The adoption of the Arborfield SDL, and the way in which Wokingham Borough Council did it continues to be reported. Alongside a significant article in the Wokingham Times this week, BBC South Today also led with the story on their bulletins on 12th October, including this report on their main evening programme:
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Arborfield Garrison SDL Has Been Adopted
As you may have seen in local newspapers or heard on local radio, on Wednesday the Wokingham Borough Council Executive voted to adopt all of the strategic development location documents including those for the Arborfield Garrison SDL.
The vote was not unanimous. The Arborfield local councillor Gary Cowan tried to move a number of amendments to the plans, resulting in the meeting being adjourned at one point whilst all the executive went into an anteroom to discuss Gary’s proposed changes in private, whilst some changes were made all of the proposals were not included and Gary voted against the adoption of the documents. We would like to record our thanks to Gary for trying to do what he could, and in particular sticking by his principles and promises to his local residents despite what we are sure was a lot of pressure from Cllr David Lee and the other members of the Executive to show a united front.
Whilst it is certainly massively disappointing that the council adopted the plans, and our neighbours in Eversley were truly incensed by the adoption given that they had found fundamental flaws in the traffic modelling, the fight is not over. Despite a truly patronising statement from Cllr Rob Stanton following a conversation he had had with his opposite number at Hampshire County Council, saying that he’d been assured that the county weren’t going to ask for a judicial review of the plans, this certainly isn’t backed up by the information coming from our neighbours in Eversley. The plans have also been adopted despite Wokingham’s own traffic survey indicating that even if they built all the planned road schemes (including a few which don’t have complete funding or plans) they still would not achieve nil detriment – in fact they indicated an average increase of 10% in journey times across the borough. The comment from Cllr Angus Ross at the meeting was that it was now up to the developers of the schemes to prove nil detriment in their planning applications – since those applications will also have to conform to SDL plans that have been proved not to achieve that there are certainly a number of battles to come.
Arborfield SDL Adoption – Special Executive Meeting
If you submitted any comments to the recent re-consultation you should have received notification late last week of the special executive meeting called by Wokingham Borough Council on this coming Wednesday, 5th October at 7pm in the Council Chamber at which they propose to adopt the four revised Strategic Development Location documents. Despite all their comments to consult more fully, the council is again calling a meeting at less than a weeks notice.
Whilst we know it is short notice, members of AG-RAG are encouraged to attend the meeting if at all possible. As with other executive meetings questions can only be asked in advance in writing using the form linked from this page on the council web site. Each person is only allowed to ask one question, but if they are at the meeting in person can ask a supplementary question. If a questioner is absent then the question will be asked and answered. The answers will be sent to questioners in writing whether they attend the meeting or not.
If you are happy to ask one of the questions that AG-RAG would like to ask please contact us using the form on this site, if you have your own question please let us know what you are planning to ask to ensure that we don’t ‘waste’ a question by asking one that is similar to one that is already being asked.
If you need any more guidance, the following document covers our main points of contention with the SDL document as it stands.
This may well be your last opportunity before the planning applications start coming in to ask questions and influence the masterplanning process, once the plan is adopted any planning applications will be assessed against the adopted plan so our ability to object to aspects of the development will be severely curtailed. We would therefore urge you not to miss out on this last chance.
As the Consultation Closes, What Have People Written?
Today what is potentially the final consultation on the Arborfield Garrison SDL closed.
Firstly our thanks go to everybody who has contributed to the consultation, we can only hope that our views will be considered and acted upon by Wokingham Borough Council. We’d also like to thank the volunteers around Arborfield and the neighbouring villages who spent time delivering flyers and knocking on doors getting the word out about the consultation, sadly the Borough Council’s attempts to notify people consisting of newspaper advertisements, and an article buried away on page 18 of a council publication that in the case of Arborfield didn’t even reach residents until the consultation was almost over was not overly successful in getting the message out judging by the number of comments we’ve received from people who only found out through our posters and flyers.
As we move forward, the usual method by which Wokingham Borough Council releases details of the consultation responses is by means of a summary document, often this groups responses into broad categories, and often the text of the letters is reduced to a sentence or two. Whilst Wokingham Borough Council will give a number of reasons as to why they do this, it does serve to hide away the sometimes strong feelings that local residents have expressed in their letters. However, with the permission of the the writers, we have posted some examples of the letters people have written on a special page. If you wish to share your letter too, please contact us and forward us a copy of your letter and we will post it there.
Our sincere thanks go to those people who have agreed to share their letters with us and a wider audience.
A Garrison Resident who Can’t Write to Wokingham Borough Council
Here is a picture snapped earlier today of a Garrison resident who has no voice, and cannot write and comment on Wokingham Borough Council’s plan to bulldoze over green fields at Arborfield Garrison. The picture was taken from Tyler Drive, looking into land that under the plans would disappear under houses along with many more acres of land to the south of the garrison. As residents will tell you, deer are quite a common sight crossing these fields currently – they won’t be when Wokingham Borough Council and their developers are finished with the area.
Also living around the area are badgers – with previous developments having had to take special account of their presence. You can also often see bats flying around the area at dusk.
Time is fast running out on what is expected to be the final consultation on the plans. With the council ruling out any extension to the consultation period the deadline for interested parties to submit their comments is next week, on the 27th July. You can find details of the council plans and details of how to submit comments on our recent post about the re-consultation.
Make your voice heard, before it is too late.
Defence Transformation Announcement
Yesterday Dr Liam Fox, announced details of the Defence Transformation. Whilst the newspapers are concentrating on other aspects, part of his statement directly affects us in Arborfield.
“RAF Lyneham is the preferred location for future defence technical training. This confirms that the Department will withdraw from Arborfield in Berkshire and Bordon in Hampshire, releasing the sites for sale by 2014-15 at the latest.”
However the statement says later that detailed planning work has yet to start and the dates might change, and of course RAF Lyneham was in the process of closing (due to be completed in 2012), hence why repatriations moved to RAF Brize Norton recently, which once again highlights that MoD plans change.
Therefore it is vitally important that as many people as possible get their comments into the ongoing Wokingham Borough Council consultation by 27th July. Aside from the many specific issues with the plan, with Wokingham councillors again talking about the certainty of the decision to move we need to highlight that MoD plans change, RAF Lyneham being a prime example, and therefore they cannot assume that the MoD will leave until they have actually gone.
Latest Newsletter and Update
Below is a copy of our latest newsletter that will be being delivered door-to-door shortly. If you have any spare time over the next few days to help with the delivery please do let us know.
As you can see, although the council has postponed a decision over the site awaiting a decision from the Secretary of State for Defence, and the consortium similarly has not moved forward on a planning application things have still been happening. Chief amongst these is the news that six parish councils have taken Wokingham Borough Council to court over the way the process has been managed. There has been much argument in the local press since the story broke – you can see the parish councillors open letter of 13th December here.
The other important bit of news is that we are having a public meeting and our AGM on Tuesday 22nd March at 7pm at the Royal British Legion Hall in Arborfield. We have invited both David Lee and Angus Ross to attend the meeting and answer residents questions about the development.
Newsletter February 2011 – Final
Have You Submitted Your Comments Yet?
With the busy Christmas period over, did you remember to put in your comments for the consultation? If you haven’t done so yet, you have only a few days left as the consultation closes at the end this week – the next stage being for the consortium to apply for outline planning permission for the development.
The content of the exhibition and the details on how to submit your comments can be found on the consortium website at http://dataroom.gvagrimley.co.uk/arborfield/.
Our open letter in response is shown below, and includes a list of other people you might like to copy in on the response. These include either John Redwood or Dr Phillip Lee depending on whether you are in the Wokingham or Bracknell constituency parts of the SDL, key local council Executive Members David Lee, Angus Ross, Rob Stanton and Gary Cowan (some of whom you may have seen touring around the SDL yesterday) and the Wokingham Times. The list also includes Susan Law, Cris Lancaster and Mark Cupit who are Wokingham Borough Council staff involved with the process and Arborfield Parish Council.
Alongside the official response e-mail address, you might also consider e-mailing Richard Nelson from Defence Estates who many of you will have spoken to at the exhibition, and Sarah Jones who is the Assistant Estates Surveyor collating the written responses.
Last but not least, we’d love to see your responses if you wish to share them with us through our contact page above or via e-mail to Martin.
Letter to Richard Nelson Dec 10 – Final PDF
“The BBC Weren’t Ejected” – Another Lie
We understand that staff at the exhibition are maintaining that the BBC South crew were not ejected from the community centre, those of you who have seen the BBC South report tonight can quite clearly see that this is a lie.
For those who missed it, the footage included Roger Shipton, a representative of GVA Grimley asking Joe Campbell to leave, followed by a piece to camera from Joe Campbell explaining that he was only allowed back in without the camera.
Sadly with the short notice announcement, inconvenient timing of the exhibition, failure to invite entire streets of local residents, and now actively denying local media access to the exhibition it does seem that the consortium are really keen that you shouldn’t find out what they are planning for our community.
If you can make it to the community centre between 8am and 2pm tomorrow please do, otherwise the plans are available online at http://dataroom.gvagrimley.co.uk/arborfield/.
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Subscribe to Aborfield Garrison Residents Action Group (AG-RAG) Visit this group
Defence Estates Consortium and the Bypass
If you read the Wokingham Times you will see that on page three of the 18th January issue they have picked up on the comment that the MoD backed Defence Estates Consortium are unwilling to fund a bypass for Arborfield, instead suggesting that modifications to the existing roundabout would be adequate to mitigate the traffic effects. Of course this is contrary to the published traffic modelling which can be found on the Wokingham Borough Council site. The Forecast Year Results report contains three scenarios, the first being to build no houses, the second to build houses with no mitigating work, and the third to build everything proposed in the planning documents including a bypass for Arborfield. The report makes the following conclusion in paragraph 4.4.2:
Essentially we’re told that unpublished MoD modelling indicates that a new road in unnecessary, but the published report concludes that even if every road scheme is built the required nil detriment position will not be achieved. So who do you think is right, the published report, or the secret MoD modelling that nobody has seen?
As our contribution to the article we issued the following statement to the press:
U-turn Final PDF