The Cookham Plan

Findings and Recommendations

Housing and Development Group

5. INFRASTRUCTURE

Review the adequacy of existing infrastructure and identify how this may affect or constrain development. The review is to be based upon information about parking, public transport and traffic issues provided by the Traffic and Transport group and information about the capacity of schools, medical and similar facilities provided by the People and Places group.

In addition, we have supplemented this with information obtained directly from service providers and RBWM.

Southern Electric provide and maintain the high voltage network serving the Cookhams. It is viewed as one area rather than 3 discrete sub areas.

They describe the network in this area as already "Well loaded". This means that Infill developments of small numbers of houses can be coped with by the existing network. Larger developments of 50 to 100 houses however would probably require reinforcement of the network (a smaller development of 20-30 houses would depend on each case).

Reinforcement for 50-100 houses would almost certainly require a new substation at approx £50,000 and new cabling and this would have to be paid by the developer. The costs for connection charged by Southern Electric apparently add up to about £1,000 per house on average.

Southern Electric have ongoing plans to put in new cabling in Cookham, this being partly to replace a section of problematic overhead cabling between Dane's Moor and Wildebrook Road rather than providing genuinely new capacity.

It is worth noting that overhead cabling has been responsible for causing outages in the Cookham area and underground cabling for the whole network area would be very desirable.

National Grid (formerly Transco) are responsible for the gas pipe network supplying Cookham. Transco regard the supply to the Cookhams to be complete and have no particular issues with future developments in principle. As with electricity, each new development has to be reviewed by National Grid and there will be connection costs to join the main network.

There are several properties in Cookham Dean which are not connected to the main network and use electricity, oil fired heating or calor gas. 

According to Transco, Cookham Dean is well served by Gas mains pipes and they consider the coverage typical for that size of village. They concede that a few more isolated houses may be a little further from a mains pipe than others and that connection might cost a little more but that connection certainly would be possible.

Thames Water provide sewerage to the Cookhams while provision of drinking water is by South East Water.

There is no provision for sewage treatment in the Cookham area. This is now conducted at the main Maidenhead Stafferton Way works since decommissioning of the old Winter Hill station.

Thames Water advise that, once a proposed development has been given planning permission, the developers should contact both Thames Water and South East Water and ask to be connected to their infrastructure. Before the site is connected the companies will conduct a thorough investigation to see if the current water mains and sewerage

systems are adequate. If the services need improvement, or new supplies need to be constructed, this will all be at the developer's expense, the cost of which will depend on the work that needs to be done.

South East Water say that, while there is a connection cost for all new dwellings and other developments, they believe they have plenty of capacity to cope with new developments. They make no mention of how this squares with the water shortages in the form of hosepipe bans Cookham and the surrounding areas have been subject to in recent years.

Residents report that there can be problems in the Village High Street with flooding despite the presence of storm drains. There can also be occasional problems with sewer drains blocking due to outputs from houses and local restaurants in the area. 

There is a desire for this to be investigated and resolved. 

Despite recent extensions to foul sewerage in Cookham Dean, a number of residents reported in their questionnaire responses that they were still unable to connect to mains drainage. The economics of further extending mains drainage should be investigated.

The nearest British Telecommunications exchange can be found in Bourne End. Standard fees are paid to connect new developments and properties to the overhead landlines but BT do not foresee there being any particular problems with network capacity for future developments.

The underground cable network (for TV and telecoms) does not reach Cookham. The network currently stops at the railway bridge North of Maidenhead and cable companies report that there are no plans to extend the network in the foreseeable future.

Current broadband internet speeds achievable in the Cookham area are understood to be up to 3MB. This is determined by the distance to the exchange at Bourne End and the nature of the current wire network. It would be desirable if this could be raised to 8-10MB across the Cookhams but BT report that they have no plans in the immediate future to upgrade the exchange or wiring to enable this.

These are contributions that local authorities can ask for from a developer before planning permission is granted. It is a financial contribution towards local infrastructure; schools, libraries etc to compensate for the extra strain on existing services likely to be caused by the development. These payments were introduced in the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act. They are widely used by many boroughs including RBWM but are not mandatory.

The types of contribution that RBWM ask for and when they apply is laid out in a supplementary planning document( 5.1) and cover:

• Affordable housing

• Transportation and highways

• Education

• Community facilities

• Library services

• Recreation and leisure

• Town management and improvement

• Economic development

• Landscaping and biodiversity

• Air quality

• Waste disposal

• Archaeology

• Flood risk management & drainage

• Parish projects

At the moment these benefits are not always received by the parish in which the development will occur with the money going into the overall RBWM pot. In the future, the Parish Council and others should put as much pressure as possible on RBWM for 106 monies from developments in Cookham to be spent on facilities in Cookham.

RBWM encourages development of renewable energy sources by providing details of various current initiatives( 5.2). This supports the government’s stated policy for 10% of Britain's energy to be from renewable sources by 2015. 

But are there any examples of renewable or other 'green' energy projects being carried out in the borough?

• There are plans to install water driven turbines in the lower tiers at Romney Lock, on the River Thames near Windsor. The plan is initially supported by a European Union grant and will provide an appreciable portion of the power being used by Windsor Castle. *It should be investigated whether such a system of turbines might also be feasible to install in Cookham Weir (possibly in connection with the capacity increases referred to in Section 7).

• Maidenhead and District Housing Association have built the Greenfields sustainable housing development using several of these principles which use 50% less energy and 30% less water than regular housing.

• Other renewable projects in the area include; Solar water heating in Windsor Castle, a straw burning boiler operating in Hurley and a Ground source heat pump at Hurley Canoe club. We currently do not know of any significant green energy projects specifically being planned for or going ahead in the Cookhams. There are government grants available for improved home energy efficiency and also for use of renewable technologies including: solar panels and water heating, wind turbines, hydropower and bioenergy. There is therefore considerable scope for local action and this could be combined with *a wider initiative to reduce carbon emissions – see Section 4.

Please refer to the People and Places Working Group report for full details of this subject.

• Cookham’s schools and nurseries are operating at or very close to full capacity already. It should be noted, however that an appreciable proportion of the pupils come from outside the Cookhams (reportedly more than 40%). Many report that car parking is inadequate and represents a major issue. These two factors combine to make transport problems near many of the establishments. Most report that they would have limited or no scope to expand buildings or car parking so their maximum numbers are effectively restrained.

• The overall conclusion regarding future development is that schools and nurseries would not be able to absorb the pupils from any significant new developments in or close to the Cookham area without removing an equivalent number of pupils from outside the village.

• The Medical Centre serves approximately 8,300 local residents (NB this includes a significant number of patients from outside the Cookham Parish area where the population is approximately 5,500). It serves significantly more elderly than the average doctors’ surgery around the country.

• The Medical Centre considers car parking to be adequate most of the time, only being a problem when Pinder Hall (whose patrons they officially allow to share the car park) is in use. This is not fully born out by the questionnaire in which a number of respondents raised ease of parking and access across Lower Road as being problematical.

• There are plans for two extra administration rooms upstairs but this is to relieve pressure on current facilities and better serve existing patients rather than for expansion in patient numbers. There are no plans to expand further and the current site is restricted. However Medical Centre management also stress that their contract states they must have an open list for new patients.

Services such as sewerage, drainage, and power are well used in the Cookham area. Any substantial increase in population would necessitate extra provision of these utilities but this is not likely to be a constraint on development.

Its is clear that the schools and medical facilities are operating at or very near their capacity but that much of that capacity is taken up by people from outside the Cookhams. It also seems impossible to increase capacity at most of them without substantial investment in new land and/or buildings. Any substantial new housing developments and subsequent increases in local population would therefore require extra local provision of school, medical and social

infrastructure and / or the transfer of current users to new facilities outside Cookham.

Please see the Traffic and Transport Working Group’s report for more detail.

Official parking provision policy for new developments was formerly dictated by Government Planning Policy Guidance Note 3 (PPG3) and Planning Policy Guidance note 13 (PPG13)( 5.4). These required that any new development must typically have 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling.

PPG 3 has now been replaced by Planning Policy Statement 3( 5.3) and in this no specific figures for parking provision are mentioned. The document states that parking provision should be determined by local authorities and it is not clear if they will continue to apply the old standards or apply ones more specifically tailored to local needs.

Parking issues are particularly acute in the High Street area of the village and in the Lower Road/Station Parade area of the Rise. There is a severe lack of properly designed car parking in these areas and so "on road" parking is also at a premium. Problems are exacerbated by staff of local businesses also parking on the road when the business does not

have its own parking.

Car parking solutions need to be urgently pursued in Cookham and some potential options are suggested in the Traffic and Transport Working Group report.

The severe lack of parking especially in the two areas mentioned makes provision of adequate car parking within planned developments absolutely critical and Parish and Borough councils should have this at the forefront of their minds when reviewing development applications.

Congestion can also be severe in Cookham at particular places and times. Particular hotspots include; the Pound through to High Street around rush hours. School and Church Lanes at "School run" times and Station Parade/Lower Road through business hours Monday to Saturday.

Developers are required to provide Traffic movement analyses for a given development by working with the highway authority. The main issue being how many traffic movements will be added to an area by the development.

Clearly any added traffic movements in the congestion hot spots mentioned *should be strongly avoided and Parish and Borough Councils should again pay close scrutiny to this when reviewing planning applications.

At present, Cookham’s road and parking capacity must be regarded as operating over its reasonable capacity and *no developments that add to either traffic congestion or parking problems should be allowed.

Cookham has a relatively poor bus service, main service running between Maidenhead and High Wycombe hourly, but a fairly good local train service which runs between Marlow and Maidenhead hourly with extra rush hour trains running  through to Paddington at peak times.

Rail and Bus providers all report that there are no plans to increase frequencies of these services in the foreseeable future and generally see provision of service remaining at current levels. Even if/when Crossrail comes on line it is unlikely to affect the local Marlow to Maidenhead service frequency.

Trains operating at commuter times are always well used and can often be full. Accordingly to Cookham Plan Questionnaire replies of the 11.6% of Cookham residents who work in London about half commute by train.

Taken overall over 10% of Cookham residents regularly travel to work by train.

With no increases in provision of local public transport foreseen, any significant developments in the area are likely to further stretch and possibly overload public transport systems at peak times. This means that residents will continue to rely on a high level of car use and this must be recognised in setting planning policy and assessing individual proposals.

• Utilities are well provided for and used in the area and while they do not limit development per se, future developments need to ensure that additional capacity is provided.

• Studies should be undertaken into the feasibility of extending mains drainage to all properties in Cookham.

• Telecommunications networks in the area are sub optimal for future increases in internet use and cable networks are non existent. Steps should be taken to encourage service providers to improve the infrastructure.

• Schools and medical facilities in Cookham have no spare capacity and could not easily cope with extra pupils or patients from new developments without significant expansion and investment.

• Section 106 contributions by developers should be spent on local improvements as a priority.

• Parking and congestion are significant problems in particular areas of the Cookhams and scrutiny of development applications in these locations should be rigorous to ensure there is adequate parking provision and no adverse traffic movement impact.

• Parking standards should be carefully considered by RBWM when developing the LDF and local issues should be addresses through the preparation of a the Village Design Statement (see section 3).

• Overall it is concluded that Cookham does not have sufficient capacity in infrastructure to support any large developments. For this reason, only small scale and in-fill developments should be considered in Cookham.

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