At the Wokingham Borough Council budget-setting meeting tonight, I launched the Lib Dem alternative scheme for the Wokingham town centre regeneration. And now we want to know what you think.
Here are the ideas, in brief. There is a lot more behind each bullet point, but I didn’t want to post 10 pages. We are planning to organise some public meetings at which we can explain our alternative in much more detail.
Non-retail: Wokingham Town Centre
- No building on green space at Elms Field
- No new road through the Paddocks or Shute End car parks
- Hotel at Carnival Pool, not the corner of Denmark Street
- Use the brownfield site of the former Wellington House for housing
- Enhance facilities at Elms Field without losing trees, open space or natural feel by adding play equipment (for all ages, including e.g. adult gym and trim trail, and for disabled children), power and water supplies for events, and better pedestrian links, paid for with developer contributions already in the council’s coffers and unallocated to other leisure uses
Retail: Borough-wide scheme
- Provide a scheme that works for the whole borough
- Major construction project in Peach Street to be considered later
- Take account of trends in online shopping
- Use local IT expertise
- Find a site elsewhere for a dark store, not a supermarket – where staff pick products for online orders for delivery to customers, and with no complex highways or customer parking needs
- Build The Hub: an online sales solution that works for all small businesses locally
- Include The Hub: an internet cafe, featuring click and collect service
- Low risk, low cost, sustainable scheme fit for the 21st century
We believe we can revitalise Wokingham without tearing out its green heart. Now tell me what YOU think.
Sounds good overall. My only concern would be when / how the less attractive parts of Peach Street could be sorted out. Also what do you mean by hotel ‘at Carnival Pool’? I would be happy to see a hotel built on the old Wellington House site. I don’t really see the need for housing in the town centre given the number of much larger schemes planned for the outskirts and the likelihood of current retail units becoming available for residential as the shift to online shopping continues. Good job though, we need an alternative to counter the argument that there is none.
Thanks for your comment. With regard to the hotel, the council already plans to build a multi-storey car park to replace the open car park there. We would put the hotel on some of the freed-up open car park space. The reason for having housing on the site of Wellington House is purely and simply to make money for the council. About 40 units could fit comfortably on that site, including 14 affordable dwellings. The council does need money to pay for other things. With regard to Peach Street, we think some lesser cosmetic work would go a long way, and we think the Rose Street car park needs to remain, not least because two doctors surgeries have amalgamated in Rose Street, with no parking for patients. One of the things that needs to happen to make Peach Street more attractive is to cut down the volume of traffic using it, and that cannot be done until after the northern and southern distributor roads associated with the new housing north and south of the town are built, which is still a few years away.
I agree in part with Elms Field, though a bit disappointed with the housing on the Wellington House site, however it is a small price to pay.
The eastern end of Peach st desperately needs revitalising, before any other developments take place, for additional shopping etc. build on the sites of the land that was compulsary purchased for the inner ring road.
The reason for the housing on the site of Wellington House is purely to make some money for the council. It isn’t a perfect solution, but it is a brownfield site. Our view was that it is a far lower price to pay than the current council ideas.
Good plan – the acceptance of online shopping is important. We never do a big supermarket shop, instead it gets delivered. Similarly the vast majority of things we buy we do online as well.
Food shopping – online, banking – online, clothes – online, we even buy houses these days by looking online – take a look at eMoov who have realised you don’t need to charge ludicrous amounts to sell a house if you’re not trying to support a network of town centre offices.
This is unfortunately developing into a party political issue where as it should be what the majority of concerned residents want.
Do our present councillors really know what they are doing? The present idea, first partially disclosed in November 2008, was not only to change the Rose and Peach Street area but to develop a second shopping centre on Elms Field. The latter has overwhelming opposition which the Executive Councillors are deliberately ignoring. However should it go ahead it would need a new supermarket as an anchor to encourage shoppers to the area and attract other retail businesses to establish nearby. Although it appears vital to the plans our council still have not found a supermarket willing to take it on. They believed Sainsbury would be the one but they said they had not done a customer survey. Anyway they are considering a convenience store in Norreys. Equally Morrisons now have a similar one in Market Square. So who is left? It seems that Matt Deegan was right when he unsuccessfully opposed Lidl’s application saying that it would detract from any proposed supermarket in Elms Field. Despite repeated requests for information on the subject none is forth coming. In the meantime as well as shops closing in the town one side of Peach Street at the eastern end seems to be dying.
Politicians of a particular party run the council. They have consistently voted together to proceed with their version of regeneration. Therefore it is inevitable that this becomes a party political issue if you disagree with them. We are as entitled as the Conservatives to have a view as to how to regenerate the town. People can choose which vision of regeneration they prefer. The alternative to putting forward our views as Lib Dem councillors would be to just stand aside and watch the Conservatives do whatever they want, for fear of “politicising” an issue. What would be the point of us then?