Comment from Wokingham Borough Council:
We are holding a series of public exhibitions across the borough to provide our residents and other stakeholders an opportunity to come and look at the sites that developers and landowners have put forward for development across the borough. The deadline to respond to the consultation was extended to accommodate an additional consultation event that was added relatively late in the consultation planning process.
The leaflet referred to in the article was just one of many ways we reached out to our residents. We publicised the consultation events and the consultation in a wide variety of ways specifically because we know that no one method (whether it be direct delivery, the council’s social media, community social media, advertising, print media, broadcast media, posters, websites, community newsletters, support from parish councils or the efforts of ward members) can alone spread the word on important issues such as these. That is why we have deployed all of these methods.
To date, we have held three of the consultation events. All three were very well attended.
Article: PUBLIC consultation on Wokingham Borough Council’s local plan has been extended for a week.
More than 200 sites are being considered for inclusion in the plan, which will propose where new housing, business and leisure developments should go over the next 20 years.
They include eight sites in Wargrave parish and four in Charvil.
The deadline to respond has been put back after some residents failed to receive consultation documents in the post. It is now 4pm on February 22.
The Campaign to Protect Rural Wokingham, which objects to the development of green belt land, is urging people to respond.
It said: “The survey document was designed to be accompanied by a booklet, Homes For The Future,
which the council had planned to distribute to every household in the borough in early December.
“Unfortunately, it appears that many people have not received their copy.
“January and February will be an important time for the campaign, with this survey being a crucial opportunity to demonstrate the strength of local opposition to building on the green belt.”
The sites in Wargrave parish include the Hare Hatch Sheeplands and Hare Hatch garden centres and two pieces of land at the Primrose Nursery in London Road.
There is also a plot to the south of Bath Road, one at the junction of Bath Road and Wargrave Road and others at the eastern end of the Old House in Milley Lane, Hare Hatch, and Bear Cottage on the same road.
The Charvil sites are on land east and west of Park View Drive North, west of Park Lane, off Norris Green and behind Oaktree Cottage.
The council was due to debate the issue in September but this was postponed after the latest consultation was put back.
This article originally appeared on Henley Standard
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