The Cookham Plan

Findings and Recommendations

Housing and Development Group

2. SUMMARY

2.1 About this Report

This report has been prepared in response to the remit issued to the Housing and Development Working Group by the Cookham Plan Steering Committee in September 2006.

The report is intended to provide background information on housing, development and related matters and to identify initiatives which will improve the quality of life within Cookham over the next 10 to 20 years. Many of the matters identified in the report need to be addressed urgently in order to prepare the way for their benefits to be released over the period of the plan. For example, detailed review of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s (RBWM’s) emerging Local Development Framework is essential to ensure that the new policies provide Cookham with an appropriate framework to control development. To support this there is a need for preparation and adoption of a Village Design Statement. Perhaps most urgent of all is the development and implementation of a comprehensive flood relief scheme for Cookham. These and other proposals are summarised below and covered in detail in the report.

The report goes into some considerable background detail on each of its subject areas. This was a conscious decision in order that we could understand the issues, and the factors that influenced them, in order to produce reasoned and measured proposals. We hope that this information will provide a useful resource to the Parish Council, RBWM and other groups and individuals who have an interest either in Cookham itself or in specific issues and development proposals.

This report is the outcome of 6 months intensive work by a small group of volunteers. We have endeavoured to check all of the facts and to take account of the many thoughts and ideas which were put to us through the consultation process but, inevitably, we may not have represented everyone’s pet issues or every nuance of technology, hydrology or the planning process. We believe that the report provides a broad and balanced view but it should not be relied on in matters where there is financial or other risk.

The proposals have been collected together in a consolidated action plan at the end of this summary. Many of these deal with the need to review, constructively criticise and develop policy and other initiatives. We suspect that it will be difficult to find individuals to take these on and to find ways to make them happen but we do believe that they could make a significant difference to life in Cookham in the foreseeable future. We call upon the Parish Council, the Cookham Society and others who care about Cookham to take up the reins and implement our findings.

Cookham is a special place to its residents and to its many visitors. This is a result of the mixture of its riverside setting, open spaces, historic buildings and good connections to transport and business within one of the most affluent parts of the United Kingdom. This means that there is very strong demand for property and the consequential high prices lead to significant pressure for redevelopment, particularly for housing.

Development is largely controlled by national and local rules over which villagers can have little direct influence. We can, however, bring pressure to bear on RBWM to develop local policies which take account of Cookham’s unique character and pressures. In particular, there is a need to scrutinise and, if necessary, challenge policies in the emerging Local Development Framework (LDF). A very important aspect of this will be to produce a Village Design Statement in a suitable format to allow it to be adopted as supplementary planning guidance within the LDF.

The land around Cookham currently enjoys a high level of protection through its designation as Green Belt. Areas to the west and north are also designated as being of Special Landscape importance and land adjacent to the river is designated as being important to the setting of the Thames. All of these provide significant levels of protection but, with continued pressure for housing in the south east, Green Belt designation alone may not be a guarantee against development. The report therefore recommends that Green Belt land around Cookham should remain undeveloped (*including road developments). *We also recommend that the Green belt should be extended to cover the Poundfield area and *that additional land to the east and west of Cookham should be upgraded as being of Special Landscape Importance.

There has been some concern expressed about the quality of enforcement of planning rules and we call upon RBWM to ensure that this is of the highest standard with a fully coordinated approach between all council departments.

There may need to be more done by local people to police the quality of enforcement.

The physical quality of buildings in Cookham is largely determined by building regulations and (when applicable) by Conservation Area planning Rules. There is an opportunity to further influence this through the Village Design Statement

previously referred to.

One area where local people can take the initiative is by improving the energy efficiency of their homes. We suggest that *an initiative be started to promote better home insulation and other energy efficiency measures with a target of reducing Cookham’s carbon dioxide emissions by 5,000 tonnes per annum over the next five years.

Cookham is generally well served by utilities and, whilst there is room for improvement in matters such as cable and internet provision and, potentially for further extension of mains drainage in Cookham Dean, these matters do not significantly affect or constrain housing and development. There may be opportunities for local generation of electricity from the Thames at Cookham Weir and *we recommend that this be investigated.

Schools and medical facilities operate near to capacity albeit that this is due to them serving parts of North Maidenhead and (in the case of the Medical Centre) Buckinghamshire. There is *little scope for expansion on existing sites and these services are therefore a significant constraint on the scale of future development in Cookham.

Parking and road congestion are very significant problems in Cookham and are dealt with in detail in the Traffic and Transport Working Group’s report. Put simply, Cookham’s roads are full and, from a planning point of view, the message is that all new business and housing developments must provide adequate off-street parking. Any sites to be developed must demonstrate that they can provide adequate access and that their traffic flows will not add to congestion. Given the need to protect the Green Belt*, no new roads should be permitted.

2.5 Mobile Telephones

Mobile telephones are an indispensable part of modern life and, whilst most people are happy to use them, the siting of masts and other infrastructure in residential areas or on prominent sites causes much consternation.

Information provided by the mobile telephone companies and supported by the Cookham Plan questionnaire suggests that there are enough existing mast sites to provide an adequate service across Cookham at current levels of demand. There is scope to manage deficiencies in individual companies’ services by a combination mast sharing and the use of microcells and picocells to provide local infill in business premises.

Local people can assist by taking measures to minimise their use of mobile phones at home and *by establishing a forum to liaise with the operating companies and limit the impact of any future essential developments.

The risk of flooding from the River Thames is a major concern for Cookham with all of the Village and parts of the Rise within the Flood Plain. Although recent floods have, thankfully, not caused any significant property damage, they have caused much disruption through road closures. The Environment Agency has conceded that its recent works to protect North Maidenhead have increased the risks for Cookham and are currently developing measures to protect the village. At the time of writing, these fall short of providing a comprehensive solution and there is a need for Cookham to campaign for effective measures.

Until such measures have been implemented, there should be no relaxation of current restrictions on development in the flood plain. 

Responses to the questionnaire indicated that there is also a significant level of concern about the continued risk of local flooding from flash floods and drainage problems. Further work is required by RBWM and Thames Water to quantify these problems and to find solutions.

Cookham’s attractive nature and the limited supply of housing means that house prices are very high (we estimate that there is a premium of over 20% compared to RBWM as a whole). While this is good for individual owners, it does limit people’s ability to move to larger houses and it is a particular problem for people with lower incomes and first time buyers who wish to live near their families in the village.

This is a problem which cannot be solved by a village plan. We are fortunate compared to more rural communities that (relatively) lower priced housing is available in nearby towns and also in that we do have 205 housing association properties plus lower priced private accommodation at Strand Park.

It is important that this mix is maintained and that, where possible and suitable, more public sector / affordable housing is built to improve its availability which is currently below regional averages. We hope that the Village Design Statement will be able to influence the long term mix of housing types in Cookham.

Our research suggests that Cookham is well provided with social sheltered housing for the elderly (25 units compared with an estimated future demand of 13 units) however, the questionnaire suggested that there is unfulfilled local demand. We believe that this may be due to demand from other areas such as Maidenhead and / or the lack of private sector sheltered housing.

We believe that there may be a case for the development of up to 13 private sheltered units in Cookham. Alongside this, we consider that there is probably a small unfulfilled need for sheltered housing for younger disabled people.

 We recommend that more work is done to confirm needs and that the results should be reflected in the LDF and the Village Design Statement. *(Drafting Sub-Committee note: up-to-date statistics were made available in November 2007, and are included in Appendix 3.)

2.9 Other Developments

Our remit called on the working group to support the People & Places and Business & Economy working groups by considering siting and other planning related matters arising from their proposals.

No specific issues requiring planning input were raised by the other Working Groups during the preparation of this report. We have therefore provided a general commentary on the main suggestions that emerged from public consultations and private discussions during the work of the group.

Businesses are an important part of Cookham with about 120 specific business premises being identified and many more people operating from their homes.

We call on both business owners and RBWM planners to consider their neighbours and take all practical measures to reduce the impact of their operations and of their customers’ behaviours.

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