arborfield-garrison-rag.org.

uk
Date issued: Monday 2nd September 2013

RESIDENTS FURY OVER CANCELLED MINI TOWN MEETING

Residents living in Arborfield, Barkham and Finchampstead are furious over Wokingham Borough Councils last minute decision to scrap a critical Community Forum meeting to discuss plans for a 3,500 home mini-town development. Its an unbelievable action to take says Arborfield Garrison Residents Action Group (AG-RAG) spokeswomen Gill Purchase. We are just a few weeks away from the when the Council will decide whether to approve this planning application and they have severed dialogue with residents until after this has been done. Wokingham Borough Council has put in the public domain page upon page of objections as why to this development should not go ahead. It shows over 94% of residents (who responded) were against the proposal with only 24 people showing their full support for it! Hundreds of key issues, such as a completely inadequate infrastructure to support this size development, the high density of housing which will destroy the rural character of the area, impact and closure of local businesses and overwhelming strain on medical services have been highlighted during the consultation process - so its important we get these questions answered. It would not be democratic to approve these plans until residents are confident all these concerns have been addressed. She continues. On the same day the meeting should have taken place, the consultation will start on the proposed relief road. Residents wanted to use this meeting to have further debate on this issue with Councillors and officials. In particular, we wanted to ask the Council to explain why they appear to have gone back on their promise to contact other landowners to discuss a better alternative route, which to our knowledge, has not been done.

She concludes. Crucial community meetings should not be cancelled. Once again, it appears the Council is rail-roading this development through to appease the developers, giving little or no thought to the views and concerns of its residents. Note to Editors The cancelled meeting was due to take place on Monday 9th September at Henry Street Garden Centre. The next scheduled meeting is December 12th, location to be advised.