone that with only

~20% of the borough’s current permissions having been built, traffic jams are already horrendous and that unless sensible action were taken, it’ll be a disaster for residents everywhere.

His critique was both wide ranging and valid, though he stopped short of laying responsibility on the policy failures of minister after minister in previous or current governments.

Although his sentiments may have originated in Barkham, their wisdom applies equally across the whole borough.

He finished by hoping that the deputy mayor would look to him when requesting a motion at the end of the debate.

Debating the debatable

The ensuing debate ranged across the chamber, the borough and the different political persuasions. Member after member made suggestions for change (simple or radical), for policies, for past promises, expressing concern after concern as to the borough’s response to development.

The Executive Member for Strategic Development suggested that the petition was premature in the process as the Local Plan Update consultation had only just been launched.

He went on to state clearly that ALL sites would be subject to comprehensive assessment and that before any final recommendation, the specific circumstance for each case would be taken into account.

Please understand this ‘state clearly’. To most residents this counts as a promise, yet for some, ‘stating clearly’ has a hollow ring about it – as attempt after attempt has failed to deliver effective political and economic action (locally or nationally).

Debate ended with a closing speech from another Barkham resident and we were all reminded that current policies and plans had led to one Developer’s CEO being paid a £75 million bonus.

Seventy five.

Million.

Going through the motions

The deputy mayor duly thanked the speakers before going straight to the Executive Member for Strategic Development to request a motion for the members to vote on.

Before anyone else could say anything, the motion papers were being distributed.

The leader of the opposition asked if there was a second motion and suddenly the Executive Member was back on his feet talking through the motion he’d just caused to be put in front of council.

There was another opposition objection, following which the vote went ahead and with a couple of conservative abstentions and one voting against, the motion was carried via the usual block vote.

The EM’s motion was so anodyne that it made no mention of the petition, didn’t commit the council to do anything it wasn’t doing already, made no comments on government policy nor any ideas on change.

Poets Day

It turned a pretty decent debate into a stupefying acceptance of government policy – to condone developers carving up Wokingham Borough inch by inch, metre by metre, pound by pound.

And the motion from the member for Barkham didn’t even get a look in.

This abandonment of residents is as close as I’ve ever seen to observing that turkeys do indeed vote for Christmas, which’ll be coming to them in May 2019.

By the end of the meeting, the opposition councillors were still all there, however more than 50% of the Conservatives appeared to have gone home early.

Anyone got a good recipe for Christmas stuffing?