Back in early 2020, WBC  consulted on the first draft of a Local Plan that proposed building 15,000 dwellings in the Grazeley area. It would take most of the government-set housing numbers required over the Plan period. 

Just before Christmas that year, it was announced that the Grazeley plan could not go ahead. The emergency evacuation zone around the AWE site at Burghfield was being extended to cover Grazeley. Wokingham council planners would now have to come up with a completely rewritten Local Plan. 

Nearly a year later, WBC announced the alternative plan, to build 4,500 dwellings at Hall Farm, plus various other smaller sites. The Executive member for planning, Wayne Smith, stated the position at a Council Executive meeting on 12th November 2021:

"Following technical appraisals by our Officers, with external support from [planning consultants] AECOM, and discussions with a cross-party group of Councillors, the recommended strategy proposes the creation of a new sustainable community at land at Hall Farm / Loddon Valley."

In the 2020 version of the Local Plan, the Hall Farm site had been evaluated for sustainability by the U.S. consulting firm AECOM, mentioned by Cllr Smith. The site received rather poor ratings. It was put at the second-lowest level on a 4-point scale for Accessibility, Air Quality, and Transport. 

Now, in the 2021 version, it suddenly scored top rating on Accessibility and Transport, and second-highest on Air Quality. So how did AECOM, which both times carried out the LP sustainability appraisal for the Council, come to change its view so radically? This was not clarified. 

The public were told the Local Plan draft was the work of council officers, AECOM, and a cross-party group of councillors, the Planning Policy Members Working Group. This comprised about eight councillors, and its meetings were generally attended by various council officers as well.  

Belonging to this working group would have been the only opportunity any elected councillors, LibDem or Tory, would have had to become aware of the evolving Hall Farm proposal, let alone discuss it. No Executive meetings and no meetings of WBC Full Council up to November 2021 contain any reference in the minutes to Hall Farm, or to progress on revising the Local Plan. 

Historically, the Hall Farm development was first presented and publicised by the Tory-run Council executive, and in particular by the Executive Member for the Local Plan, Cllr Wayne Smith. But he was speaking for a position adopted and recommended by the people tasked with revising the Plan - council officers working with councillors from both major parties, not just the Tories. Putting Hall Farm in the 2021 Local Plan Update was clearly a collective recommendation, involving a cross-party group of councillors: the Tory executive acted in 2021 in the same way as the LibDem executive acted later. Both adopted the recommendation of council officers and councillors from the two major parties. 

It seems fruitless, then, to view the Hall Farm development issue in political terms. Over the last four years, local councillors from both major political parties have opposed it, and council executives dominated in turn by those parties have favoured it. In this campaign and on this site, we therefore take a non-political stance. We campaign for new housing in the borough to be distributed purely on grounds of fairness, regard for the environment, and availability of appropriate infrastructure.