Yet another Local Plan for housing in Wokingham

The public examination by planning inspectors of the WBC Local Plan 2040 is reaching its final stages.  The Plan, has at its heart the proposal for the creation of a new garden village of 3,930 homes at Hall Farm, which would effectively connect Arborfield with Winnersh/Sindlesham and be bordered by the M4 in the north and Mole Road to the south.  Once adopted by WBC in late 2026 or early 2027 this new Local Plan will mean that WBC can demonstrate a 5-year land supply, enabling the council to more effectively push back against the type of speculative planning applications that blight our community.  Stephen Conway, the leader of WBC, has stated that the adopted Local Plan 2040 should give us about three-years’ protection through a 5-year land supply.

The 2040 version of Local Plan addresses the previous government housing target for Wokingham, which was 748 dwellings per annum.  Subsequently the government has updated its housing target and Wokingham will be required to produce a plan which generates more than 1,300 dwellings per annum.  Therefore, even before the latest Local Plan has been adopted, WBC has commenced the process of developing the Local Plan 2045 to try and meet the increased housing target. 

In order to identify the areas that may be able to accommodate the increased annual housing delivery of 1,300 homes, WBC has issued a call for sites, where landowners can indicate that they have land available for house building.  The target of 1,300 dwellings per annum will be extremely difficult to achieve, particular if WBC chooses to ignore available sites in the north of the borough.  For example, Berkeley Homes previously proposed building 2,500 homes at Twyford/Ruscombe in a development to be known as Castle End Gardens and plans for a 3,000 home site were proposed at Ashridge.  Both of these large scale sites were rejected by WBC in favour of the plan that we now have for Loddon Valley Garden Village at Hall Farm.  It seems inevitable that one or both of the Twyford/Ruscombe and Ashridge sites will be needed to meet the 1,300 target, unless of course WBC tries to shoehorn even more large scale development in the south of the borough, beyond the plans for Loddon Valley Garden Village. 

The development of a further Local Plan for Wokingham’s housing will inevitably become a political football.  Wokingham Conservatives have already launched a campaign to oppose development on the green belt.  The campaign was launched by Cllr Wayne Smith, and could be seen as a cynical attempt to stop the development at Castle End Gardens, a site which is partially in the green belt.  This is the same Wayne Smith who was a key part of the Conservative administration of WBC that originally included Hall Farm in the Local Plan, rather than sites in the north of the borough.

In addition to the WBC Local Plan process, the parish councils of Arborfield & Newland and Barkham are developing an updated Neighbourhood Plan.  A Neighbourhood Plan that is up to date and includes a housing allocation can provide some defence against speculative housing developments.  Arborfield & Newland and Barkham parish councils are keen for as many residents as possible to get involved in this process.  More details can be found at www.arbarplan.co.uk  

22/08/2026. SOLVE Hall Farm

Labelled map of Loddon Garden Village: https://www.reading.ac.uk/shinfield-community/loddon-garden-village/creating-a-vision