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The Wokingham Society


Working to protect Wokingham town's past, present and future

 
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 Welcome to the website of The Wokingham Society

We hope you will find this website informative and interesting and that we can perhaps persuade you to join the Society. You will see from our aims that we work to protect Wokingham town's past, present and future. This covers our heritage, our environment and facilities for the benefit of the residents and workforce.
Wokingham is an attractive town with a good history. We hope you will enjoy the website pages and that we can convince you of the town's and the Society's value.

 Who are we

The Wokingham Society is an independent, non-political organisation (charity no. 274988), registered with the Civic Trust and affiliated to both the Open Spaces Society and Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust.
It aims to help protect the environment and character of the town of Wokingham,influence local development planning, encourage conservation of historic buildings, other traditional features and the town's nature resources, support local business and try to ensure that civic amenities are maintained and improved.

 The Wokingham Society Photographic Competition

Winner: Entitled "Enthralled", conveying the spirit of the occasion and the joy on children's faces. Mr Christopher Skeet, Sherwood Road,Wokingham.

Runner up: Entitled "Charity begins", conveying the spirit again and childen's curiosity. Mr Alex Long, Milton Road, Wokingham.

Runner up: Entitled "Knitting", and conveys the elements of the occasion and a thoughtful portrait. Mr John Bickerdike, Knowles Avenue, Crowthorne.

 The Wokingham Society places historic painting on permanent loan to Wokingham Library

The Wokingham Society has purchased and had professionally restored and framed the historic oil painting 'The Chapel Lucas Hospital Wokingham'. The painting is now on permanent loan to Wokingham Library in Denmark Street. To see the picture click here. To read the full press release click here.

 "Can you help save the murals at St Crispins School?"

If you think that you can help please click here.

 Chairman's Update

Tina Marinos

At the beginning of August the Wokingham society submitted an application for Elms Field to be registered as a town green. This action was taken following complete lack of assurance from Wokingham Borough Council as to how much of the existing open green area in Elms Field would be safeguarded in any development. Members of the society attended every workshop on this issue run by WBC with an open mind and gave valuable input. However no firm direction was given by WBC and indeed some comments made at these workshops gave rise to concerns.

We have with the help of our solicitors Clifton Ingram lodged this application. We had only a two year time limit in which to do this since Elms Filed was first appropriated by the Borough council in July 2007. We will be updating our evidence and would like to thank all those who have taken time to complete questionnaires.

Our second major piece of work has been filing our objections to the Core strategy. We have based our objections on three grounds; that the Core strategy is unsound, not effective and not consistent with national policy. We have emphasised transport issues, lack of sufficient infrastructure such as schools, and also the risk of flooding. We were delighted to help all residents associations produce their template letter and it is impressive that over 1,000 letters of objection have been received.

Our Annual General Meeting is on November 19th at Wokingham Town Hall starting at 7.30 and we are pleased that lady Elizabeth Godsal will be talking to us about her work as Lord Lieutenant.

Tina

 NEW Blue Plaques Trail Guide Leaflet

A new trail guide leaflet based on The Wokingham Society blue plaques is now available. To view an electronic copy please go to the Achievements page.

 If you care about Wokingham come and join us

For information on membership of The Wokingham Society, click  Join WS, email The Wokingham Society or pick up a leaflet from the Wokingham Information Centre in the Town Hall.