Shanly flats next to Strande Park approved despite flood concerns

Emotions ran high during the first of two crucial debates on highly controversial housing plans for Cookham.

The first was regarding 20 homes at Strande Park, while the much larger plan for 199 homes on Cannondown Road was considered immediately afterwards.

This mammoth five-hour meeting came hot on the heels of changes to national planning policy drastically upping the number of homes RBWM must facilitate per year.

Officers were quick to say that the new framework did not change the officer's recommendation to approve the plans – indeed, it ‘strengthens’ it, they said.

A major concern of the Strande Park site is its vulnerability to flooding and how this would be dealt with.

Suggestions that residents can ‘move to the first floor’ of their homes in the event of severe flooding were met with overt scepticism, given that Strande Park is a mobile park home site.

Ian Rennie, representing Shanly Homes, said residents ‘would be entirely safe in their houses’ during flooding.

This comment fetched a chorus of laughs from the large group of members of the public in the council chamber, causing panel chair Cllr Geoff Hill to call for quiet.

Mr Rennie said there was ‘no objection’ to this application from technical consultees and that it had been put under ‘forensic’ examination by RBWM’s officers.

Nonetheless, Cookham speakers expressed a deep distrust of Thames Water and doubts it could meet its obligations on the site.

Cookham Parish Council’s chair of planning, Jacqui Edwards, said CPC is 'astonished' at the suggestion that surface water should be discharged into the 'already inadequate' foul sewer system around Lightlands Lane.

"Despite numerous complaints over many years, Thames Water have failed to upgrade their sewage system in this area,” Cllr Edwards said.

“We do not trust they will correctly assess what work is needed and then carry it out to an agreed timetable.”

Member of the Maidenhead development panel Cllr Asghar Majeed (Con, Ascot and Sunninghill) had questions over claims made in the officers’ report regarding traffic.

"How is it possible nearly 50 extra car movements or more are ‘not a material harm to highway safety?’” he asked.

Nick Westlake, principal planning officer for RBWM, clarified that this would be distributed throughout the day and would amount to between nine and 11 movements over peak hours.

He also stressed that previous iterations of this plan were ‘far worse’, with nine dwellings backing onto park homes, overlooking them, and noise from car parking arrangements 'immediately next door.'

“There's going to be an element of harm that always occurs when there is a new housing development,” he said. “Officers have concluded the harm, on balance, is acceptable.”

On the whole, councillors felt this was a ‘reasonable development’ though flood concerns continued to come up.

But officers reminded councillors that there are certain decisions which are not in RBWM’s remit but are rather agreements between Thames Water and the developer.

With this in mind, councillors voted eight to one to approve the plans. Cllr Leo Walters (Con, Bray) abstained.