Please help us to get this environmentally damaging plan stopped!

Our councillors and MP’s still aren’t listening, so we are planning to hold another demonstration outside Maidenhead Town Hall on Tuesday 8 February at 6.00pm, calling for a halt to plans to develop Maidenhead Golf Course with over 2,000 homes. 

The demonstration will again ask Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead to reject the environmentally damaging Borough Local Plan (BLP) when it comes to council for adoption, as its approval will give permission to develop this Green Belt land.

The council meeting is the same night at the Holiday Inn, starting at 7pm. We are starting our demo slightly earlier at 6pm so people have the chance to attend the council meeting afterwards in person, or go home to watch it on Youtube. Please do come along to our gathering to help show our council the strength of feeling in our community about the planned destruction of our greenspace and impact of a development of this scale and density on our town. Or watch the meeting live on RBWM’s Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/WindsorMaidenhead/featured

Top seven reasons why the golf course should remain protected Green Belt land:

1. Green Lung – this 132-acre area of Green Belt land is a vital green lung for our town, improving air quality and absorbing fine particulate matter from local roads. Local air quality already fails to meet UK Government air quality objectives and our town is the focus for the majority of development in our borough, with over 6,000 new homes either built of given planning permission since 2013.
2. Biodiversity – the golf course is rich in wildlife, including many protected and threatened species like owls, bats, hedgehogs, kestrels and red kites.  Britain is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world with one in seven species facing extinction (1), so it’s vital we protect remaining habitats.
3. We are in a Climate Crisis – the golf course is home to thousands of mature trees, providing shade and absorbing carbon dioxide – vital tools for helping us to mitigate against the worst effects of climate change. 
4. Water storage & flooding – according to our council’s own Climate Strategy (2), ‘the Thames Valley region is classed as seriously water stressed’. Will there be an adequate water supply for the growing number of Maidenhead residents? Also during times of heavy rainfall, the golf course soaks up large amounts of water. Our town centre will be more exposed to flood risk if this land is developed.
5. We don’t need so many homes – our council is justifying destroying our greenspace by using out-of-date figures for housing need based on 2012 data.  The Objectively Assessed Need (OAN) figures released in 2018, halve the number of homes needed in our area (3). 
6. It’s our land – in 1953 the council bought the golf course land to preserve it as ‘open space’ for the people of Maidenhead, and in their 2019 manifesto the local Conservative Party promised to ‘resist Green Belt release’.
7. We’ve already lost greenspace – around a third of Braywick Park’s green space has been developed in the last five years and other pockets of greenspace across our town have been swallowed up by development.  It’s vital the greenspace of the golf course is protected to ensure our town remains an attractive and healthy place to live, with plenty of local greenspace for people to access for their mental and physical health and wellbeing. 

References

1. State of Nature 2016 report https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/documents/conservation-projects/state-of-nature/state-of-nature-uk-report-2016.pdf

2. ‘Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Environment and Climate Strategy 2020-2025’ https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/media/2288/download

3. Planning Inspector’s documents, 2018 Household Projections Letter July 2020 ID-15 https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/planning/planning-policy/emerging-plans-and-policies/draft-borough-local-plan/examination-local-plan/inspectors-documents