Wokingham Borough is one of the most attractive places to live in Britain. Our abundance of green spaces, our accessibility, our excellent schools and our strong local economy are among the vast number of reasons why, every year, more people choose to come and live in our Borough. That is something of which I am very proud.

Like most residents I accept that we need to build more houses to welcome new residents each year. What I don’t accept though is being told that we must build more houses than we need.

We need more homes which those on median incomes and below can aspire to rent or buy. Affordable, shared ownership housing and what would have been known in the 1980’s as ‘starter homes’ are what we currently have on offer, but I would like to be more ambitious as to how we deliver homes for those on median incomes and below.

To accommodate this, we need infrastructure; roads, schools and doctor’s surgeries. What we don’t need is more four, five and six bedroomed houses.

Our ‘Enough is Enough’ Consultation is about exactly that. It is one element of a campaign to enable us to build the homes and the infrastructure that we need, not the large houses that boost builder’s profits.

Some people criticise the consultation as an expense. Though it is an expense it is much better than the alternative. We believe we can sustainably build five hundred new, affordable and social houses per year. Building the government’s additional four hundred houses would potentially add up to another eight hundred cars to our roads, causing further congestion. Four hundred additional homes would mean that either our school class sizes would have to grow, or we are forced to invest millions into building new schools, just to deal with the forecasted two and a half thousand additional school children over ten years. Building the additional houses would deprive us of beautiful green spaces that both improve our environment and cut our carbon footprint. For me this is not acceptable.

The ‘Enough is Enough’ consultation runs until July 23rd. It is just one part of us pushing back on the government’s enforced quotas trying to reset our target. It is clear to me that we must try. Our target was five hundred per annum, then over six hundred and now nearly nine hundred. How long before it is over one thousand? If we don’t try now we are doomed to accepting these targets forever. Please, please complete the consultation and join me, and tens of thousands of other residents in saying once and for all, ‘Enough is Enough!’

Have your say and take part in the survey by visiting www.wokingham.gov.uk/consultation or by calling 0118 974 6000 to request a hard copy