Our next event will be a drop-in session at Maidenhead Community Centre, 4 Marlow Road SL6 7HY, Friday 10 February 2022, anytime from 11am to 2pm
At the start of the New Year, we wanted to update you on where we are with our campaign to save Maidenhead golf course from development.
As you know, unfortunately at the renewal hearing in the High Court in November, Judge Sir Ross Cranston refused an extension of time on local residents’ legal challenge of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead’s Borough Local Plan.
This refusal was based on the technical error made by our previous solicitors in the serving of the papers and we are seeking compensation for this error.
We are still considering other legal options for challenging the profoundly negative long-term consequences of the environmentally damaging Borough Local Plan for our community.
We are currently campaigning to:
- show the BLP is not sound in respect of projected housing numbers and does not recognise the ecological and environmental damage its implementation would cause;
- show the draft South West Maidenhead supplementary planning document is unsound; and
- show the draft Environmental Impact Assessment for the development concedes there would be great ecological and environmental damage.
Every day that passes, there is more scientific information being published that demonstrates the enormous value of the golf course land to our community if it is left wooded and green.
For example, there have been studies that show older trees lock away twice as much planet-warming carbon as previously thought, and the decline in insect populations is reducing yields of healthy foods like fruit and vegetables.
At the recent Biodiversity COP15, our government pledged to set aside 30 per cent of our land to nature recovery by 2030.
Maidenhead golf course land is absolutely perfect for this, so it’s more important than ever that we continue to raise awareness of the value of this publicly owned land to mitigate the effects of climate change, including as a place for biodiversity, water storage, pollution absorption, carbon capture and amenity.
Our next event will be a drop-in session at Maidenhead Community Centre, 4 Marlow Road, SL6 7HY, on Friday 10 February 2022, anytime from 11am to 2pm.
This will be an opportunity to speak to us about the next steps of our campaign, and how you can get involved. For example, we will have briefing sheets to help you comment on Cala Homes’ planning application for their Elizabeth Quarter development on the golf course. It’s likely this planning application to come forward sometime in March.
Thank you for your ongoing support, and we look forward to seeing you again then.
To donate to our campaign, go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/maidenhead-great-park
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