Page 1054 - Reading Mercury

serious hold-ups. The train service is overcrowded and—when it does run—is also
subject to delays and cancellations.
Roads already overcrowded will be chaotic through the centre of Wokingham and
the Reading Road in particular will be very much affected as there is to be only one
exit from the Woosehill development on to a major road and it will be on to this road.
Commuters expecting to find travel to and from London will experience long
delays. The M4 is often disrupted by accidents and the Chiswick fly-over causes
serious hold-ups. The train service is overcrowded and—when it does run—is also
subject to delays and cancellations.
“Wokingham is a ceremonial sacrifice by the Berks County Council to the
Government. When the Government wants some more land they are handed bits of
Wokingham. We should do away with ribbon development. It is threatening to unite
Reading and Bracknell,” said Mr. Roy Oliver, of the Wokingham Society.
“Why did any of us bother to protest at the enquiry last year?” said Mr. Glen
Stewart, a member of the Meadow Road Residents’ Association, “No notice has been
taken of anything any of us had to say.”
Members of the Woosehill Residents’ Association who will be greatly affected by
the development say that they will become “watchdogs” on a project they most
reluctantly have to accept.
Mr. Duncan Naish whose back garden overlooks a flood plain in this area said that
plans show a double road is destined for this spot although in the original discussions
it was agreed there would only be a six inch encroachment on this land.
There is a space of 115 ft. between the end of his and his neighbour’s garden and a
weir on the Emm Brook. Water in wet weather overflows the area and a brick wall is
to be built to maintain the floods.
“Will the consortium of landowners be in a position to implement the agreement
they entered into with the late Borough Council for amenity land when the land has
been sold to eventual developers?” was the question asked by Cllr. Webber.
All are anxiously awaiting the outcome now of the appeal made by the owner of
more land in Simons Lane for residential development bordering Woosehill.

th
Thur 16 May
WOKINGHAM DAY CENTRE OPENS IN JUNE
The Little Court Day Centre for the Elderly is ready and all the people of
st
Wokingham have been invited to a gala opening on June 1 . at 2.30 p.m. For five
years the Wokingham and District Association with their chairman, Mrs. Jean Davy
whose idea it was in the beginning, have worked hard with this in mind.
The Wokingham Walk held for the past four years on a January Sunday has never
waned in popularity and has been a great fund-raising event. Coffee mornings, sales,
dances, the Wokingham Carnival, have all contributed to the amount needed to launch
this project and many private donations too have been given as well as help from the
Wokingham Borough Council, the Berks County Council and Wokingham Rural
District Council.
At first Mrs. Davy’s idea was to build an entirely new centre but land was
impossible to buy or lease in the middle of town, so Little Court, an old but charming
house in its own grounds on the reading Road nearly opposite the Masonic Centre was
bought and has had extensive alterations and refurbishings carried out to make it
acceptable to the old folk.

1052