SIX big priorities have been identified for the next five years in Wokingham borough — but a controversial line about housebuilding in Grazeley has been removed from the council’s new corporate vision.

Wokingham Borough Council’s (WBC) corporate delivery plan runs from 2020 - 2024 and its priorities for enhancing the area are:

  • Enriching lives
  • Safe, strong communities
  • A clean and green borough
  • Right homes, right places
  • Keeping the borough moving
  • Changing the way we work for you

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But under the ‘right homes, right places’ heading, the draft version of the plan lists approving a masterplan for the Grazeley garden town — where 15,000 homes could go up — as an indicator for ‘what success will look like’ for WBC.

This line caused controversy at a recent council meeting, with several opposition councillors questioning why this line had been included given the council’s updated local plan is out for consultation and no decision has been made on the Grazeley development yet.

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Andy Croy, Labour leader at WBC, said: “One of the things residents hate about the council is they think we don’t listen.

“At the moment, the local plan update is out for consultation.

“But here it says very clearly what success will look like is an approved and deliverable masterplan for a self-sustaining garden town at Grazeley.

Reading Chronicle:

“If you vote for this plan, you are effectively giving the green light to Grazeley because it will come back in future meetings — you voted for it in the plan.

“Residents will hate it — they will see it as us having already decided.”

Liberal Democrats councillor Rachel Bishop-Firth asked WBC bosses if the garden town development was a “foregone conclusion?”

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Conservative Cllr John Halsall addressed the concerns raised by Lib Dem and Labour councillors, saying the inclusion of the Grazeley line was a “mistake”, “inappropriate” and could possibly represent “pre-determination” of the development proposal.

The leader made an amendment to the corporate delivery plan at the meeting, asking for the Grazeley line to be removed from the document.

WBC approved the plan on Thursday, February 20, with Conservatives voting for and the Lib Dems and Labour voting against.