It was wonderful to see so many people at our demonstration last night, all asking our council to reject plans to build on Maidenhead Golf Course. We estimate around 400 were there.
Tina Quadrino gave a fantastic speech (see below), and thank you to everyone else who took to the microphone to tell us all why it’s vital this environmental vandalism is stopped.
We have just found out the Borough Local Plan will come to full council on Tuesday 14 December (meeting starts at 7pm). Please do urgently write to your local councillors and our MP Theresa May to let them know you are against building on our publicly owned green belt land.
Tina Quadrino’s speech
Thank you all for coming.
It is testament to the strength of feeling about this topic that so many of you have come here tonight.
Firstly, I’d like to say that this is a place of work so can I ask please that we allow people to come and go freely into and out of the Town Hall as they need to.
We expect to be here for about an hour, after which we will all carry on with our Tuesday evening.
The purpose of this demonstration is to ask our councillors to reject the Borough Local Plan when it eventually comes to full council.
Tonight’s council meeting isn’t considering the BLP – but we will let everyone know as soon as the meeting is announced. We wanted to reach out to the councillors gathering at tonight’s meeting, so they have plenty of time to consider their course of action.
The Borough Local Plan (BLP) was first developed in 2015 / 2016. At that time, Maidenhead and indeed the world was actually a very different place.
At the time the BLP was first developed
Maidenhead was going be the terminus for Cross Rail.
The Objectively Assessed Housing Need from government suggested that we needed around 14,000 dwellings in the Borough between 2013 and 2033. Most of these are planned for Maidenhead!
At that time Climate Change was something to worry about in the future.
Since the BLP was developed:
Cross Rail will not terminate in Maidenhead.
The housing need was halved in 2018.
The Royal Borough has declared a climate emergency and recognises that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
We have endured nearly two years of a global pandemic that has changed the way many of us work, and how we value our green space.
And we have an Environment and Climate strategy that has been in place for a year, which mandates that we will halve our greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.
COP 26 has made it very clear that Climate Change is happening right NOW!
The time for drastic action is now!
We cannot build 2000+ homes on the golf course AND meet anyone’s climate target!! It’s simply insane!
We need a Borough Local Plan that puts the environment front and centre of everything that we do.
A Borough Local Plan that protects our natural resources and recognises the real value of green space in terms of its benefits to our health, our wellbeing as well as to climate change.
We don’t want hundreds of supplementary documents that correct all the problems with this plan!
We want a plan that is right from the start and that reflects a different future, a future that we want!
A future where our planet is more important than money or the career development for the few to the detriment of the many…
If we do not put the environment front and centre of EVERYTHING that we do how can we look our children in the eye when they inherit a broken planet?
When they inherit all the problems that we have failed to address now!
How can we tell them that we knew but we did nothing?
So, on behalf of everyone here, I ask our local councillors to vote against the adoption of the Borough Local Plan when it comes to full council.
This Borough Plan does not represent what we want for our Borough!
We want a Borough that protects our green space, our environment, and our biodiversity.
We want a Borough that leads the way with green technology and that promotes a sustainable way of life.
We want a Borough that promotes brownfield development over easy and profitable and ultimately harmful greenfield development.
We want a Borough where our leaders have our best interests at heart and who truly understand our needs.