Wokingham

Land for new homes is a very difficult issue in the Wokingham borough and the council now has to give serious consideration to a recent government direction that requires a five-year continuous rolling land supply.

Consequently, at its meeting on Thursday June 28, Wokingham Borough Council’s decision-making executive will consider the release of housing sites already identified in the Local Plan as reserve sites to meet the Borough’s housing requirements under the existing Berkshire Structure Plan.

Wokingham Officers and councillors are required to respond to recent government direction, effective from April 1, 2007, called Planning Policy Statement 3 (known as PPS3), that requires local authorities to have a continuous rolling five-year supply of land for housing. Currently the council has a supply of approximately four and a half years and is required by PPS3 to add to the existing available land to meet the five-year land supply now required by central government.

Executive member for local and regional planning Wokingham Cllr Gary Cowan said: “We have been fighting unreasonable development every step of the way with the valuable support of our residents. Against that backdrop, we are now facing a new government direction that compels us to release further land for housing or face potentially serious and damaging consequences to our community as a whole.

“This is not a recommendation I will make lightly to the executive but no thanks to the government amending policy while we are developing our new local plan. As a direct result of this a decision has to be taken to ensure we retain control of the planning system and not just pass it over to government inspectors, which is the real danger of doing nothing. It needs to be understood that any released sites will still be subject to the normal planning process and all that entails.

“If we do not have adequate housing land identified we could be forced by the government’s planning inspectorate to accommodate inappropriate development in inappropriate locations in our borough. Such sites may well be in less suitable locations than those sites already identified in the Local Plan. In simple words, we will end up with inappropriate housing in the wrong places along with reduced developer contributions for infrastructure.”

Wokingham Borough Council