a)    Carole Da Costa of Clewer North ward will ask the following question of Councillor Grey, Lead Member for Environmental Services:

What was the total cost, including assessments, officer time and, the clean-up and repair or remediation of dealing with the unauthorised encampments on Whiteley in August 2017 and recently at Dedworth Manor?

b)   Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward will ask the following question of Councillor Natasha Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services:

Last year Desborough and Newlands wrote to RBWM proposing relocation to a joint campus on Golf Club land. However, paragraph 2.36 of the Newlands June Cabinet paper states that co-siting would be "difficult to achieve" alongside 2000 dense dwellings, and considers Newlands could move on its own. Is RBWM therefore saying that Desborough College is unlikely to co-site there?

(Sources Response letter and Cabinet)

c)    Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward will ask the following question of Councillor McWilliams, Principal Member for Housing:

The Council's BLP states 434 additional new affordable homes are needed in the Borough every single year. However RBWM's 2017/18 Annual Report states that the Council had a target for a mere 20 affordable homes (4.6%), delivering 32 (7.4%). Why is RBWM setting itself a miserable target that is less than 5% of the known affordable housing need?

(Sources Housing assessment and RBWM Annual Report 2017/18)

d)   Brian Millin of Bray ward will ask the following question of Councillor Coppinger, Lead Member for Planning:

I am a member of the Care Services Board for BEN, a charity based in Sunningdale who submitted an application in December 2016 for replacements of aging stock currently rented at social rents a total of 32 units. Frustrated by delays BEN has withdrawn the application and diverted some of the funds to other projects not in RBWM.

Is it acceptable for RBWM to lose such valuable investment in housing stock due to this long delay in determining this application?

(A Member responding to a question shall be allowed up to five minutes to reply to the initial question and up to two minutes to reply to a supplementary question. The questioner shall be allowed up to 1 minute to put the supplementary question)

a)    Carole Da Costa of Clewer North ward asked the following question of Councillor Grey, Lead Member for Environmental Services:

What was the total cost, including assessments, officer time and, the clean-up and repair or remediation of dealing with the unauthorised encampments on Whiteley in August 2017 and recently at Dedworth Manor?

Councillor Grey responded that the allocation of cost to specific responses such as this was not logged to this level of detail, however it was estimated that the cost for dealing with both encampments referred to was in the region of £5,000.

By way of a supplementary question Mrs Da Costa asked how and when would Whiteleys and Dedworth Manor be made secure to prevent further illegal and unauthorised encampments, and at what cost?

Councillor Grey responded that this would normally be dealt with by service budgets when an incident occurred, however a capital budget of £80,000 had been put aside to identify areas that might need reinforcing; the council would look at the areas referred to, to see if they needed shoring up.

b)   Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward asked the following question of Councillor Natasha Airey, Lead Member for Children’s Services:

Last year Desborough and Newlands wrote to RBWM proposing relocation to a joint campus on Golf Club land. However, paragraph 2.36 of the Newlands June Cabinet paper states that co-siting would be "difficult to achieve" alongside 2000 dense dwellings, and considers Newlands could move on its own. Is RBWM therefore saying that Desborough College is unlikely to co-site there?

Councillor N. Airey responded that at the moment nothing was off the table but configurations would be challenging for the site to ensure it was viable. Discussions were still ongoing.

By way of a supplementary question Mr Hill commented that the report only talked about two options: the temporary move to the golf course followed by a complete rebuild or perhaps a permanent move to the golf course. Paragraph 2.38 talked about the school effectively moving to the edge of town, disadvantaging parents who currently lived near Newlands. Some of the parents suggested a third option could be considered. Would it be possible for Newlands and Desborough to open a joint campus site for the sixth form only closer to the town centre, potentially on the old Claires Court site for example in the way some grammar schools had opened satellite sites?

Councillor N. Airey responded that the borough was open to options although she was not sure what Newlands’ and Desborough’s views would be of such a proposal. If Mr Hill would like to send her further details she would discuss with the education team.

c)    Andrew Hill of Boyn Hill ward asked the following question of Councillor McWilliams, Principal Member for Housing:

The Council's BLP states 434 additional new affordable homes are needed in the Borough every single year. However RBWM's 2017/18 Annual Report states that the Council had a target for a mere 20 affordable homes (4.6%) , delivering 32 (7.4%). Why is RBWM setting itself a miserable target that is less than 5% of the known affordable housing need?

Councillor McWilliams responded that the target was a technical target informed by information on potential completions within the year with developers and registered providers. The council’s ambitions were of course for much higher delivery of affordable housing. The target was based on what was deliverable; there was no point setting a target that was not achievable. The local need was known and the council was working towards that with the various schemes.

To do this the Council was working with developers and registered providers to enable the delivery of affordable housing and was also progressing development on a number of sites in its ownership which would see the delivery of significant numbers of affordable homes.

On specifics, he was pleased to say that in 2018/19 the target for completion is 105 units, so still off what the SHMAA suggested but represented a 600% increase on the 2016/17 delivery and a 425% increase on the 2017/18 target. Officers managed to negotiate a 60% increase on our original target from last year and he had every confidence they would continue to seek to increase this as the year progressed.

On a slightly different note, albeit connected, since the approval of an Empty Homes Strategy in May 2017 over 150 long term empty homes had been brought back into use, 30 of which had been brought back into use as affordable housing, which was included in the figures mentioned.

The council was absolutely committed to delivering affordable housing and would work with developers, housing associations and joint venture partners to do so; the council was well aware of the need for affordable housing in the area.

By way of a supplementary question Mr Hill commented that as the target was 434 a year, this would be 2000 since the 2013 start date. He asked was the Lead Member therefore suggesting that 1900 homes were missing and would not be achieved?  

Councillor McWilliams responded that the SHMAA revealed what the demand was locally and this had to be balanced with what was realistically able to be delivered. The target was a technical one based on discussions with developers and housing associations. There was always a trade-off between demand and what was deliverable. The council was 100% committed to ensuring the availability of affordable housing increased. If the increases in recent years continued the council would be getting close to the number. The council was moving from the position of delivering very few affordable houses to delivering a lot.

d)   Brian Millin of Bray ward asked the following question of Councillor Coppinger, Lead Member for Planning:

I am a member of the Care Services Board for BEN, a charity based in Sunningdale who submitted an application in December 2016 for replacements of aging stock currently rented at social rents a total of 32 units. Frustrated by delays BEN has withdrawn the application and diverted some of the funds to other projects not in RBWM.

Is it acceptable for RBWM to lose such valuable investment in housing stock due to this long delay in determining this application?

Councillor Coppinger responded that he knew the site well. The planning statement that accompanied the application stated that the existing buildings proposed to be demolished consisted of 32 bed sits and 12 one bed flats. The new building proposed 32 care apartments.

Objections were raised to the application from officers primarily because the proposed development was deemed to be clearly contrary to Green Belt policy. The loss of 12 existing care spaces also weighed against the development. The proposed development also failed to adequately address how surface water would be managed, failed to protect important trees and follow best practice guidance with regard to protected species, namely bats. There were also objections raised by local residents.

The application was deliberately left undetermined in order to allow the applicant the opportunity to explore whether they could submit further justification or evidence that could outweigh the strong policy objections given the location of the site in the Green Belt. The applicant chose to withdraw the application. At no time has the time taken to deal with the application caused RBWM to lose an investment in housing stock given that the scheme was unacceptable. In fact approving it would have caused a loss of housing stock/care space.

By way of a supplementary question Mr Millin asked if the Lead Member was aware of another application by BEN made in 2017 for a community health centre was still not determined. Continued delays for both applications had led to additional costs for the charity. Was it acceptable for applicants  wishing to invest in social projects to be frustrated by such delays?

Councillor Coppinger responded that, given the technical nature of the response he would reply in writing.