Residents to learn West Berkshire Council's preferred list of housing sites soon

Sparks could fly when the list will be presented on November 5

THERE could be fireworks across the district next month as West Berkshire Council is expected to announce its final list of preferred new housing sites on November 5.

The selection of sites follows the council publishing its Housing Site Allocations Development Plan Document in July last year. The development plan identified 38 preferred housing sites, accommodating around 3,000 homes between them, as well as proposed sites for gypsies, travellers and travelling showpeople across the district.

Sites incuded 87 properties on Thatcham’s Lower Way field, 125 dwellings off Bath Road, Speen, 105 dwellings on land off Clayhill Road, Burghfield Common and land at the Eddington and Hungerford garden centre.

Residents had the chance to comment on the sites through a consultation that lasted until September 2014.

The council was expected to have revealed its chosen sites in December, but it said it was overwhelmed by the more than 4,000 responses in the consultation.

At the time, the Liberal Democrat opposition called for the consulation period, held over the school holidays, to be extended.

However, this was rebuffed, with the council saying that it needed to press ahead and submit the document by December 2014.

The leader of the West Berkshire Liberal Democrats, Alan Macro (Theale), said that it was ridiculous that the consultation period had not been extended considering that, nearly a year later, the development plan had not been submitted.

“I think when they first started this they completely underestimated the amount of concerns there would be and the amount of objections they would get. Obviously they didn’t allow for anything like that.”

The list has been compiled by a secretive planning advisory group of 12 councillors.

If approved, a formal consultation on the sites will be launched, the responses of which will be sent to the planning inspectorate. A final list will then go to the Secretary of State for consideration.

Mr Macro, who sits on the task group, said quite a few preferred sites were not going forward and that others could be withdrawn if a “show-stopper” – where the landowner could withdraw the site – occurred.

The council originally had to meet a target of building 10,500 homes by 2026, but this figure is being reassessed and is likely to rise.

Mr Macro said the delay in publishing the deveopment plan and in updating the housing figures had got the council into a situation where developers were “coming out of the woodwork” with plans for hundreds of homes across the district, such as at Siege Cross, Thatcham.

West Berkshire councillor for planning, Alan Law (Con, Basildon), said that the original list of preferred sites contained more than required, but refused to say how many would feature in the final version.

He said that the consultation period had been extended past the statutory six weeks and that the council had the biggest response to any consultation it had ever done.

“If people try to tell me me that there wasn’t enough time I will say bull****.

“People were still sending stuff in well beyond the time period.”

District councillor Paul Bryant (Con, Speen) said at a public meeting last year that: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing and had we known we would have formed a different timetable.”