Council blunder sees further delays in key decision on A339 access road

West Berkshire Council to push ahead with work on road in February regardless

ANOTHER West Berkshire Council blunder has meant further delays on a decision to use compulsory purchase powers in the construction of a new junction on the A339 in Newbury.

West Berkshire councillors were last week due to vote on the use of a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) to obtain land needed to build a new access road linking the A339 to the London Road Industrial Estate (LRIE).

The access road is seen as vital to the planned regeneration of the LRIE.

However, ahead of the vote on Thursday night it became apparent that councillors had been given an old copy of the report containing the wrong information.

Speaking at the meeting, council chief executive Nick Carter said the matter would be deferred “in view of an administration error with the incorrect version of the report being published”.

The matter has experienced a range of issues and delays with councillors actually having previously voted in favour of obtaining a CPO in July – that vote itself had been deferred following another administrative error.

However, subsequent developments including a new agreement between the council and St Modwen Development Ltd, as well as an appeal from landowner Faraday Development Limited (FDL) over its own application to develop the land, meant that the council decided to “revisit” July’s decision at the full council meeting last Thursday.

The most recent error led leader of the opposition, Alan Macro (Lib Dem, Theale), to brand the situation a farce.

“There has been a whole catalogue of errors by the council,” he said. “I spotted it and I think some of the other councillors did as well.

“You have to wonder how none of the officers or executive members managed to.”

He added: “It’s a farce… the whole saga has wasted a lot of councillors’ and officers’ time and incurred unnecessary expenditure.”

Speaking after the meeting Mr Carter called the delay “extremely unfortunate”, but stressed that negotiations were still ongoing with FDL and was hopeful that an agreement would be reached which would mean that a CPO would not then be required.

However, director of FDL, Duncan Crook, called for an investigation into the matter saying: “This is a time when the council needs to be developing trust right across the board.

“The council should hold an open transparent public investigation into activities because this is the second time a very considerable administration error in relation to this item has occurred.

“It just beggars belief.”

The access road forms part of the council’s wider plans to develop the LRIE, which will see 300 homes and an 80-bed hotel built, creating hundreds of new jobs.

After the meeting it has also emerged that work on the Victoria Park side of the new access road is scheduled to begin in February, despite the council not having acquired the land off the A339.

A January meeting has been called by West Berkshire Council to once again vote on the use of compulsory purchase powers.

However Mr Crook feels that the council’s decision to announce plans to start the work before any resolution has been agreed is “ridiculous”.

He said: “The outcome of the CPO is by no means a foregone conclusion and for the council to start working on a road when it doesn’t know whether it will get the land is ridiculous.

“They should come to us and negotiate because if they negotiate with us we would put the road in for them and it would save the public purse £3m to £4m.

“One wonders in the current times of austerity and cuts why the council is prepared to spend £4m of public money that it doesn’t need to.”

Mr Carter said: “The access road is a fundamental part of the regeneration of London Road.

“We are in the position of having public funding for the road so we’re getting on and putting that in place.

“Us building the road doesn’t technically stop FDL moving ahead with their plans.”

And when asked if he thought starting the road before the CPO matter has been resolved could lead to any further problems, he replied: “No, I don’t think so”

However FDL says it intends to challenge any CPO, meaning that if the challenge is upheld the council will have started work on an access road through land it doesn’t own.

West Berkshire Council highways officer Jon Winstanley said that the worst case scenario would be that the access road could not be completed and would mean that the works would then become a widening of the A339.

However, he pointed out that the council was confident of obtaining the land one way or the other.