Wokingham

Wokingham District Council should seize the opportunity to reduce the number of houses being squeezed into existing towns and villages, say the local Lib Dems.

The Wokingham council is currently reviewing its strategy for deciding where it should locate the new housing that the government insists that we should take. The Lib Dem opposition on Wokingham District Council believes that the best option is to build a new settlement in the south of the district, on the site of the Arborfield garrison. The garrison is due to be vacated by the army soon, and could accommodate a sizeable chunk of the district’s housing allocation.

A new settlement on the Arborfield garrison site would relieve the pressure on the towns and villages throughout the district, which have been subject to much infill and backland development in recent years. And a new settlement gives us the chance to make the developers pay for the infrastructure needed to support more houses – such as transport, schools, and health provision.

Piecemeal development of the kind we have been suffering provides insufficient infrastructure, and consequently more congestion on the roads, and more pressure on school places and the overstretched health service.

Lib Dems