Thank you to everyone who attended the Remembrance Memorial today (11/11/19)

Woodley Town Mayor Cllr Kay Gilder 

Wokingham Mayor Cllr Bill Soames

MP Reading East – Matt Rodda 

Cllr Kay Gilder thanking the crowd

At the Full Council Meeting on Tuesday 1 October, the following motion was adopted:

“This Council notes that:

1. The impacts of climate breakdown are already causing serious damage around the world.
2. Limiting Global Warming to 1.5°C (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, October 2018) may still be possible with ambitious action from national and sub-national authorities, civil society and the private sector.

This Council therefore:

1. Commits to a declaration of a ‘Climate Emergency’ with the aim of becoming a carbon neutral organization by 2030.
2. Welcomes the declaration by Wokingham Borough Council of a ‘Climate Emergency’ and will actively participate in the creation of the Borough-wide climate change strategy to ensure Woodley Town Council is fully engaged in its creation for the benefit of its residents.
3. Will explore, with all parts of the community, the development of a local action plan in support of, and to compliment, the Borough Council’s climate change strategy plan for those parts relevant to Woodley Town.”

Gregor Murray, Wokingham Borough Council Executive Member for Climate Emergency spoke of the Borough Council’s plans to address climate change and work in partnership with town and parish councils. Woodley Town Council will work with Wokingham Borough Council as part of a cross-party working group, beginning with the formation of an action plan over the next six months.

Meanwhile, Woodley Town Council will also continue its commitment to climate change through its current campaigns and initiatives.

Wokingham Borough Council’s decision-making executive has approved a £630,000 ‘fighting fund’ to help it defend its planning decisions against speculative developers’ appeals to the Planning Inspectorate.

The council is facing an increasing number of speculative planning applications for developments in unsustainable locations, on land not allocated for development. Although these applications are being refused by the council, developers can appeal to the national Planning Inspectorate against the locally-made decision.

Wokingham Borough Council knows it will have to defend at appeal a number of its decisions in coming months including: its refusal of 216 homes on land east of Finchampstead Road (application number 190286) and its refusal of 118 homes on land north of Nine Mile Ride in Finchampstead (181685). Other appeals coming up include land south of Cutbush Lane in Shinfield.

There has not yet been an appeal lodged against the Cemex decision at Bridge Farm earlier this year but the applicant has until 23 February 2020 to do so.

“We have been robust in refusing planning applications when it is the right thing to do, but we can’t be complacent. Developers have the right of appeal and, when they do, decisions are made by a nationally appointed planning inspectors after legal arguments,” said Cllr Wayne Smith, executive member for planning and enforcement.

“We cannot change the law, but we can make sure our legal arguments are as strong as possible and this fighting fund will help us do that. In total, we have appeals already set that could mean more than 600 homes and we know there will be more to come. That is why this fighting fund is so important.”

One of the key reasons the Wokingham Borough is prey to speculative planning applications, in unsustainable areas outside those allocated for new homes, is because the council’s long-term strategy (the Local Plan) to provide the homes required is coming to its end and needs to be extended. The council is working on this new plan and has carried out large scale public consultation in recent years to guide it and is due to consult again early in the new year before a final plan is put forward.

“The need to make progress on our Local Plan and the need to allocate extra funds to defending our current planning policies are linked. The fighting fund will help us in the short term and the Local Plan will safeguard us in the longer term,” said Cllr Smith.

“We know our residents don’t want the sort of housing target central government is pushing for, but we also know we must continue to ensure our Local Plan is up-to-date or we will be vulnerable to more and more proposed development in unplanned and unsustainable locations. We are working on a strategic vision that squares that circle and will be able to publicise it later this autumn.”

The competition to design a poster to advertise the annual Woodley town centre extravaganza received a number of fantastic entries and we would like to say a huge thank you to those children who participated. It was, as always, very difficult to choose the three winners but, after much deliberation, these are the three chosen winners for 2019.

  Lauren Watkins, Age 10, Beechwood Primary

Sian Watkins, Age 10, Beechwood Primary

Yvie Hardy, Age 10, St Nicholas CE Primary

The judges also highly commended the following posters:

Violet Hardy, Age 7, St Nicolas School Hurst

Roxanne Allen, Age 9, St Dominic Savio Catholic Primary School

Owen Winship, Age 9, Rivermead Primary School

The competition winners will have the privilege and honour of turning on the Christmas lights in Woodley town centre on 23rd November 2019.

The Garden of Remembrance will be closed today due to essential tree works. We appreciate your patience and cooperation.

Wokingham Borough Council has launched a new streamlined adult social care department that will provide vulnerable adults across the borough with a more efficient and improved quality of service.

In-house

The council has brought statutory functions previously carried out by Optalis (a local authority company jointly owned with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead) into their adult services in order to improve the quality of service and gain more control of these functions.

Previously, Optalis delivered parts of the council’s adult social care statutory service provision* with the remaining statutory services provided directly by Wokingham Borough Council and it has always been the intention to create a seamless pathway in order to deliver the best service to residents.

“We are always striving to provide the best service for all our residents, especially those who are vulnerable and as the demands on our adult services continues to increase we continue to evolve,” said  Cllr Charles Margetts, executive member for health, well-being and adult social services

“Wokingham Borough Council and Optalis both have excellent, hard-working, caring staff and we thank them all for providing an excellent service, especially throughout this structural change. By improving processes and removing barriers we will be able to provide a joined up service that allows a more efficient and customer-focused practice.”

Direct control

The change has involved the transfer of about 50 staff from Optalis to WBC and mean that the council have direct control of all statutory adult social care functions. This will now allow the council to focus on improving this area and Optalis to continue to provide high quality care services. It would not require any additional money and is funded from existing budgets.

Optalis will continue to provide a large proportion of adult care services on behalf of WBC, which it has done since 2011. During that time, Optalis has consistently delivered high quality care.

The Care Quality Commission considers Optalis services to be good or outstanding. This is a fantastic achievement and is a credit to the leadership and all of the staff. It will continue to provide care and support services for Wokingham Borough residents as it does now”.

*The statutory services previously carried out by Optalis cover annual reviews for all residents receiving support, brokerage to ensure personal budgets are used in the most effective ways, some long-term support packages and services to maximise assistive technology.

Woodley Town Council has adopted a policy statement regarding the Public Sector Equality Duty. As an employer, the Town Council has a duty to encourage and promote equality in providing its services and in carrying out its public functions and the Equality and Diversity Policy sets out how the Council will do this. An Equality and Diversity Statement was also agreed by the Council. Both documents can be viewed here:

Woodley TC Equality Duty statement

WTC – Equality and Diversity Policy

The innovative scheme will be run by Wokingham Borough Council alongside its highways contractor Volker Highways.

Using plastic kerbs reduces the amount of carbon produced in manufacturing, transport and construction by about 40 per cent compared to concrete kerbing.

Plastic kerbing, which looks almost identical to concrete kerbs, contains about 88 per cent recycled material and is cut with hand tools so, unlike concrete, it does not create crystalline silica dust.

As the kerbs weigh less than traditional materials, it also reduces handling injury risks and can be installed without the need for mechanical equipment.

This can help to speed up installation, as well as being environmentally friendly. Initial locations for the trials will be:

-Elm Road, Earley

-Old Forest Road, Wokingham

-Easthampstead Road, Wokingham

These locations have been chosen as they are high-use areas, particularly by HGVs, where kerbs have previously been damaged.

The plastic kerbs will be installed in small areas on these roads to see how they stand up to use, and will be monitored over a period of time.

The council may also look to trial other areas, such as drop kerbs for new access points, to see how they perform.

As part of the trial the council will review the performance and resilience of the kerbing along with the environmental benefits.

“I am excited by our trials of this innovative type of kerbing,” said Cllr Pauline Jorgensen, executive member for highways and transport.

“We are looking for ways to make our services greener and this solution allows us to find an effective use of recycled materials while carrying out important highway maintenance across our network.”

It follows on from the success of the council’s on-going greenways project, where material using up to 75 per cent former rubber tyre has been used to lay new surfaces for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.

These have been installed in locations such as Dinton Pastures and California Country Park, as well as on footpaths and byways across the borough.

“Exploring further use of recycled products like these kerbstones are the type of changes we are looking into as we aim to be a carbon neutral borough by 2030,” said Cllr Gregor Murray, executive member for climate emergency.

“I look forward to reviewing the success of these trials to see if the kerbing could be rolled out to other locations in the future.”

Wokingham Borough Council is to launch a five-week consultation that will inform the production of the “Voluntary Sector Strategy”, which will be supported by Involve, one of its key partners.

The consultation will look at:

We are lucky in the Wokingham Borough to have a truly vibrant and effective voluntary and community sector (VCS) who have supported our residents with distinction for many years. However we all must recognise that this is a time of great change in the delivery of health and care, both locally and nationally. We have listened to key stakeholders, including sector leaders, and it has become clear that there is an appetite for setting a strategic direction for our work with the sector for the medium term.

After careful consideration we have already taken the decision to extend all existing contracts to March 2021. This gives us the time to have a genuinely co-produced and co-delivered strategy which will give opportunities for transformation within the sector. It also gives us time to work with you on how we commission in the sector for the next 5 years.

We wish to be very clear in stating that we are not seeking to cut funding to the sector.  We wish to move towards a model where we contract individual services over a longer period of time. This will give you more certainty over your funding going forwards

We are seeking to deliver a strategy:

• that has vulnerable residents at its heart
• to bring the voluntary and community sector together and maximise its potential
• that will connect people, places and services in the community to enable people to live healthy, active and independent lives for as long as possible
• that will manage demand within existing resources
• that will enable greater value through more effective use of resources and whole community assets
• to enable the building and sharing of knowledge, expertise and resource across the sector
• to enable access to harder to reach groups and communities with a focus on socially isolated users and carers
• that aligns to, and is able to benefit from, other council strategies.

Take part

There are several ways to take part in the consultation. The Council has produced a survey which it is keen for anybody with an interest in the sector to fill out.

The survey can be accessed here:

https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/news-and-consultation/consultation-and-having-your-say/current-consultations/?entryid206=502077

There will also be a series of meetings for stakeholders over the course of the next five weeks at the council offices in Shute End. Regular feedback and updates will be provided through the involve Newsletter  (to sign up for the newsletter please click http://involve.community/newsletters/  ) and council social media pages.