Conservative Group Leader Pauline Jorgensen writes: I am delighted that Wokingham Borough Council has been nominated in four categories of the prestigious MJ awards, all for projects during the previous Conservative administration.
One of the awards Wokingham is nominated for is Innovation in Delivering Sustainability and Social Value for our regeneration of Wokingham town centre, which we Conservatives are especially proud of. This development was opposed at the time by Liberal Democrat councillors who are now in charge of the Borough.
Having said that shoppers in Wokingham would be better off with a “Dark store” serviced by fleets of delivery vehicles rather than the planned 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.”
Cllr Rachelle Shepherd Du Bey described the plans for Elms Field at the planning meeting as “massive, overbearing and out of keeping with Wokingham”. I think most would now agree that the town centre regeneration including Elms Field, Peach Place and Carnival Hub have been nothing short of transformational for Wokingham.
Sadly, this total lack of vision and ambition by the Liberal Democrats is something we still see today in their running of the Council.
They have no plan for our Borough and have achieved nothing apart from to put up car parking charges and cut residents services like bin collections.
If Wokingham wins, I wonder if they will accept the award for the development they campaigned against so vehemently?
