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.

Main Points From AGRAG

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.

With all that has happened this week, our chairman Martin Rutter has today e-mailed the following message to all our members.

To: All members of the Arborfield Garrsion Residents Action Group

Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?!

Dear All,

Following the dramatic events of the last few days, the AG-RAG Steering Group thought we’d update you on the latest situation:

The Government’s Defence Review Announcement – Great News for Us!

We were all pretty elated on Tuesday when the government announced as part of the Defence Review that they were scrapping plans for the new tripartite forces training academy in South Wales, and that Arborfield Garrison was to remain open. We even heard from a source inside the Garrison who was present at the briefing given there on Tuesday morning, that Arborfield could take some of the overspill of personnel from other sites.

This seemed to us that the Arborfield SDL was dead in the water and we could finally celebrate that the rural feel and tranquility of Arborfield had been saved!!

Wokingham Borough Council’s Special executive Meeting on 21/10/10 – More Good News for Us!

Our joy was made even sweeter at the WBC Exec meeting on Thursday night where AG-RAG had pre-submitted 10 written questions to the Exec. Before we could ask some of them, Gary Cowan proposed the following amendment to the recommendation already placed before the Exec:

I propose that the Arborfield Master Plan is deferred until the Secretary of State for Defence can confirm the date when the site will become fully vacant and that date must be such that the planned development can be accommodated within the remaining Core Strategy plan period to 2026.

In addition some changes to the Arborfield Masterplan are materially different to those consulted on as it fails to take note of the extensive consultation comments submitted by residents and other representative groups which are supported by the many questions submitted this evening.

These issues are not properly reflected in tonight’s amended Masterplan and the report under analysis of issues, appendix A, or the accompanying map and for that reason I would also propose that the Masterplan is also reviewed to properly reflect these issues.

Gary’s amendment was accepted unanimously by the Executive. At long last, and at the 11th hour and 59th minute, WBC finally appeared to have listened to the views, comments, complaints and objections that we’d been making for many months, and deferred the Masterplan for Arborfield. So surely that was the final nail in the Arborfield SDL coffin for at least the next several years.

But NO, Just When We Thought It Was All Over!

We have received the following e-mail from the Defence Estates who are acting on behalf of the MOD in terms of land sale etc.

Hi Martin, as you will be aware from previous MoD correspondence, irrespective of the DTR decision it still remains MoDs intention under contingency plans to dispose of the Garrison as has consistently been the message at/since the Core Strategy EiP last year.

I understand in the light of last nights WBC Executive meeting, that MoD will be writing to WBC to confirm their latest position. Further, we remain instructed to submit an outline planning application (in January 2011) including redevelopment of the whole Garrison site.

Kind regards
Roger

Roger Shipton – Associate, Planning Development & Regeneration
For and behalf of GVA Grimley Ltd

I’ve spoken with Gary Cowan about this and his view is that we shouldn’t be too worried by the e-mail. He believes the Defence Estates are simply forward looking to try and set a price for the land for some time in the future.

But, it’s clear the MOD & Defence Estates are still working to sell / develop the land, so the message to everyone in the AG-RAG and in Arborfield Garrison, is that the fight still isn’t over!

Best wishes,
Martin Rutter
Chairman, AG-RAG
07885 339772

We received candidate statements from Gary Cowan standing as our Conservative candidate, and from Steve Bacon standing as our Liberal Democrat candidate. Unfortunately Joan Huntley our candidate from the UK Independence Party has been taken seriously ill and was therefore unable to provide a statement. We wish her a speedy recovery.

The two above statements were read out at the meeting tonight. We would like to thank Gary and Steve for taking the time to prepare and submit their statements.

We would also like to thank Councillor David Lee leader of the council for attending and taking questions from the floor, and to Steve Bacon, Prue Bray the Liberal Democrat PPC, Ann Zebedee the UKIP PPC and Robin Smith an Independent PPC for making time to join us at the meeting.