I presented the petition asking for Elms Field not to be built on to the Chief Executive of Wokingham Borough Council on Friday 25th October.

As you can see, there was a good turnout for the presentation!  We couldn’t fit everyone in the photo.  But we think the Wokingham Times photographer did – we’ll be able to see on Thursday I hope, when the paper comes out.

I am really really grateful to all the people who helped collect signatures, check signatures and distribute leaflets about the presentation.  If you still have sheets or want to collect more signatures, you can, and we will  hand them in as additional signatures at the 21st November Council meeting.

We needed the petition to hit 1500 valid signatures in order to get a council debate on the petition.  For a signature to be valid, we had to know that the person signing lived, worked or studied in the borough.  Children are included.  But we needed to be able to demonstrate we hadn’t made the names and addresses up.  That’s why we needed people to check the names against the electoral roll. 

We collected 2204 signatures.  We couldn’t prove every signature was valid.  Some people signed twice.  Some people signed who have no connection to the borough.   Some people are not on the electoral roll.  But we were comfortably over the 1500 target.

You might be interested in how the signatures broke down:

Proved Valid

on electoral roll	1736	people
children	10	people
on new electoral roll	17	people
work in the borough	14	people

Not accepted

cannot find address	7	people
could be one of several	14	people
duplicate entries	150	people
cannot verify (no electoral entry – but could still be ok)	142	people
no connection to borough	94	people
not yet processed	2	people
we think are children	18	people

Where the people live

From the names on the electoral roll,  I could work out what the geographical spread was of people signing.  Most people come from Wokingham town itself, with the highest concentrations being people from the areas of Emmbrook and Wescott which neighbour Elms Field.  In some of the closest roads, nearly everyone signed.  Amazing!

Wokingham town itself 

Emmbrook – side of Reading Road closest to Elms Field	387
Wescott – side of town closest to Elms Field	203
Emmbrook – side of Reading Road further away from Elms Field	121
Wescott – side of town further away from Elms Field	86

 

Evendons	196
Norreys	218
Woosehill	120

Areas next to Wokingham town

Barkham	73
Finchampstead	124
Winnersh	90

Rest of the Borough

Arborfield	11
Earley	37
Hurst	11
Northern Parishes	5
Shinfield	3
Swallowfield	3
Wokingham Without	13
Woodley	25

 

 

   Leave a comment