News

Protestors in mini-town battle again

By Lewis Rudd
April 06, 2009

Protestors are preparing to fight again plans for a mini town at Sandford Farm after the developer decided to go to appeal.

Woodley Developments Ltd has handed over its ambitious scheme for the former landfill site to the government inspector after Wokingham Borough Council refused planning permission.

The plans include 492 homes, a 150-unit retirement centre, business and retail floor space, a community hall and energy centre.

In January planning bosses unanimously threw the application out but the team behind the scheme has now sought the help of an independent inspector as they look to have the decision reversed.

Members of Loddon Valley Action Group (LVAG), which has successfully fended off controversial developments at the site in the past, says it will resort to the war chest in their efforts to stave off the financial strengths of the developers.

David Parker, chairman of the group, said: “Things are starting to heat up again at Sandford Farm and we have been made aware that an appeal has been lodged over the recently refused application.

“We are also led to believe that it takes a matter of months for it to come to process so the appeal could take place in the autumn, which gives us a bit of time to organise our expert witnesses to prepare their arguments against the plans.

“That’s what we are doing at the moment, putting together our case to the appeal. We have already had some phone calls and promises of support both financially and in time from residents.

“But we have got to assess how much we need from our war chests because the developers are trying to beat us into submission by using the power of the chequebook rather than the power of argument.”

The chairman also revealed how members of the group recently visited the examination of the council’s Core Strategy, the blueprint for future development in Wokingham, to try and have Sandford Farm removed from a list of sites proposed to accommodate 13,500 homes.

Mr Parker said: “A couple of our members went along to follow the consultation. We have made our case but a lot of our members work during the day so it has been difficult to attend, but we hope our representations are taken into consideration.

“If the Core Strategy was to come out and have Sandford Farm removed from housing then it would weaken any applications considerably.

“We are in a rather unfortunate situation because of the differences in finances, but we would hope the council would trust its planning committee for its reasons in refusing development at this site.”

A spokesman for Wokingham Borough Council has confirmed local residents have been informed of the appeal, but said any objections and representations must now be lodged with the planning inspectorate and not the council.

The date of the appeal will be made public once it has been decided.

Anyone wanting to make representations can visit www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk.

| View Comments (5)

« Previous Story | Next Story »

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Most recent user comments 5 of 5

Indeed, and my comments weren't intending to say that coucillors were corrupt, but that they are no longer able to consider local issues as properly as they should because the developers will go whinging to the Bristol boys who overlook some things they consider minor that are not considered minor at a local level. Developers take the easy route because they know they'll get it through on appeal and nothing can be done. Not only that, but if it goes through on appeal, the council lose out on extra payments for local facilities (are they called section 104 payments or something?), and so they play a risky game by throwing them out at times (take the cricket club example where they council lost a few hundred thousand when it went through at appeal).

It is the system that is corrupt, and the developers lazy and uncaring about some local issues. If they can prove they "satisfy" the law and the planning requirements, that's all they need. Whether they actually completely satisfy them, or whether they are adhering to the meaning behind them, seems to be another matter.

mavdo, Wokingham
07/04/2009 at 12:50

I think Roger Jolly is imagining conspiracy theories that simply don't exist. Fact is the Wokingham Borough Councillors are the good guys here in terms of Woodley residents. We elect them to take decisions on our behalf. With Sanford Farm they have, and not for the first time thrown out the developers plans. The developers are appealing to some civil servants based in Bristol to get our democratically elected Cllrs decision overturned. If they succeed, then we and our Cllrs have no right of appeal against that. This process takes decision making out of local hands. If it turns out like the Marsh Farm case a few years back (now that estate quaintly marketed as "the manor" in Lower Earley Way) then the developers will pay top dollar for smooth talking lawyers who will convince the civil servants in Bristol that they have the legal right to do what they want to do - it is as simple as that. It's got nothing to do with MP's or corruption.

John from Woodley
07/04/2009 at 01:02

Fair play Mavdo, yes we also have a lot of that in reading, like with whitley island which they are still building, on a flood plain.

Problem is corruption within councils and the money the developers have to entice it, along with vested intrests by MP's.

The whole thing is completely corrupt I agree and wish you luck in the protest.

rogerjolly, reading
06/04/2009 at 13:38

Yes, but if that's all developers were interested in, maybe we'd all be a bit more relaxed about it, but developers are all about smoke and daggers. They hide things, and lie and play games just to eek a bit more money from the system.

One of the games developers play is they will submit an application for, say, 1500 houses, and it gets rejected, so they resubmit for 1,200 and it gets approved. Then they sumbit a further application for just a few more squeezed in, which gets accepted on appeal because of government guidelines, and hay presto it's back up to 1500. It is a game that no one can stop.

Also, developers know that existing roads need to be upgraded when building as many houses as we are building, but in Wokingham they don't seem to do anything about it, or the council don't spend the money given to them by the developers to build the roads.

One of the companies involved here are based in Jersey, and don't even have a contact address, it's all done through a PO Box. They've tried before to build a big warehouse here, but failed. Now it is houses and a training centre (in a location supposedly set aside for houses). One of the problems with this site is disturbing the 300,000 cubic metres of toxic waste as it was an unlicensed dump. No one really know what is there. It is dangerous, and adequate provisions for this don't appear to have been made. Also the environmental study they are using to justify building there is 10 years old.

It's just little things that really should be easily sorted out, but the developers just want to edge around the law all the time, leaving tiny things out that they know will be ignored as "minor" on appeal, and it just gets everyone's backs up because they'll do exactly the same thing when it comes to actually building the thing.