Viewpoint: Concerns over vote on Kimber's Lane planning application

Ward unrepresented in crucial planning vote

The Advertiser (May 23) reported that plans for 225 new homes in Kimber’s Lane have finally been approved, in a meeting beset with absences.

The voting panel was unbelievably reduced to just four members, where for previous decisions it would have expected nine.

A change in constitution last month took the panel size from nine down to seven.

Why was this change made?

The voting panel was split two-two and the chair, Gurch Singh, cast the deciding vote.

I find it astonishing and visibly undemocratic that such a major decision was made by just four councillors.

The Advertiser reported that Councillors Geoff Hill and Helen Taylor were unable to sit last week, due to laws and best practice surrounding local authority voting panel processes.

Both councillors represent the Oldfield ward and it is this ward that that is suffering massive overdevelopment.

The residents of this ward ,therefore, had no one representing them in this crucial vote.

It is relevant to note that these same two councillors were not allowed to vote on the recent planning application for 1,500 homes on Maidenhead Golf Course.

The reason given is that they were both ‘pre-determined’.

I attended this meeting and listening to each councillor’s comments prior to the vote.

I find it difficult to accept that all the councillors on the panel went into that meeting with an open mind.

The combined development of Maidenhead Golf Course and Kimber’s Lane will result in at least 3,000 extra cars which will result in gridlock on roads not designed to handle such high volumes of traffic.

Has the council really considered this?

It is ironic that the Advertiser (May 23) includes a photograph showing a sunset view across Maidenhead Golf Course.

It shows a wide green space surrounded by trees. All this will soon be gone unless this development is stopped or severely restricted.

GEORGE MIDGLEY

Walker Road

Maidenhead

Drivers ignore Highway Code at A4 junction

With reference to Anne Sweeney’s letter (Viewpoint, May23), I would like to add another incident at this junction.

A few weeks ago, two friends and I (three pensioners) were waiting for the lights to turn red on the A4 to be able to cross it. When they turned red, we started crossing the A4.

A car on All Saints Avenue, turning right into the A4 towards Maidenhead, drove at us, window open and the woman driver shouted at us ‘I’ve the right of way’.

If we had not stopped crossing, we would have ended up in hospital.

Another car quickly followed her, again not giving way to us pedestrians already crossing.

We use this junction regularly and we often struggle to cross it because of aggressive drivers, ignoring the latest changes to the Highway Code giving pedestrians already crossing priority.

A pelican crossing would definitely make it safer for pedestrians, young and old.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Lack of action to deal with racist graffiti

Our local MP was recently seen on TikTok promoting his party’s latest ‘policy’.

He is seeking an amendment to The Bus Services Bill whereby ‘bare beating’ by ‘headphone dodgers’ on public transport would be banned.

Miscreants who continue to play music loudly on buses or trains could be fined upto £1,000.

Mr Reynolds should instead be looking a lot closer to home when it comes to local acts of anti-social behaviour and the use of existing legislation by RBWM.

After all he is not just our MP, he continues to draw a councillor’s allowance.

He is in a position of ‘influence’ to affect a very necessary change to current (non-existent) policy of ignoring racist graffiti on private property. At present RBWM decline to actively investigate and deal with such reports.

Instead an automated report is generated advising one to establish who owns the property – ie pay a £6 fee to the Registry Office – and then approach the owner to address the problem!

This policy of omission continues despite the fact that other local authorities – such as Tory-run Hillingdon – do such work on private property.

Instead the perennial excuse of there is no money due to the financial profligacy by the previous administration is trundled out by Mr Reynolds.

No firm commitment has yet been made by him – as a councillor – or his Lib Dem RBWM colleagues to change policy and implement s. 48 of the ASB Act 2003.

This allows councils to do the work and recharge the owner where such graffiti is offensive / racist and in clear public view. So much for the Lib Dems’ commitment for a ‘clean, safe and green’ borough!

Meanwhile a report of racist graffiti was made over four weeks ago to Mr Reynolds, local ward councillors and the leader of RBWM, highlighting the preceding omissions.

The situation continues unresolved.

An email on this matter however was acknowledged by one of the ward councillors.

Subsequently an (apparent) ‘one off’ undertaking was made by him to have it removed ‘within 48 hours’.

Guess what?

It was still there on Saturday (May 24), three days after the given deadline.

And still no news at all about changing the policy as suggested.

RICHARD WORRALL

Godayn Grove

Maidenhead

Why vote when council officers run the show?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Kimber’s Lane Sewage Sandwich and how hard it was to swallow.

This is yet another plan by greedy developers to build 225 yet more ‘much-needed’ homes, this time around an existing sewage farm. No, I’m not joking.

Apparently, a visit there by some councillors and officers on May 1 concluded that there were ‘no notable smells’. What exactly is a ‘notable smell’?

I’m concerned about the influence so-called officers have.

No one votes for these ‘officers’ – we just pay them and probably too much.

What’s more, how many of them actually live anywhere near Maidenhead and as such are totally unaffected by the gradual destruction of this area? I have even heard of one such officer living in Greece!

And do any of us really understand these ‘development panels’? It’s all a bit boring, isn’t it?

Yes, it is, but it’s important nonetheless.

So, on May 15 a committee of just FOUR people finally decided to swallow the Kimber’s Lane Sewage Sandwich.

A member of the public called Eric Ramon, said that legally, the meeting should not be going ahead.

He was immediately jumped on by the grandly named RBWM legal officer, Catriona Herbert, who stated that the meeting ‘Was Not A Tribunal’ and that there would need to be robust evidence to claim fraud or dishonesty.

Cllr Leo Walters (an elected person) said there was a lack of transparency over the decision. Maybe it’s all that sewage?

Finally, yet another officer, Louise Reid, reminded the meeting that if the proposals for The Sewage Sandwich are rejected then, on appeal by the developer, the council could end up with a scheme of ‘worse quality’.

I can’t imagine what might be worse than living around a sewage farm, albeit a small one with no notable smells.

All this strikes at the heart of voter apathy. What is the bloody point of voting in a council, when paid officers mainly run the show?

And how many people think that ‘an officer’ is the same as ‘a councillor’?

We vote for councillors who tend to live locally, but officers are just paid employees, who may live nowhere near Maidenhead.

Also, at the previous meeting council officer Adrien Waite decided to insult some trees by claiming they were not of sufficient quality to stop the development.

It is high time councillors reminded these officers that they are merely unelected paid employees.

MALCOLM STRETTEN

Riverside

You cannot square the circle on assisted dying

An open letter to Joshua Reynolds MP:

I fear that many members of both Houses of Parliament may have fallen into the trap of assuming that such things as, ‘the right conditions’ exist, which will enable them to allow for ‘assisted dying’ while at the same time protecting vulnerable people from any kind of coercion.

You may have heard many times, people – faced with what they believe to be an extremely difficult problem – ask, ‘How are we going to square that circle?’

This question is an illustration of just such an assumption, drawn from classical geometry.

For many generations, mathematicians sought to establish a construction which allowed this knotty problem to be solved.

After many centuries, mathematicians proved that it is IMPOSSIBLE to ‘square the circle’.

We as a society cannot afford to assume that it is possible to find the ‘right conditions’ for society to participate in the deliberate ending of the life of someone: however well-intentioned this wish may be.

The risks to society as a whole and to the sick, elderly and dying in particular are too great: and genies cannot be forced back into bottles once they have been released.

Just as the Suicide Act 1961 does not persuade me that it is morally acceptable to die by suicide; the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill utterly fails to convince me that it is a moral good now to be ‘complicit in another’s suicide’ – a criminal offence under that Suicide Act.

Amending the Suicide Act, as proposed by the Bill, would open the floodgates to a whole array of fresh challenges in the courts.

Barristers make their (often handsome) livings by inventing ‘legal arguments’ to take to courts for examination.

A template for how the protections currently on offer by the proposed Bill WOULD soon be weakened, and the scope of the law widened, can be seen by the Abortion Act 1967.

This Act started out supposedly tightly-drawn with strict safeguards, only for amendments to be made to the law, making abortions easier to come by.

This is now estimated (at the 50th anniversary Parliamentary debate) to account for 200,000 unborn babies a year at taxpayers’ expense, regardless of their views on its morality or otherwise.

In that 50th anniversary debate, it was clearly stated that the Abortion Act, ‘..was never intended to be the end of the campaign...’ and ‘...was a half-way house…’

Indeed, the current Bill may readily be seen as a ‘Stage 2’ step of the half-way house Suicide Act 1961.

I hope I can rely on you to vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill when it returns to the Commons.

JAY FLYNN

Moneyrow Green

Holyport

When will residents say enough is enough?

The Liberal Democrat-run Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) appears to have an insatiable appetite for your money. Not content with maxing out this year’s tax hike at 9 per cent, they are now planning to blow straight through that ceiling again in 2026/27.

This is the same council that took out a staggering £103million loan – a drawdown that residents will be repaying for decades.

The same council that’s been selling off public assets in RBWM behind closed doors with little scrutiny or transparency.

The same council that jacked up the unparished area precept by an eye-watering 11.26 per cent, hitting residents in Maidenhead and Windsor especially hard.

And now? They want even “more” of your hard-earned cash.

At what point do residents say: enough is enough?

While the National Government have, at least on one occasion, stepped in to curb some of these absurd decisions like the 25 per cent proposed increase, we can only hope they’ll continue to block this blatant financial overreach.

Because right now, the Liberal Democrat leadership seems to be treating the borough’s finances like a piggy bank.

Worse still, many of the so-called ‘Independent’ councillors – elected under the promise of standing up for local voices – are quietly falling into line and rubber-stamping the Lib Dem agenda.

The poachers have become gamekeepers, abandoning residents in favour of political expediency.

Where is the accountability? Where is the representation?

Residents deserve to know: which of our councillors are standing up for the people who elected them – and which ones have become institutionalised, seduced by power, and complicit in this ongoing betrayal of public trust?

Since the Liberal Democrats assumed control of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) Council in May 2023, council tax has increased by a total of approximately 14.3 per cent over two financial years and the cumulative impact can be as high as 19.3 per cent.

For the 2023/24 financial year, the council implemented a 4.99 per cent increase in council tax. This adjustment raised the Band D rate in unparished Maidenhead from £1,516.49 to £1,593.94, an increase of £77.45.

In the 2024/25 financial year, the council sought to raise council tax by 24.99 per cent to address financial challenges.

However, the government limited the increase to 8.99 per cent.

Consequently, the Band D rate in Maidenhead rose from £1,671.39 to £1,809.12, an increase of £137.73.

Combining both years, the Band D council tax in Maidenhead increased from £1,516.49 in 2022/23 to £1,809.12 in 2024/25, marking a total rise of £292.63.

This equates to an approximate 19.3 per cent increase over the two-year period.

It's important to note that council tax rates can vary across different areas within the borough due to factors like parish precepts and special expenses.

Therefore, residents in other parts of RBWM may experience different rates.

ANUJ KHANNA

Deputy chairman, Maidenhead Conservatives

Embrace unity with our European neighbours

Tony Beck’s irritated complaint (Viewpoint, May 23) about the new UK/EU trade deal is unquestionably one-sided in its description, though anyone calling the EU ‘toxic’ is likely to present a false picture.

The UK left the EU on the last day of 2020, an appropriately bad time, bang in the middle of the coronavirus catastrophe. Despite the promises of the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage, there was no second referendum on the terms of leaving; it was whatever the bungling Boris and David Frost could come up with.

It has cost the UK billions in lost revenue and sent many small to medium sized businesses to bankruptcy.

It has meant UK passport holders waiting in long queues whilst citizens of EEA countries and Switzerland face no such holdups.

It has ruined the dreams of many retirees who lived in the EU and can no longer afford to, and it's stopped young school graduates participating in the excellent Erasmus scheme. In fact, it has destroyed so much which was good and there has been no tangible benefit, yet the dwindling bunch of brexiters who still think it was a worthwhile exercise refuse to acknowledge the destruction it caused.

Most know now that Brexit was a weird separatist fantasy, a chance to attack the Cameron government, a way to dodge taxes for the wealthy elite.

As we survey the awful financial constraints under which the country labours, it's a time for gratitude that somebody is at long last acting like an adult and trying to remove the obstacles between us and our nearest neighbours.

With Brexit-loving Putin determined to capture individual European countries and the USA now a neutral ‘friend’ at best, European unity matters more now than in the past 50 years. Embrace it.

JAMES AIDAN

Sutton Road

Cookham

Parties are failing to stand up to EU bullies

If we go to a shop to buy some cheese we do not expect £160 to be added to the bill to cover the cost of veterinary certification of its safety.

Nor would all the other customers in the shop expect to find £160 added to each of their bills, whether for a small wedge or a whole wheel.

Yet according to the BBC that is precisely what happened when a cheese-maker in Derbyshire attempted to serve its customers in the EU.

Not enough for the EU to have the company certified as a trustworthy source of cheese made to EU standards, each piece must be certified.

Has the UK government ever protested about this totally unreasonable behaviour by the EU? Is it not really a disguised restriction on trade?

But the current government has found a solution, a way to get the EU to remove the protectionist barriers it has erected against our exports.

All it needs is for everybody in the UK who produces goods to follow all EU rules all the time, whether or not they ever export to the EU.

And for the EU to conduct spot checks, and for the EU court to decide whether all the goods produced in the UK conform to all EU laws.

There may have been a time when this country would stand up to a bully, but no longer. Not under the Tories, Labour or Liberal Democrats.

Dr D R COOPER

Belmont Park Avenue

Maidenhead