Howard Woollaston: Parish Matters – March 2025

Doesn’t it feel better to have some blue skies and some sun, albeit only for part of the week? The early spring flowers are out and there is suddenly birdsong in the air. Let’s hope it lasts.

Sewage and flooding

Elected representatives, at every level, need to live with the constant fear of having their predictions proved wrong. For example, last month, I wrote:

“Everything firmly crossed but, despite more heavy rainfall, and apart from a small blip by the Fire Station in Lambourn which was speedily resolved, we have got through January with no flooding or sewage issues. Thames Water’s lining solution seems to be working despite groundwater levels being well up.”

Everything was clearly not crossed firmly enough! There has been a sewage escape from a manhole into the ditch which leads into the Lambourn in Fulke Walwyn Way. Sadly, the sewer lining has not been 100% successful. I am on the case with Thames Water.

Membury Industrial Estate

As I mentioned last month, the asphalt plant application is coming to Western Area Planning Committee on 19 March as a result of the huge number of letters of opposition and the petition from the previous attempt. As your ward member I will be representing you and speaking against, as will the Parish Council and the Woodlands Protection Group and/or their spokesperson(s).

As a planning committee councillor, I can be predisposed but not predetermined (there is a fine distinction) so I will be taking part in the debate and voting.

What has changed is that the entire equestrian grouping – from trainers to Olympic hopefuls to people who just keep ponies or horses – has come together to object to the application. There are two key issues:

Firstly, that elite horses in whichever discipline gulp in masses amount of air when exercising so are more prone to air quality problems.

Secondly, there’s the perception issue from owners who are only too footloose and could leave Lambourn to Newmarket in a flash. This argument was put up in a virtually identical asphalt plant proposal in Yorkshire in 2015 and was refused on appeal.

Neighbourhood Development Plan

For once nothing to report!

Parish Council

I attended Parish Council via Teams last Wednesday. The main takeaways were:

A determination to protect the racing industry.
The disappointment at lack of attendance by councillors.
The need for new councillors.
The Lambourn Centre Joint Advisory Committee is established, and I am a member.
Annual Assembly being arranged for late May

Members Bids

I am delighted that my bid for £5,000 towards the WC refurbishment in the Memorial Hall in Lambourn was successful and work should commence shortly. There will be many very relieved bus drivers and members of the public…

Planning

There are a number of planning issues on the go at present: –

Land adjacent to Whitehouse Farm Upper Lambourn – The planning principle on behalf of Jockey Club Estates for two new racing yards was already established so this application only related to design and layout. It passed unanimously but I have agreed to ask for a review of the speed limit on the B400 into and through Upper Lambourn – see more under speed limits below.
There was a controversial consent on Officer’s delegated powers at Windmill Farm on Baydon Road going out of Lambourn taking stables out of racing use. It is capable of being differentiated so as not to be a precedent, as the racing stable component was tiny compared to the house and its grounds. However, it generated a conversation and I have arranged for a working sandwich lunch at Jockey Club Estates (thank you for offering to host ) involving the Senior Planning Officer for Western Area, the head of Development Control, the two planning officers mostly involved in Lambourn horse-related application, Steve Mead (Chair of Lambourn PC), Bridget Jones (lead Councillor for planning issues at Lambourn PC), Will Riggall of JCE and me. We will hopefully come to an understanding of the issues relating to the racing industry in West Berkshire.
Frenchman’s View. This is an application for an extension of a yard in Upper Lambourn. I have called it into Western Area Planning Committee as ward member. The issues are surface water run-off, containment of horse waste, sewage capability and removal of staff accommodation. That said, I do not want to hold back a successful yard, but it will at least now get a wide audience.

Speed limits

I mentioned above the Upper Lambourn speed limits, but I have also kicked off the debate again on Lambourn and Eastbury Village centres and the B4000 (Ermin Street).

Lambourn village gates

All credit to Christian Noll, he has put in a proposal for the Lambourn Shed to put a team together to refurbish these. Inevitably there are health and safety issues, but I wish them all well on what is a great community initiative.

Community organisers meeting

Again, all credit to Christian Noll – I do so admire his enthusiasm and commitment. This was a meeting put together with representatives of all community/charity groups active in Lambourn for a presentation on the real statistics about our area compared to West Berkshire and England as a whole.

I was genuinely shocked by some of the comparisons, and it reinforced my view that I. in particular. but all of us need to push for greater support for Lambourn.

West Berkshire Council budget

There is no other way to put it – the Council is in a financial mess. Council Tax, including the Adult Social Care ring-fenced element, will go up by 4.99% this April.

The administration had a £3m funding gap and is required by law to have a balanced budget. It has taken an Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) loan of £16m from central government to cover the gap, replenish the reserves (which in two years have dropped from £7m to £2m) and put £3m into next year’s budget.

To put this into context, the Council’s budget for 2025/6 is £186m of which 62% is being spent on Adult Social Care and Children’s services. West Berkshire Council is by no means alone in being in this predicament: even so, the EFS loan has to be repaid so the administration is borrowing from the future and sale of assets which cannot be replaced.

£73m is being spent on capital projects paid for by further government loans although much of this will be revenue-neutral or even positive in the foreseeable future.

A number of service cuts are being introduced most notably: –

Black bin collection to move from fortnightly to every three weeks.
Mobile library service to cease.
Dog bin collection to be passed to parish and town councils.
Day-care provision to be reviewed.

The most notable thing for the ward is a £2.4m allocation to investigate solving nutrient neutrality issues in our valley.

Devolution & reorganisation

The final item I want to raise is central government’s devolution plans for England.

West Berkshire, along with the other five Berkshire councils, have been unitary authorities since the breakup of Berkshire County Council in 2005. This means that they have the same powers as county councils but on a smaller scale. The government wants to create new unitary authorities with a population of about 500,000 each. West Berkshire’s population is approximately 175,000, to give you a feel.

Counties (such as Oxfordshire) that have a second tier of district councils will have to follow the same approach so that the district council will be merged into new unitary authorities.

The government is trying to move at pace and there appear to be two options.

What seems to be the preferred one at present is for West Berkshire to merge with South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils, leaving the rest of Oxfordshire as a single Unitary. This effectively returns the old Berkshire boundaries from years ago. The attraction is that all three are similar largely rural communities with larger towns although Newbury would be the largest. If this were to happen Slough would probably join with a London Borough and Reading, Wokingham, Bracknell Forest and Windsor & Maidenhead become a single Unitary.

The second option is to split Berkshire in two so that Berkshire West would comprise West Berkshire, Wokingham and Reading, with Reading obviously the dominant town (particularly if it gets city status in the future).

I will keep you informed in this newsletter as things develop but my personal concern is that it seems to me to take decision making further from the people.

Casework

For some reason ward casework seems to have reduced in February and mostly relates to planning issues. No doubt it will all turn round in March!!

Get in touch

Whatever is concerning you please do get in touch on 07836 718100 or howard.woollaston1@westberks.gov.uk.