A CAMPAIGN group has started taking legal action against the adoption of RBWM’s Borough Local Plan.
Environmental campaign group Maidenhead Great Park has now held three protests urging the council to reject the anticipated Borough Local Plan 2013-2033.
Within the plan, the 132-acre Maidenhead golf course, which is earmarked for over 2,000 homes, has been a particularly contentious site and protesters have been campaigning to keep the town’s green lung from being concreted over.
Deborah Ludford, a member of the Maidenhead Great Park campaign group, said:
"I can confirm that the Maidenhead Great Park group has started legal proceedings against the adoption of RBWM's Borough Local Plan.
"Our council’s environmentally damaging Borough Local Plan commits to building 15,948 new homes, including 2,600 on the green belt at Maidenhead Golf Course and Harvest Hill, 270 in Cookham and 330 at Spencer’s Farm.”
Ms Ludford added hundreds of acres of greenspace in the town will be “lost forever” over the next 11 years.
She said: "This massive over-development of our town will turn it into a major construction site, causing significant disruption and stress to the people of Maidenhead, and surrounding villages over the next 10 to 15 years."
A spokesperson for RBWM said: “The council has received a pre-action protocol letter, on behalf of the Maidenhead Great Park group, notifying of a proposed legal challenge to the adoption of the Borough Local Plan.
"The council remains confident that due process has been followed in making the plan.
"The adopted Borough Local Plan continues to have full weight in the planning process.”
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Ms Ludford added: “There will be more traffic, congestion, noise, flooding and air pollution, as well as more pressure on local infrastructure, health and social services.
"The golf course development will destroy woodlands and wildlife habitats, as well as Maidenhead’s green lung.
“It will also take away our opportunity to create Maidenhead Great Park, and to take steps to make our town a better place to live in the face of climate change."
A council spokesperson explained: “A sustainability appraisal was undertaken in the development of the Borough Local Plan, looking at the social, environmental and economic aspects of proposed development.
"This includes issues around sustainability, climate change and biodiversity, and will also support the future development of a Place-making Supplementary Planning Document for South West Maidenhead, which will be subject to a community engagement process.
"Having a new sound and adopted Local Plan puts the borough in a strong position to meet, in a sustainable way, all our local housing and employment needs, to capture investment and regeneration opportunities, guard against unsupported speculative development and protect our valued natural and built historic heritage.
"While a tiny fraction of green belt development is needed in sustainable locations, the Borough Local Plan still protects 82 per cent of the borough as green belt and just one per cent has been released for new homes and employment.”
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