Clash over 4,500 new homes on farmland south of M4

Pauline Jorgensen, Conservative candidate for Earley and Woodley, has spoken out against the prospect of 4,500 homes at Hall Farm, land south of the M4 between Shinfield and Sindlesham.

The Hall Farm project emerged as part of the Wokingham Borough Council Local Plan under the Conservative administration in November 2021.

Councillor Pauline Jorgensen (Conservative, Hillside), who is also the leader of the opposition on council, accusing the Liberal Democrats of a u-turn on the Hall Farm project.

Wokingham Borough Conservatives are now campaigning against the project, with cllr Jorgensen 'consistently' opposing it, reflected during her campaign during the local elections earlier this year.

The new Hall Farm / Loddon Valley Strategic Development Location, which has been allocated as a new major development in Wokingham Borough.

She has also spoken out against centralised housebuilding targets for areas, which the Conservative government had, but scrapped in an announcement in December 2023.

Cllr Jorgensen said: "I am keen to protect our remaining countryside and the green belt by resisting Labour and Liberal Democrat centralised housing targets and focussing development on brownfield land.

“Conservatives have opposed development at Hall Farm unlike Lib Dems and Labour who are poised to concrete over our countryside, and fundamentally change the character of our area and what makes it such a special place to live.”

Conservative governments have facilitated the delivery of 2.5 million homes since 2010 and are committed to having another 1.6 million built over the next Parliament.

Cllr Jorgensen's opponents clashed with her about Hall Farm and housebuilding in general in a BBC Berkshire radio hustings.

READ MORE: Earley and Woodley general election candidates clash in radio debate

During the debate, Tahir Maher, the Liberal Democrat candidate, said: "We need houses here, people are demanding houses, the population is growing, and if they can afford to buy a house, they should be able to do so.

"We believe in regionalisation, we want to effectively develop the rest of the country, and not just have everything in the South.

"We should be developing other parts of the country, but we do need houses here.

"We overdeveloped by about 2,000 houses in the current Local Plan, we did try to reduce the numbers, we talked to the government quite hard but they didn't take that into account."

He also said that the focus of new development should be on brownfield sites where possible and should be kept away from flood plains.

Councillor Tahir Maher and guests at the Reading Pakistani Community Centre Christmas Party.

The Lib Dems have a national housing target of 380,000 new homes per year, of which 150,00 would be 'social housing' including council houses.

Meanwhile, Labour's policy is to build half a million new homes in the first five years of a government, which they claim will 'deliver the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation'.

Voicing her party's stance, Yuan Yang, the Labour candidate, said: "We need to build more houses in places where they are appropriate for people to live, where people want to live, and where there is the infrastructure to support them.

"Over the last decade, two decades we have thousands of new houses built in Berkshire without the infrastructure to support it.

"That's why I think people are so annoyed at the traffic, at the lack of GP surgeries and so on accompanying those new houses.

"So Labour's policy is to build new houses only when there is the infrastructure there, and to build in balance with infrastructure."

Yuan Yang, Labour candidate for the Earley and Woodley parliamentary constituency.

She added that development would be focused on 'brownfield' and 'urban infill' sites.

During the radio hustings, Ms Yang said: "I absolutely think most people would welcome new building if it's a new secondary school or a new GP surgery I can't see anybody saying no to that, we need the right kind of building."

In-person voting for the general election takes place from 7am to 10pm on Thursday, July 4.

Two other candidates are standing in Earley and Woodley: Gary Shacklady for the Greens and Alastair Hunter for the Social Democratic Party.