Local plan fears

Finchampstead readers who have read the latest version of the neighbourhood development plan may have been struck by its very reasonable and constructive tone and the authors’ understanding, realism and cooperative spirit in working closely with, if not for, Wokingham Borough Council’s planners.

Imagine then their outrage and sense of betrayal in discovering, when Wokingham’s draft local plan was published recently, that all the while Wokingham Borough Council was planning to build 270 houses at Rooks Nest Farm, Barkham Ride, which stands just on the Barkham side of the boundary of the two parishes.

And not a word other than rumour to Finchampstead who developed and published their own proposals – including 70 homes on the opposite side of Barkham Ride – unaware that Wokingham was planning to dump it’s biggest proposed development on land it owns, not just in Finchampstead’s back yard but on its doorstep.

The irony is that although the Rooks Nest development is in Barkham, our friends there may be not be much affected by it. The nearest significant Barkham settlement is around the end of Bearwood Road about a mile away.

Not so Finchampstead. The houses start a stone’s throw from the farm, on and on both sides of Barkham Ride.

Rooks Nest might just as well be in Finchampstead for it is Finchampstead who will feel the brunt of it. Had Wokingham council’s leadership acted with the maturity and responsibility of the authors of the Finchampstead plan they would have ensured the Finchampstead planners were able to take the Rooks Nest proposal into account when formulating their own ideas. As it was they kept as silent as the Sphinx and as cynical as Machiavelli.

So all the more reason for the residents of Finchampstead to let Wokingham Council know exactly what they think of its proposal which will enrich the council at their expense. The first opportunity will be to respond to the Wokingham draft plan consultation between now and January 17.

The offer made by parish councillor David Cornish on the leaflet, Rooks Nest to become a Housing Estate ! about what needs to be argued, is extremely helpful which is more than can be said for the council’s website which seems designed to obscure and confuse.

If nothing else, just think of the traffic 270 homes will generate -probably at least 600 cars. Think of the pressure on Finchampstead schools and on its outstanding medical practice which is already absorbing the population of the new Aborfield. And if Rooks Nest is lost, where next on that green and pleasant rural Ride.

In the longer term it is likely that opposition will be organised similar to that which saw off developers’ proposals to build at Woodcray and Sand Martins. In those cases, the council was an ally; in this they will be the perpetrators.

I gather to their credit that all our four Finchampstead councillors are dead against the development and that the parish council will be asked to support a campaign which will be long and probably expensive.

It will need all the support the people of Finchampstead can muster if the parish’s semi-rural character is not be damaged for ever.

Ray Little, Finchampstead