What will each party do with Maidenhead Golf Course if they get in power?

Spokesmen for the main parties contesting the RBWM local elections have set out what they would do with Maidenhead Golf Course, should they be part of the next administration. Adrian Williams spoke to representatives for the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Labour, Greens and the local Independents.

Conservatives

Leader of the council Andrew Johnson highlighted that the golf course is an allocated site in the Borough Local Plan and the administration would have to remain BLP ‘compliant’.

The Borough is in a joint venture with CALA Homes for the development of the site and there has been ‘some development’.

“We can’t just rip it up and do nothing with that site. There would be consequences if we did,” he said.

“We will continue with our current trajectory – also, we’re going to be asking for 1,500 units. We’re broadly aligned with CALA homes on that.”

Previously, CALA Homes said it is expecting to apply for planning permission for up to 1,800 properties, down from an expected 2,000.

“1,500 is about the right kind of figure for that site,” said Cllr Johnson. “That’s a 25 per cent reduction, which is not insignificant.”

He added that the project has been improving in a few ways since its inception.

“There will be a lot more trees retained than was originally the case and there will be a lot more family housing,” said Cllr Johnson.

Having larger homes taking up more space on the site is not expected to make the site less valuable, despite there being fewer dwellings. It would be ‘more or less the same’, said Cllr Johnson.

The leader added there was potential for a ‘massive key worker affordable housing scheme’ in addition to the market sale and affordable housing offer already on the table.

“We would buy up unsold market housing and hold it for a group of individuals defined as keyworkers – that could be doctors or teachers, or could target industry graduates.

“That would really make a difference – the Borough’s really expensive, we all know that. I think it would make a significant contribution in terms of retaining young people to stay in the Borough.”

Liberal Democrats

One problem that opposition parties face is that they are not privy to all the contracts entered into by the current administration.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Simon Werner said that until he is able to see these, the Lib Dems are unsure what their move on the golf course will be.

“If there’s any way we can get out of what the Conservatives have signed up to, we will,” he said. “It might be legally impossible but we’re going to get the best people onto it.

“If we can’t, we’re going to do everything we can to minimise the impact. We’re going to use every leverage the council has.

“We’re going to minimise the number of houses and we’re going to turn as much of it into a Great Park as we can.”

Cllr Werner believes the affordable housing offer simply isn’t affordable. Developers ‘choose the most profitable affordable housing,’ which isn’t enough, he said.

He says there also needs to be a crackdown on ‘land banks’ where developers ‘sit on’ brownfield sites instead of building on them, because it costs money to remove existing infrastructure.

Until these things change, the Borough would simply be building homes on its countryside for people coming from outside, he said.

“The housing market nationally is completely broken,” said Cllr Werner.

“Eighty per cent of market value doesn’t bring the price down enough. The reality is these homes won’t go to local people. They’re going to be completely priced out.”

The Lib Dem leader wants to see social housing built instead; where the council owns the homes, can keep them for local people and charge ‘considerably lower’ social rent.

Labour

Labour has ‘no official position’ on Maidenhead Golf Course – but Pat McDonald, who is standing in Boyn Hill, said his personal position is that the development needed to go ahead.

“Financial mismanagement by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives over the past few years have put us in a position where we’ve got no other choice,” he said. “It’s thousands and thousands of pounds.”

Mr McDonald would like to see a large part of this project to be council-owned houses.

“I’d like to see that, so children who grew up in Maidenhead, who are now adults and have children of their own, have a chance to live in the town they grew up in,” he said.

Mr McDonald also felt the golf course site was really the only realistic place for the right number of ‘decent, proper family homes.’

“This is going to be the major build for Maidenhead that is going to provide the family homes people will need in the future. Where else are they going to go? he said.

He also thought there were sustainability reasons to build there.

“If we provide homes on that one site, which is within walking distance of the town centre, it’s taking away the pressure on the roads,” he said.

Mr McDonald also felt it would ‘protect the external greenbelt around Maidenhead’.

“We can actually save the rest of the greenbelt, the vast majority of it,” he said.

As for housing types, he said ‘the last thing we need is any more flats but there’s got to be a mix in there’.

“Terraces would be acceptable. You don’t want to build massive great houses on lots of land,” Mr McDonald said.

Greens

Craig McDermott, of the East Berkshire Green Party said it favours using the land as a park but is ‘open to other suggestions’.

“The first thing we’d look at is to try to establish the feasibility and cost of actually stopping the development and cancelling all the contracts,” he said.

“We’d seek to establish that before deciding what to do next.

“If that is prohibitively expensive, then it’s not going to be possible to stop the project. We would then move on to try to mitigate the worst aspects of it and make it as green as possible.”

In terms of type of housing, the Greens favour a large percentage of either social housing or council housing.

The Greens also want the homes to be built to a Passivhaus standard – buildings created to energy efficient design standards to maintain an almost constant temperature.

“This reduces the amount of energy they use by up to 90 per cent,” Mr McDermott said “That would save the occupants a heck of a lot in bills as well as helping the environment.

The Greens would also ensure developers make ‘a large contribution towards funding extra services that will be needed as a result’ of building on the course, for example GP surgeries, bus services and cycle lanes.

Acknowledging there is a shortage of family homes in Maidenhead, Mr McDermott said that ‘people needed small starter properties as well’, including flats.

“The development is of such a size it would be good to still have some flats there – I’d hope they’d be cheaper than the ones in the centre of town,” he said.

Independents

The Independents also highlighted the problem of not having access to all the documents they would need to see to make a call on the golf course.

Cllr Helen Taylor, of The Borough First Independents (Oldfield), said the Independents would prefer not to build on the golf course.

“There are documents we don’t have access to.

“It’s a huge open space and once it’s gone, it’s gone. It will take thousands of years to get back,” she said. “It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.

“We don’t agree with building on the greenbelt unless it’s a last resort and that’s been proven. It’s more the case that other options haven’t been considered,” she added.

Cllr Taylor also raised concerns that the length of the project might leave it in limbo, if things change.

“The golf course is a ten-year project,” she said. “My big worry is it will be started and not finished – what are we going to be left with?”

She added that the next administration will need to take another look at the housing need and what brownfield sites could be built on.

“If it turns out there is no other way, at least we could say we looked into it,” she said.

In addition, it will need to take the long view and look to the future.

“The Borough Local Plan goes up to 2034 – only 11 years away. It’s taken 10 years to do this one. We’re going to have to think about the next one that will take over in the near future.

“We don’t want to do anything that would significantly increase the debt.”