From the Leader: Time for some realism on Planning

Wokingham Borough Council faces a massive challenge on housing numbers in the coming years.

The government has instructed us to begin work on a new local plan that will accommodate 1,300 new homes a year even before we have formally signed off on the plan that has just been tested at inspection. The government expects us to complete the replacement plan in about three years. 

Finding sites to accommodate the numbers that government mandates will be even more difficult than before, as most suitable land has already been developed, and little is left to deal with the very high target of 1,300 a year.

We have made, and will continue to make, representations to ministers on the lack of realism in the government’s figures and timescale for delivery. But ministers have so far shown no disposition to moderate their approach; it would be dishonest to suggest that there is a likelihood that they will relent.

It’s always tempting for opposition parties to seek to exploit the discomfort of governing parties that must make the unpalatable decisions on where the new homes should go. In the north of the borough, Conservatives are promoting a petition calling on the council to use brownfield or previously developed land rather than countryside, to avoid any new development in the countryside, and to rule out development in the Green Belt – land historically given the highest level of protection against new building.

It all sounds reasonable, but for a few inconvenient facts.

The last Conservative leader of the council recognised that there was insufficient brownfield land to accommodate the housing requirement back in 2022, when he was proposing the then draft plan: ‘We understand the preference for building on previously developed (brownfield) land’, he wrote, ‘but there is simply not enough of that available for housing development in the borough’. And that was when the housing allocation for Wokingham was 748 new homes a year, not the 1,300 plus that we face in the future.

It follows, regrettably, that greenfield land will have to contribute, as it has done over many years, however much we may wish that were not the case.

As for Green Belt land, the Conservatives’ attempt to present themselves as its only true defenders are at odds with reality. I support the Green Belt as much as any councillor. And, whatever the views of Conservatives in the north of the borough, Conservatives in the south do not regard the Green Belt as sacrosanct.

In a Conservative leaflet distributed in Finchampstead in 2024, the whole Conservative councillor group was portrayed as ‘advocating for development to be directed towards more sustainable locations, such as Twyford’. Only one site was considered but rejected for the local plan near Twyford at that time – land in the Green Belt in Ruscombe.

Another Conservative councillor from the south of the borough was more explicit, identifying ‘land east of Twyford’ as more suitable for development than Hall Farm in Arborfield. The only land east of Twyford promoted by developers - but rejected for inclusion in the plan on sound planning grounds – was in the Green Belt in Ruscombe.

It would be much better if all the parties on the borough council worked together to try to address our planning challenges rather than coming forward with arguments that they know to be flawed and which are contradicted by what they themselves have said.