Last week Wokingham Borough Council won two prestigious local government awards, including one for the Conservatives’ regeneration of Wokingham town centre.
The Council was nominated in four different categories of the MJ Awards, more than any other local authority this year. All the nominations were for projects during the previous Conservative administration.
Cllr Phil Cunnington writes: On the night, I am delighted to say the Council won for Best Social Housing Initiative for the Adult Social Care Specialist Accommodation Project, and the Innovation in Delivering Sustainability and Social Value award for the Wokingham Town Centre Regeneration.
Sustainability and social value are exactly what we were trying to provide for the Wokingham regeneration. We are thankful to the officers, architects, and other outside partners who we worked with to create this award-winning transformation.
At Peach Place the regeneration created a sociable outside space for the town with plenty of alfresco dining spaces and benches. It has brought a range of new shops, cafes, and restaurants. Anyone wandering through in the recent Summer weather will have seen that it is frequently busy.
At Elms Field, a new and very popular children’s play area, trees, and open green space with wildflowers have significantly improved the space. The regeneration also brought in a new cinema which the town didn’t have before.
Another key element of the regeneration was the new Carnival Hub, opened last year. It is a building that delivers so many different benefits to the community, including a fantastic new library, swimming pool, gym, other leisure facilities, as well as a café that has been used as a warm space, which was a valuable resource for anyone that needed it last winter.
The building was designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and it includes solar PV panels and a fully electric heating system fed by air source heat pumps on the roof. It also has a high-performance building fabric.
Not only did our plans for the regeneration preserve Wokingham’s market town feel, but it has enhanced the town by bringing in new businesses to keep the town relevant and provide places that attracts shoppers.
However, the development was opposed at the time by Liberal Democrat councillors who are now in charge of the Borough.
Having claimed that shoppers in Wokingham would be better off with a “Dark Store” serviced by delivery vehicles rather than our plan for mix of smaller shops and homes (Wokingham paper 28/2/14), Cllr Prue Bray then said of the plans when they were submitted for planning application in 2016: “it has to be the sort of regeneration that matches Wokingham's character as a market town. And four-storey houses on a green space are not really the answer.” At the end of the meeting she said she was “disappointed”. If a Dark Store had been created as the Lib Dems wanted, Wokingham would have lost out on this new social, shopping and residential space.
Cllr Rachelle Shepherd Du Bey described the plans for Elms Field as “massive, overbearing and out of keeping with Wokingham”.
I struggle to believe that Lib Dem councillors would now argue with residents who agree that the town centre regeneration including Elms Field, Peach Place and Carnival Hub have added significant value and enhanced our town. I bet even the Lib Dems would agree it has been nothing short of transformational for Wokingham, while keeping the town’s character.
Sadly, this total lack of vision, ambition and understanding of our towns by the Liberal Democrats is something we still see today in their running of the Council. Instead of looking to attract people into our town centres, they have doubled parking charges.
The world does not stand still. The regeneration was needed to attract new employers and businesses, to attract customers to spend their money in Wokingham, but it also was needed to provide social spaces for everyone.
As Conservatives, we will always be committed to looking forward not standing still, investing to provide the maximum benefit to our residents, and certainly no “Dark Stores”.
See this news story in 2014 Shoppers in Wokingham would be better served by 'dark store', say Lib Dems - Berkshire Live (getreading.co.uk)
