Howard Woollaston: Parish Matters – Nov 2025
October/November 2025
Halloween and Bonfire night have passed, the leaves continue to fall, and the clocks have gone back. For someone who is definitely an owl rather than a lark, the short days are really rather miserable! Hopefully the weather will change, and we will get some bright sunny but cold winter days soon – and the grass will stop growing!
Council devolution and reorganisation
Huge changes over the last month. An Emergency Council Meeting was held this week to agree to recommend to the Executive that we should apply to Central Government to form Ridgeway Council. It seems rather convoluted but to be fair to the administration, it is an Executive decision, but they wanted to get buy in from the whole Council which they did with only 3 Members either abstaining or voting against out of 43. For my sins I also sit on the Scrutiny Committee and an emergency session of that has been called for Monday and I will be attending the Emergency Executive Meeting this Wednesday. The report alone is over 600 pages. Who says District Councillors don’t have fun!!!
The essence of the proposal is to merge West Berkshire Council with Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire to create the new Unitary Ridgeway Council covering just under 500,000 people. WBC is one of the smallest Unitary Authorities in England and the intention is to get efficiencies out of the single larger Council. This is in line with the Government’s Devolution Policy to eliminate 2nd tier District Councils which The Vale and South Oxfordshire are and then goes on to a mayor covering somewhere around 1.5 million people which logically would cover the Thames Valley.
My key reservation of it was making Councillors less close and accountable to their residents has been overcome and Lambourn will see no change which will mean that if I am fortunate to be re-elected in 2027 you will have me representing you for a further 4 years.
The proposal is a Council of 96 members of which 38 will come from West Berkshire. The reduction of 5 is achieved by reducing 3 member wards down to 2 members. The nearest to us in Lambourn is Hungerford & Kintbury which will see 1 member less. As ever the “devil will be in the detail” but the hope is to have the new Council operational in 2028 with a shadow Council in place from 2027.
The asphalt plant appeal
No news is expected on this until next month at the earliest.
Public issues
I continue to get complaints about the black-bin changes, and it was raised by a recent public question at Executive. The administration has promised to come back with statistics on requests and approvals for additional bins
I have taken these up with the waste team and the Portfolio Holder at WBC who are “looking at the problem” – we shall see.
The second is the extended pedestrianisation of Northbrook Street and Market Square Newbury from 5PM to 11PM. There is currently a public consultation open on whether to retain the temporary extension or not. If you share my view that it is farcical to expect Café Society in Newbury in the evenings with the possible exceptions of a handful of balmy summer nights, I urge you to put in your views. It is damaging the retail area of Newbury and creating additional congestion on the A339 in the evening “rush hour” for no real benefit.
Lambourn Valley Flood Forum
The Forum met in late October with 21 people attending by Zoom which I hosted. They included Flood Wardens or representatives of most of the villages and urban areas down to Newbury where it joins the River Kennet. Thames Water and WBC were well represented but unfortunately the Environment Agency representative sent his apologies (to be fair that is rare). Vicky Reunier was elected Chair, and I have agreed to become Vice Chair to ensure continuity and links to WBC.
The LVFF covers the whole River, but I will only report here on the upper stretches from Upper Lambourn to Great Shefford which affects us all the most.
Generally, Thames Water are successfully continuing their lining of sewers and sealing of manholes programme. The Great Shefford Flood relief scheme has been completed as has the extension of the East Shefford Sewage Plant.
On the non-sewage area WBC have continued their gulley clearance programme although their remains concern about clearing the lateral connections between the road gulleys as seen last year with the localised flooding in High Street Lambourn. WBC with help from other landowners and Partners, and I would single out here Jockey Club Estates, have cleared many of the ditches and are putting pressure on other riparian owners to meet their obligations and clear their ditches.
So, in principle, we are in good shape for this winter but in reality, we all know that it takes little to create huge problems and many of us are watching the groundwater levels regularly with concern.
There is a Flood Warden Conference later this month which will address a number of the rainwater run-off issues. There is also a Flood Report leaflet which is attached and will be available on Penny Post, Lambourn.org and on notice boards in the ward.
West Berkshire Council Finances
Probably the “elephant in the room”!! The Executive meeting agenda this week included the Q2 outturn and forecast for the rest of this Financial Year. It was not happy reading! Whilst, as you might expect being a Conservative Ward Councillor for Lambourn, I have some views on unnecessary expenditure on what I regard vanity projects, I have a degree of sympathy for the current Liberal Democrat administration in being hit by some significant unexpected costs. The revised budget is £190 million for 2025/6 of which well over 60% is taken by Adult Social Care and Children’s services. Those two areas continue to grow year on year and realistically the model is broken. It is not just West Berkshire but every other upper tier authority in the country, by which I mean County and Unitary Councils.
To give you an example two young people are each costing the Council over £1million each. I do not begrudge that cost in any way for people in genuine need, but it highlights the serious situation that all Councils are in which has to be resolved by Central Government.
That said, the Council is currently forecasting a £6.8 million budget gap. Savings targets have been instigated as has a tightening up on all non-statutory expenditure and recruitment. The Council has a reserve of £10 million and to a degree that buffer is there for precisely that reason, but we only have figures to the end of Q2 or the end of October, so there is little or non slack. Whilst the Council is not going to be bankrupt, it is inconceivable in my view that they, along with most others, will need to go to Government for emergency funding for the second year in a row.
Also, as with probably every other Council in the Country, they will need to take the maximum 4.99% increase in the Council Tax to try and balance the books.
Speeding
The scheduled meeting was sadly postponed. Will keep you informed.
Mobile and internet reception
Similarly, this meeting has also been postponed.
Casework
You will understand that I cannot share specific details but there are some real issues out there ranging from housing to planning and everything in between.
I have finally achieved something on the Harris Close bridge. A contractor has been selected who I have managed to finally get in touch with him, but he is still waiting for final sign off from Sovereign. It is a 6-week programme so who knows perhaps a Christmas present for the residents there!
I try to do what I can through my contacts at the Housing and Planning Teams at WBC, the local Police and Sovereign or other housing associations.
Get in touch
If you have any concerns or need any help, please get in touch on howard.woollaston1@westberks.gov.uk or 07836 718 100.
