In the heart of Maidenhead 132 acres of green belt land has been leased to Maidenhead Golf club for the past 125 years. It is an attractive green space, with fairways, greens and woodland. It is rich in wildlife and is a vital green lung for our town, improving air quality and absorbing fine particulate matter from the traffic on our busy roads.
In 1953 this land was offered to the council, who took the view that this land was scheduled as open space, and that public ownership was the best way of ensuring that it remained an open space.
You don’t build on green belt in a climate emergency
The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (RBWM), led by the current Conservative administration, now wants to build over this green belt land with 2,000 new houses and flats. This will adversely impact on our air quality and biodiversity, and it will increase pressure on local infrastructure. Destroying publicly owned greenspace is entirely inconsistent with our council’s own objectives set out in its ‘Environment & Climate Strategy’, including to ‘protect and enhance our natural environment, green our towns and urban areas’ (1).
Does our Conservative led council have a mandate for such action?
Building on green belt land was not included in the Conservatives’ manifesto at the time of the last local elections. In fact, before the May 2019 local elections, the Conservative leader of the council promised ‘we are going to resist green belt release’ (2).
Our council is using public money and threats to push the golf club out
Maidenhead Golf Club is a thriving club and an important community leaseholder, with a 125-year history. Its current lease expires in 2039. The council has now offered Maidenhead Golf Club almost £16m of public money to surrender its lease early. The deal includes zoning for housing a parcel of land next to Harvest Hill Road that is owned by some golf club members.
Our council is making the golf club an offer that is hard to refuse, all with public money. This is coupled with threats to ‘compulsory purchase’ the golf club’s lease.
Stay and fight for a sustainable future for our town
However, if the golf club vote at their Extraordinary General meeting on 9 September, to reject the council’s offer and to stay where they are, this will make the golf course element of the Borough Local Plan (BLP) difficult to include.
We very much hope Maidenhead Golf Club votes to stay and continue to protect this vital area of greenspace for the benefit of all the residents of Maidenhead.
References
(1) ‘Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead Environment & Climate Strategy 2020-2025 https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/environment-and-waste/energy-and-sustainability/environment-and-climate-strategy
There is so much biodiversity in this area alone, it’s criminal to bulldoze over this habitat. The council are basically wiping out hundreds of years of growth and wiping out endangered animals.
It’s so sad.
I strongly object to the development on the Golf Course. Maidenhead has so many new properties being built, our infrastructure cannot support this. The environment damage will be emmense. I live in Larchfield and am deeply concerned about the future of our air quality and the safety of the residents from the additional traffic. We have enough properties popping up all over the town, this proposal should be abandoned.
Keep the green space, if you build its gone forever😢
This tory council are hell-bent on Cala homes building on this greenbelt; Simon Dudley got us into debt & lied in his manifest to win votes & Andrew Johnson is continuing his legacy to clear his debt. The members will take the deal.
If the golf club could turn the land into a grouse moor, there’s no chance the Tories would close it!
It’s very wrong
Our once historically beautiful Maidenhead is being slowly lost to the developers. Soon it will just be a skyline of ten storey, ugly flats. There is nothing we can do about that now. The deal is done. Therefore, I urge the members of Maidenhead Golf Club to carefully consider the loss of an area of outstanding natural beauty. Please do not find yourself driving passed a development of unnecessary, squeezed in housing in years to come, wishing you had made a different decision. Make the ethical decision now and save our rich, green belt before it is too late.
They took all the trees and put ’em in a tree museum…..
How can we support them?
We can support them by explaining that if they vote to stay it’s the best chance of saving the golf course and keeping the club together. If they vote to stay, it will be difficult for the golf course element of the Borough Local Plan to be included in the plan. We have local elections in 2023 – hopefully there will no longer be a Conservative stronghold on our council by then. We know that all the other councillors want to save this space – 19 voted to keep it green. But the Conservatives have a majority and their members were whipped to vote against our motion to keep this space green.
It’s just a continuation of the desecration of Maidenhead over the years. Who can excuse the demolition of our library in the 60s. Our grandchildren will look elsewhere to live unless they fancy a pigeon loft in a high rise block.
We moved to Harvest Hill Rd Maidenhead recently from Taplow, the air quality here is so much better than at my old house because of the surrounding green space we have here. It is tangibly noticeable as my garden furniture is no longer full of soot from the exhausts due to the main road we lived nearby. Now we live close to Braywick Road which is far busier I was pleasantly surprised at how much value the nature reserve and the golf course green spaces are adding to this town because the layer of soot doesn’t appear on my garden table!! Dear council, Please don’t put profits and money above the health of your local residents! Very disappointing when we’re already suffering a climate crisis.
Maidenhead has built more than enough homes or should I say flats. On one hand the council profess to encourage green space by not keeping the greenery and weeds under control but contradict themselves when it comes to overbuilding. When will they realise they are representing us and that the arrogance of disregarding majority opinion will not end well for this council. I cannot remember a time when so many locals were disillusioned with them.
We had one of the largest responses to our petition (4448 signatures) and all the conservative councillors (bar one who did it by accident) voted against the motion to stop building on this land. As they have a small majority the motion was then rejected. This should not be about party politics, this is a local issue but they all have to do as they are told regardless of what is best for their constituents. It’s very disheartening when we preach democracy all over the place and don’t actually practice it!
This will be the straw that broke the camels back, Maidenhead will no longer be a nice place to live if this land is built on. It will be a traversty.
They are also ignoring the golf course’s ability to act as a rain sink/ a massive sponge.
Concreting over the golf course will generate a run off and will create a drainage basin at the foot of Shoppenhanger’s Road, under the railway bridge.
Maidenhead already has a dearth of new unsold homes so it seems crazy to build another 2000 in this very important green space. I have no doubt it will happen though as this council is only interested in profit. Hopefully the members will vote against it but then I have read that it will be compulsorarily purchased anyway.
Dear RBWM Councillors – Please honour the legacy left for the local Community when the Golf Course was bequeathed to the Borough. The fact that the deeds were lost (or hidden by somebody) does not make it justifiable now to build on the Golf Course. It’s your chance to show you care about the local Community and the Environment.
Green Belt is Green Belt and the whole country should join together to say this is enough, we are collectively spending a huge amount of time , energy and money to protect these precious areas, it should not even be an issue, esp, as with everything with know about nature filtering polluntants, increase in flooding when we concrete over things ( New York there great park did not flood!) , and how much we need these spaces for our mind and body. Leave it alone