I almost got a shock whilst reading the papers for this week’s Planning Committee. On two major developments the council appears to have negotiated 30% affordable housing. Not withstanding the fact that these were probably negotiated while the council was supposedly working to a 50% target for affordable homes on new developments, this is a very healthy improvement from the 20% and less that I have seen consistently approved by the Planning Committee over the last 18 months I have had the pleasure of being a member of the committee.

On both occasions (Station Hill and Kenavon Drive) Cllr Page pointedly mentioned the affordable housing levels in his comments, a clear sign that he has woken up to my calls for action to get more affordable housing from new developments in Reading. He knows that his record is poor on this matter and I have constantly hammered away at affordable housing at every opportunity in committee.

However, the council recently dropped its affordable housing target from 50% down to 30%. So if we can get 30% when against a target of 50% I worry that future agreements will be a lot less than the target of 30%. If that proves to be the case then I will, of course, have a lot more to say to Cllr Page.

The government has allowed some of the income from council house sales to be used for new affordable housing and with the economy now moving up the gears we should see more developments coming to Planning Committee. We need to ensure that they include higher levels of affordable homes than in in the last 18 months.