Be Careful What You Wish For

When you try to achieve something, it always seems a good idea to think about the likely consequences.  What would success look like?

We are in the midst of a council by-election in Winnersh, caused by the tragically premature death of Paul Fishwick, the well-respected and very hard-working Liberal Democrat councillor for the ward.

The Lib Dem campaign focuses on the local councillor team, which has a good record of representing Winnersh over many, many years.  Our candidate, who has lived in the ward for more than twenty years, will be a great addition to the local Lib Dem team.

The Conservative campaign centres, more negatively, on the claimed impact of the new local plan on Winnersh, and particularly the role of Hall Farm. 

In essence, the Conservatives are trying to whip up opposition to the new local plan, despite its having been approved by a clear majority of borough councillors in September, and despite its being based on the draft local plan (which included Hall Farm) approved by them when they controlled the council in late 2021.

To try to address their inconsistency, the Conservatives now implausibly argue that, if they had remained in power, they would have removed Hall Farm from the new local plan.  

That claim is contradicted by their own actions. Between 2022 to 2024 they repeatedly criticized the new Lib Dem administration for not proceeding more quickly to submit the Conservative draft, with Hall Farm its major development site.  Only in the last few months have they sought to distance themselves from their draft plan. 

What are they trying to achieve by this amazing about-turn?  It seems that they want to derail the process by which the new local plan is formally adopted so they can win short-term popularity.  

The true bankruptcy of this position was revealed at last week’s council meeting.  The Conservatives correctly drew attention to the challenges of meeting the government’s new housing allocation for Wokingham – 1,336 new dwellings a year compared with the current 748.

But they did not seem to have thought through the conflict between their apparent opposition to the higher numbers and their approach in the Winnersh by-election.  Their by-election campaign is trying to prevent adoption of a new local plan that takes advantage of the government’s transitional arrangements, which allow councils at an advanced stage with their new local plan to proceed on the old numbers – in our case, 748 rather than 1,336.

If the Conservatives had their way, they would sabotage a plan that delivers 748 new dwellings a year, only to expose the borough to having to provide immediately for the new figure of 1,336.   

Nor would their approach save Hall Farm from development.  If we had to go straight to working on a replacement local plan with the higher numbers, Hall Farm, and other proposed major development sites, would have to be included to meet the much more stretching target.

Worse still, if the local plan about to be submitted to the inspectorate were to be derailed, developers would almost certainly not wait for another one to be agreed.  They would submit their planning applications long before a replacement plan took shape.  Even if they were refused by the council, they would almost certainly be won on appeal (with far less infrastructure), as the council would have no local plan with allocated sites to meet the government’s higher housing numbers.

The choice, then, is stark.  Development chaos with the Conservatives, for short-term political gain, and with an immediate requirement to provide for 1,336 new dwellings a year, or planned and controlled development at 748 new dwellings a year with the Lib Dems. 

Cllr Stephen Conway is Leader of the Council and executive member for housing, partnerships and the local plan.