Local Green Space for Winnersh
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Winnersh ward Learn more
by Prue Bray on 18 June, 2015
I have been away from this site for a bit. Something called an election got in the way of finding time to post. For my first post-election piece, here are some extracts from the comments I have sent in about the planning application to build a multi-storey car park at Carnival Pool. The application includes moving the bowling alley to the ground floor of the new car park, building a large extension to Carnival Pool for other leisure uses, removing Southgate House (the blue-gray office block on Wellington Road), removing the cadets’ building, and putting in some shops and up to 67 flats. The car park is the only part for which detailed plans are being submitted now. Comments close tomorrow.
“The proposed car park is an ugly monstrosity, made worse by the choice of external cladding. It is a rectangular box with prison bar cladding that does nothing to break up its square lines.
It will be the largest building in the area, visible from all directions, and can only be described as a blot on the landscape. It will be unscreened from residents on the same side of the railway and on the far side of the railway, and will loom over the flats and Carnival Pool. What sort of impression of Wokingham will it give to people arriving by train?”….
“Once again, as with Peach Place and the failed Elms Field application, town centre development by the council will not provide any contribution at all towards affordable housing (p 45 Planning Statement), as the scheme does not generate enough money. I have serious concerns about a) the bad example set by the council as a developer in not providing much needed affordable housing and b) the wisdom of the council embarking on a project that is not sound enough to be properly financially viable.”
I have also commented on the height of the rest of the buildings, cycle, coach and motorcyle parking, lack of parent and child spaces, traffic modelling and the amount of development.
So what do you think?
3 Comments
I couldn’t agree more. These huge buildings are out of place, this is just phase one Bracknellham, they’ll then build huge hideous buildings on the town park and car parks. Outrageous. This from the council that is allowing 13500 houses built in the borough over the next few years, shouldn’t contributions from that be used to build infrastructure ? rather than funding everything by over developing our town. a 5 storey car park ? What is worse is how hideous it is, even if you accept it’ll happen, why does it have to look like this ? the elms road multi storey looks much much better, at least disguising that it’s a multistorey. Can’t the council google “attractive multistorey carparks”. As usual over development of any land they own to maximise current and future profits. If footfall doesn’t increase because it’s less convenient to pop into town, what will they do then ?
I took up your suggestion and googled “attractive multi-storey car parks” – and found quite a few images. What was the one thing all the attractive ones had in common? They were not rectangular boxes. They all had curves somewhere, or detailing that broke up the solid mass. It is possible to avoid a hideous monstrosity!
It is a horrible looking building – too high for a so-called market town. People want to park in the town centre not half way down a road.