Through a close working relationship, I can make sure the views of the parish council are
represented in the borough council and explain what the borough council is doing and why.
With council funding under ever-increasing pressure, close relationships are fundamental to
delivering the best possible services to local people. The leader of the borough council
highlighted this as one of his top 3 priorities at the WBC annual council meeting last week.
Arborfield and Newland and our neighbouring parishes are changing as a result of existing
and proposed future developments. I appreciate that many would prefer this not to be the
case, but we do need more housing for local people. The council’s policies will increase
significantly the amount of new housing classed as ‘affordable’, and the amount of social
housing which developers are required to build.

The future Local Plan, which determines where new development is best suited to happen,
includes both Loddon Garden Village and Barkham Square in our neighbourhood. Planned
developments with good facilities and connections are infinitely preferable to the developer-
led building which would result were we not to allocate sites against the government dictated
housing numbers. I see our role as councillors to make sure the developments and
consequences are managed for the benefit of the whole community, existing and new, whilst
opposing development which has not been properly assessed or planned.

Development has some positive. We have a huge increase in the publicly accessible open
space in our area. Almost 60 acres around West Court Manor is now open to the public, and
even bigger areas will open at Rooks Nest Farm and north of the River Loddon. There will
be more routes for people to walk, cycle or wheel for local journeys or for leisure. We will
get another 4 new local schools in addition to the 2 in the former Garrison, and great new
sports facilities in the Arborfield Garrison development. Healthcare provision remains a big
issue with the regional NHS still in denial, which I am working with council officers and our
MP to try and get sorted.
My other role on the council is to lead on Highways and Transport issues, in which there is
seldom a quiet day. Some more road improvements will come with future developments,
and the council is investing significantly more in road maintenance, but accommodating the
number of cars is a challenge. We need to make sure that new local facilities are built in a
timely way and that it is easy and safe for people to walk, cycle and use the buses.
Passenger numbers on our local bus service, the Leopard 3, are growing rapidly, in part
thanks to funding from housing developers. New developments will include safe cycling
routes internally and help fund connections between settlements.
Finally, I am delighted to introduce my new fellow councillor Mohima Bose, elected this
month, who brings a fresh perspective to our role representing you locally. Please do
contact either of us if you think we can help you with any local issues. Our email addresses
are below.
Councillor Adrian Betteridge

My best moment was immediately recycling a heavy-duty traffic cone from the ditch on Biggs Lane to a builder who stopped and asked if he could have it.

Whilst the litter pick is a great demonstration of care for our local environment, I think
everyone agrees that it is a shame that it is necessary. The biggest issue seems to be along
main roads, with drivers passing through the area tossing rubbish from their window. Main
roads, such as Eversley Road and Observer Way, can also be the hardest to clear due to
the need for traffic management to keep people safe. With council funding so stretched it
has been difficult to prioritise this, but I am hopeful that we will see some progress on it this
year.

Of course, our challenges are not just alongside the roads but the roads themselves.
Decades of under-investment and delayed resurfacing means that the roads are at the
mercy of the weather. January's freeze followed by incessant rain led to more potholes
being reported in one month than the preceding 7 months combined. A lot of temporary
repairs were made to keep the roads safe and, where necessary, these are being replaced
with permanent repairs.

The Barkham Road to Wokingham is suffering and has been identified to be resurfaced.
With the Thames Water trunk main replacement closing Bearwood Road and then Barkham
Road for some time, resurfacing will need to wait until there are diversion routes available.
In the meantime, please continue to report any issues with the road which you find so that
they can be inspected and repaired. It takes only a couple of minutes to report a problem.
Search online for “Wokingham report a pothole” to find the reporting page.

This year Wokingham has local elections, and you will be able to vote for one of your 3 local
borough councillors. I expect there will be candidates from all the significant parties in our
area, including the Liberal Democrat candidate Mohima Bose. However you chose to vote, I
hope you will take the trouble to do so on 7 May, to get another councillor for our area who
will work hard for you.

We should see a lot of progress this year with Arborfield Green and Finchwood Park facilities, including the grass pitch refurbishment, sports pavilion and more allotments. I have been pushing hard for the legal dispute to be resolved on the new tennis courts and hope this will be resolved for the tennis season.

The site of the new community centre, between Sainsburys and the gym, should be cleared this summer. Wokingham Borough Council has taken over the project and, with our local parish councils, will now finalise the design. The community centre will be in addition to a new nursery and pre-school. Bohunt Sixth Form will open this September, and I am expecting news on plans for the Finchwood Park primary.

The South Wokingham Distributor Road project at the Finchampstead Road end opened early in March. I talk regularly with Thames Water in relation to their work on Bearwood Road and Barkham Road, and with the project team who are working hard to build the new connections that will go from Tesco around the south of Wokingham Town, to ensure that disruption is kept to the minimum. Passenger numbers continue to grow on the Leopard 3 bus service, and I hope to have some good news soon on the first phases of improved cycle connections to Wokingham.

To help make our communities safer and nicer to live in, the council is intending to set safer speed limits in town and village centres, residential neighbourhoods and to review rural minor road speed limits. You can read more about this by searching online for “Wokingham safer streets”. You can nominate areas which you think need review, for consideration alongside priorities for change from parish councils. The consultation on initial priorities is open until 1 May.

Councillor Adrian Betteridge
Liberal Democrat councillor for Barkham and Arborfield

In January, the council reviewed proposals to change parish boundaries, with some changes being approved between Barkham and Finchampstead and Arborfield and Newland. The major change proposed to incorporate the large Finchwood Park development into Barkham will not happen, though a smaller change to consolidate the Arborfield Green development into Barkham is still
possible.

Our roads are showing the impact of a prolonged freeze in January followed by continuous rainfall. I report potholes when I see them and any resident can do the same, just search online for “Wokingham report pothole” for the online reporting page. All reports get inspected, and serious issues get at least a ‘make-safe’ temporary repair within 2 hours of inspection. Less serious issues have a 24 hour or 28-day target for repair. Resident reports play a big role in keeping our roads safe.

Thames Water’s project to replace the water main all the way from Highlands Avenue to Arborfield Studios will have a big impact on the village over the next few months. The work is needed to replace the failing pipes and to provide water for the existing and future development. I have asked council officers to ensure that Thames Water’s proposals minimise disruption, and I will keep a close eye on this. The work at Molly Millars Lane in Wokingham is due to complete in Mid March, with just a few overnight closures thereafter to finish the connections to the new distributor road.

In November, Wokingham’s plan to meet the government set housing target progressed through its first public examination. Many of us feel the extent of development in this area is disproportionate, but this has been unavoidable since development at Hall Farm was proposed in 2021. Importantly, if the plan is agreed later this year, we will have more power to resist the smaller speculative developments in our area which offer few benefits to the community and eat into the remaining green spaces between existing housing.

A councillor’s inbox can be a useful measure of what local people consider important, at least as much as talking to people on the doorstep, maybe more so as the correspondent has made the effort to initiate the discussion.  By some margin, the most frequent topic in my inbox is local travel and transport, something we almost all experience for better or worse every day.   

Those who drive or cycle are concerned about road conditions.  People in cars and buses are frustrated by congestion.  People who want to cycle more find the roads unsafe, as do those whose only wish is to walk from one side to the other.  And many who would travel by bus are dismayed by the timings, frequency and routes available to them.  The concerns are many and varied. 

There are no ‘silver-bullet’ solutions to these problems.  Funding to maintain the roads is a fraction of what is needed to deal with routine resurfacing and, increasingly, is spent making damaged roads safe.  New money for improvements has dried up, with government grants for walking and cycling having effectively stopped in 2023 and the cost of borrowing to invest prohibitively expensive.  Investment in buses is happening, but much more is needed.

Our area continues to be a popular place to live and, with government continuing to require additional housing in our area, an assumption that our local transport system can remain unchanged, channeling ever increasing cars into the same pinch points, is likely to fail. But what are the alternatives? 

With places to work, learn, shop and play within walking or cycling distance of where people live, much of the future congestion on the roads can be avoided.  These ‘sustainability’ questions are behind many of the choices in the recent Local Plan.  Even so, our local mainline station and town remain difficult to reach, connected only by an hourly bus service and the Barkham and Finchampstead roads which only those with a high risk tolerance would cycle.  We need buses running on the magic ‘15 minute’ frequency which works for most and, if we cannot find space for safe cycle routes on the roads, we need to bite the bullet and build new routes.  I’m clear from my own experience getting around by car, by bike and on foot that these needs are amongst the most important things for me to focus on. 

They are also the challenges which the council is trying to address in its new Local Transport Plan, on which a public consultation took place last year and which is likely to be approved in early 2025.  You can read the latest draft online here:  https://wokingham.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s75262/LTP4%20Appendix%201.pdf  

Please do let me know what you think, on travel or any other issues. 

Councillor Adrian Betteridge,  Barkham and Arborfield Ward.  adrian.betteridge@wokingham.gov.uk.   07985 088298 

Borough Councillor Adrian Bettteridge writes..

The ability to travel around our local area safely and in a timely way is one of the most important concerns of local people and makes up a sizeable proportion of the issues raised to local councillors.  It’s an issue close to my heart.  

Our area is very dependent on private cars for local travel, as we see in everyday congestion, a worn-out road network which government is reluctant to fund and harmful levels of CO2 emissions and air quality.  One way to start turning this situation around is to give people other options for how they travel.  This isn’t an easy task, but progress is being made and there is more on the horizon.

Wokingham Borough Council is investing in improving bus services and, in September, the Leopard 3 bus route linking Arborfield to Reading will increase its morning and evening peak hour frequency to 4 buses an hour.  Other improvements to frequency and routes are on the horizon.  In July the missing pavement serving the bus stop on Biggs Lane was finally built.

Walking and cycling local trips is a good option, helping us stay healthy, improving the environment and saving us money. However too many local roads have poor quality pavements and no cycling facilities and some just feel unsafe to travel on.  Last month, another missing link in our walking and cycling network was filled with a path joining up Observer Way and Arborfield Green.  There is now a continuous shared use path all the way from Arborfield Green to Finchampstead in one direction and to the Reading Road north of Arborfield Cross in the other.  A Greenway within the Barkham Solar Farm scheme will link into this route extending it to the North and other new routes are appearing regularly as housing schemes are completed. Connecting these to further locations is still needed and there are many areas where walking and cycling options are non-existent.  I really hope that the new government will see sense and restore the funding for these schemes which the last government withdrew.

None of this, of course, removes the need to maintain the current roads properly, and to work with utility companies (who are behind most of the temporary works) to make sure they meet their responsibilities.  Road users of every kind know how poor our road surfaces have become thanks to a decade of underfunding and only a fundamental change of approach from government is going to fix this.  Until this happens, please do use the Council’s online reporting service for any defects www.wokingham.gov.uk/roads/report and, if you think the response you receive is inadequate, contact one of your local councillors.  You can contact me by email at adrian.betteridge@wokingham.gov.uk