Tina’s speech to our council

On 2 March, the Maidenhead Great Park campaign group presented their petition for debate at the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead’s full council meeting. Unfortunately our motion was defeated, but we wanted to share Tina Quadrino’s speech:

Thank you, Mr Mayor, for allowing me to speak about this petition that is very dear to my heart – and to the hearts of the 4,448 people from all over RBWM who signed it.

These residents have signed up to a dream of what could be. It is in the power of this council to continue to protect this important piece of greenbelt land from development, just as was intended when a previous Mayor bought the land and entrusted it to the council for safe keeping many years ago.

It is critical that as a town we recognise that we are in a very different space now than we were when the Borough Local Plan was first created:

• Since then, a climate emergency has been declared and, rightly as a Borough, we have pledged to protect biodiversity and meet a carbon net zero target by 2050; and

• Since the BLP, we have been living through a global pandemic that will change some of the ways in which we live and work forever.

To address the latter first; shopping is predominantly on-line now, and homeworking has been shown to be really effective for employers and employees alike.

This means that the need for commercial space and for office space will be greatly reduced – freeing up many brownfield sites that would be ripe for development.  

This leads me on to the ambitious target of carbon net zero by 2050. Anyone who understands the threat of climate change knows that it is irreconcilable to mention carbon net zero in one breath and destroying greenspace in the next!

For hundreds of years this greenbelt land has been looking after us, as a green lung – helping to combat air pollution, noise pollution, prevent flooding and act as a carbon sink. And yet now, when it is needed more than ever, we are talking about concreting it over!

And this greenbelt land – leased by the golf club – has been critical to the health and wellbeing, both mentally and physically, of many Maidenhead residents in this last year.

This council has earmarked this land for housing and says there’s nowhere else to build. But, using the current 2018 Objectively Assessed Housing Need numbers from central government, we are already there in terms of houses needed in the borough.

And that doesn’t even take into account schemes like the Nicholson’s Quarter that don’t yet have planning permission.

In summary:

• we do not need to build in the Golf Course to meet the current housing need;
• we are in a climate emergency where we need to reach carbon net zero by 2050; and
• We are coming out of a global pandemic that has changed our work life balance forever, leaving many brownfield sites vacant and ripe for transformation to meet future housing needs.

What other argument could there be for putting a large village on the golf course?

Money of course. I am livid that this council is willing to compromise the health and wellbeing of future generations to get itself out of debt due to its own negligence.

It’s not enough that we lose local services and libraries – these at least be reinstated later – we also have to lose our green lung which once gone is gone forever.

You are the custodians of this public land first and foremost, not property developers.

Will this council answer to its residents, their children and grandchildren when they witness the destruction of their greenspace and all the benefits that come with it?

Will this council take full responsibility for it and be remembered forever as the people who gave permission to build on this land?

The arguments for keeping this space green are many.  And if, in time, it became a park for everyone, all of these benefits could be amplified.

We could plant more trees, increase the biodiversity, and provide more opportunities for people to access this space for exercise, education and so much more.

Maidenhead Great Park would put this town on the map as a destination and could become a key part of its sustainable transformation.

Thank you very much for listening Mr Mayor.