Some pictures of Elms field on a nice weekend for Wokingham Times

Hi Wokingham Times.

Please use these pictures at your leisure when showing Elms field.

These are standard fair weather weekend shots.

If you keep showing cloudy, drizzly school pick up / lunch time shots people might think you are actually part of the Tory spin machine.

 

 

 

Consultation promises to resolve future expensive 'Elms Field' fiascos.

Ideas for constitutional rules introduce to borough council constitution on consultation.

Consult 1. No consultation will be considered started until local people have been notified in an appropriate manner. This would mean e-mail database, letters to those not on the e-mail database and posters outside relevant supermarkets. It should be made clear if any development on green open space is being considered ball park figures of break downs of costs if that information exists.

Consult 2. All consultation presentations will be available on-line as they are offline with an open comments areas administered only to remove inappropriate comments. It may be that a required login attached to an address should be used.

Consult 3. No consultation will be considered started until a layman master is made available that is no more than 5 sides of A4 when printed. Supplementary information should be provided by embedded links

Consult 4. Consultation questionnaires will specifically include agree / disagree to each primary aspect.

Consult 5. A control group of 100 randomly selected people borough addresses weighted to involve those local to the consulted on issue will be incentivised to consult carefully via a letter or a phone call. This will provide a normalised comparison. They will have right of refusal in which case they be replaced with weighted other person. They will be directed to the material to form their own decision. Any controlled / personal presentations they receive will be filmed.

This is intended to show if nimbies or cronies have significantly manipulated the results of the master consultation. If this is the case then suggestions from the main consultation will be taken back to the control group for consideration and the control group would form the basis for discussion of those issues.

Consult 6. The projects will be broken down into idea costs - pre contract - to encourage smaller local suppliers to bid for individual aspects, with those profits realised as local salaries and skills rather than corporate profits and consultancy fees.

Consult 7. Top down schematic views of before after changes will be presented next to and occupying same area of any sales / promotional illustration.

Elms Fields? What to do?

There is one thing I think is very important for Wokingham the town centres plans regarding construction on Elms field,

Moving Elms road so that it goes all the way up and allows people to bypass the train station. This will mean less green on the left. 

Other than that you can take it or leave it. Sprucing up what we have would be great.

Having said that we are looking to offer something different to attract shoppers into Wokingham are we not? Are we going to fund it bit by bit through profitable local governance, loans or developer contributions (houses).

How are we not going to kill the rest of the town as the Oracle has done?

 I have made a little drawing for people to discuss and then I will actually change it quickly owing to the consensus.

I have put three shots together. What we have, what WB would like to do, What my maximum development would be trying to develop only the same area as wellington house, and protecting most of the established trees and hedgerows. I have moved the on the left to the other side of the road and made them retail at the bottom. This can result, at a glance, that the original open area on the right is smaller looks smaller. You need to look outside and include the paths that area near invisible on the WB one.

• A. Double deck to car park
• B. Three story building. Scalable retail / food / enclosed market space below. Regis style offices above, residential / bedsits on top
• C. Council owned, bid run day nursery with drop and shop facility.
• D. Basket ball 5 a side caged tarmac with installable centre net for Wokinghams Wacky Dodgeball league.
• E. Enclosed play area
• F. Open space / events area, with enhanced slope for natural seating.
• G. Shallow water with fish. Radio control boat hire. Drainage into here. big end much deeper (to store more water) and grilled off.
• H. Small retail with perhaps residential above. The offering here should be limited to sports and music culture to provide transparent area of interest to the 13-25s. Perhaps add a scate run long the path?
• Blue dots are statues of significant historical figures such as Optimus Prime and Ghandi.

The main differences between mine an WB is No food store underground car park (flood creator) or old town killing plaza. The visual of larger units overlooking Elms is still there only much further back leaving private pick nick space to the rear of the units and protecting most of the established trees and hedgerows.

The Elms anchor is the parking, waterside setting and the drop and shop. We are looking for oracle waterside with a green to bring people in from out of town need to limit the offering to get them to wander into town. We'd also offer them the week day morning nursery / drop and shop for the weekends so the yummy mummy's can offload the little buggers before heading into town. Those using the 2.5 hour daily pre-school sessions in the week would also be all set to wander into town to get the days supplies.

I've walked the length of Reading to get from the oracle to TK max. Our TK max perhaps needs to be in a mini mall where that building opposite the Ship inn is? We send the last remaining 'Shoppers' up the whole length to get to a major clothes Store or two on that site.

Discuss . . and fix my messy text. I've not paid £x00k to consultants (relatives) to make what I like look pretty.

On a final note. If you would rather future consultations were actually consultations, i.e. they engage a representative sample and take into account their views, then you need to start standing for elections rather than leaving it to developers cronies.

Consider standing in Wokingham Borough Council elections

Your community needs you. And you ARE remunerated. Please share.

Some more local borough elections are coming up in May.
Do you ever complain about how things are run in the area? School places, congestion, over development, flooding, seemingly astronomically large contracts with no break down in costs?

Here is your chance to make a difference, in your spare time and get paid around £8k/year for the privilege before expenses and double or triple that if the leader of the council awards you, and you accept, responsibilities.

Local politics has become much like national politics in that a few cliques of politicians monopolise a role that was intended to be shared around regular members of the wider community.

This is not an administrative role, or rather should not be, it is a common sense, decency and representative role.

I wonder how many of you have been told that you will soon be able to stand for election as a Borough councillor? There is an election every year in 1/4 of the boroughs wards with each term lasting 4 years, of course you can stand down sooner.

It is amazing something so important and interesting is never promoted in the local press, no letter in the relevant wards until it is too late to stand. The establishment benefiting from poor information.

So lets put an end to crony politics.

All you SHOULD need is some good ideas and sign up to www.SMART-voter.org

Here are some ideas of measures you might call for and support that money backed / protectionist politicians won't.

• Following Erick Pickles guidelines on filming public meetings, including planning and scrutiny and all public forums.


• No-Fracking or supporting leaders who will appoint councillors who won't commit to same into planning committee.


• Council must record the audio in all its public meetings and made available online for 10 years. (Our minutes are not verbatim and some contentious material goes missing)


• Scrutiny panel to be selected at random from councillor pool with the right of refusal.


• No residential development area where primary schools are oversubscribed until a new school is built.


• No open space development unless conditions stipulates full down stream flooding mitigation as well as all necessary infrastructure and roads with cycle lanes.


• Dedicated space for an A3 poster for each candidate outside polling booths.


• Random order black and white A5 space / candidate booklet sent out with polling cards, council funded.


• Big posters outside supermarkets and in town centre for two weeks 2 months before the elections inviting people to stand as a local councillor.


• Poster space and two weeks before elections with equal space for each candidate.

Candidates will be invited to partake in a filmed live debate to be shared on www.youtube.com/wokinghamvoice.

After that, amongst yourselves you can choose someone with similar views to form a coalition so that the popular vote is not split and the 10% do not retain control by default.

Only about 20% of people vote locally because they are disenfranchised with politicians and the corporate machines or developers that drive their campaigns. The 80% are waiting to vote for a real person like you!

Now you can prove it. Now you have a voice.

If you are still interested then please read on. I'm happy to help and act as an agent. You can contact me through twitter @Kaz4Wokingham or Facebook Kazek Lokuciewski.


The wards that are up for Wokingham Borough Council Elections on 22 May 2014.
Borough Wards:

• Arborfield


• Bulmershe and Whitegates


• Coronation


• Emmbrook


• Evendons


• Finchampstead North


• Finchampstead South


• Hawkedon


• Hillside


• Loddon


• Maiden Erlegh


• Norreys


• Remenham


• Wargrave and Ruscombe


• Shinfield South


• South Lake


• Swallowfield


• Winnersh


• Wokingham Without

You need to hand in your application on a working day between 14th of April and 4pm on Thursday 24 April 2014.

Application Form. You need 10 voters from the ward to nominate you (they can still vote for someone else). If you are just going to stand and use www.smart-voter.org and local media to promote yourself then you do not need an agent.


----------update---------------------------------------------
I'm going to stand in Evendons. I've included some justification and started working on my promise list. http://kaz4wokingham.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/leading-by-example-standing-as-borough.html
----------update---------------------------------------------
I seem to be driving the council into a little action again. http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/news/index/mar2014/councillor/
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Superfluous info for nerds

Official timescales

Government guidance

Some case studies

What is the cost of corrupt cronies running the council, how can people with less time, resources challenge them? 


http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council/elections/candidates/

www.youtube.com/wokinghamvoice

www.smart-voter.org

Wokingham Borough Council David Allen filming e-mail exchange 28th Janurary

Dear Kaz,

Your Wokingham Voice video footage of the North Wokingham Community Forum on Monday January 20 has been edited to include a slide referring to fracking that is on screen for the first minute of the video. This is misleading as no mention of fracking was made at the meeting and it is also contravenes the protocol (attached), under which you are permitted to film these meeting, which states: ‘Video footage of the public meeting should be published unedited and in its entirety’.
Would you please remove the slide and confirm that you will be not be editing footage recorded at meetings in future.
Yours,
David
David Allen
Partnership Development Officer
Wokingham Borough Council

----------------------------------------

Hi David.
When was in it's entirety added? Editing this down into key points is what will make them accessible. Few of your constituents are able to sit through 3 hours. This is an important part of transparency "Information prepared in a manner suitable for consumption". This is irrelevant at the moment but not in future since people may only film segments (as did the BBC for the Extraordinary meeting) they did not film or provide in its entirety, they were not misleading.

The text from the contract I saw originally was 'Not to Be misleading"
And I accept that the wording I used originally might suggest that Fracking was approved in this meeting so I have changed it.

While this is technical jargon that text is an 'Annotaion' I kind on comment you can displays over the video and can be changed on a whim. I have changed this to make sure that the issues I have 'Advertised on My Channel' over unedited video while the introductions are being made to consumers who are interested in local governance do not suggest anything is being suggested in this video.
If the council can offer a solution to the Fracking issue I am happy to do an interview.
Regards
Kaz

David Allen (communications) 

to me, Andrea
-------------------------------------------

Dear Kaz,

Thanks for your reply.

The key issue is the text (annotation) added to the broadcast of this forum and, while I appreciate you making the change, we must ask you again to remove all extraneous comment/text from these films. My understanding is that you film and broadcast these meetings in order to increase transparency and improve the public’s understanding of the issues - but adding any comment,  description or advertising of other issues is counterproductive to those aims as it is potentially misleading and confusing. It also contravenes the protocol that requires there be ‘no editing’ - and the fact is that fracking was not discussed at this forum and should, therefore, not form any part of your broadcast of it.
We can deal with the issue of ‘entirety’ at a later date as there is a difference between the BBC (or anybody else) using a brief video clip of a meeting without sound to illustrate a news story and you (or anybody else) recording and broadcasting what has actually been said – in which case we do require it to be in entirety.
Yours,
David
David Allen
Partnership Development Officer
Wokingham Borough Council



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Kazek Lokuciewski
Jan 28 to David

Ill have to look into this. Eric Pickles was most ckear that bloggers would be able to make short clips and make comments.
I'm happy to remove this text from here and add it to blogg like edits where,  without misleading,  I dicuss issues and include relevent clips as evidence, each clip eith an annotation that links to the full master, but I will beed assurence that you are not attempting to block me publicizing any issue I feel should be discussed. That planning and scruitiny us still being blocked to me should that the full council are in breach if their constitution. It would be unwize if someone unfinaced such as myself to allow a powerfull organisation to decide on things they have no right to decide. The statement is not misskeading. I have advertised a transparency problem and solution.  In this instance you will have to find an elected councillor to take responsibility for the request and explain why it is not in breach if Eric Pickles guidelines and transparancy constitution.
-------------------------------------------

Andrea Jenkins  Jan 29 (8 days ago)

to me, David

Dear Kaz

Yesterday we asked you to remove a slide on your Wokingham Voice video footage of the North Wokingham Community Forum on Monday January 20 as it was a breach of our protocol.  You had added commentary which could lead to misinterpretation of the proceedings and this is clearly explained in the protocol that this is unacceptable.

You have not removed it, and instead have replaced it with further commentary. As a result of this, we are withdrawing the permission granted to you to film at tonight’s South Wokingham Community Forum. 

We are currently reviewing the position of filming community forum meetings including whether we undertake filming directly ourselves.

Regards
Andrea

Andrea Jenkins
 Strategic Communications Lead


------------------------------------


Kazek Lokuciewski

Jan 29 (8 days ago)to Andrea


The commentary is in not way misleading. I actually thought the southern one was  Monday and thought I had missed it.

Kazek Lokuciewski <kazek.lok@gmail.com> 

Jan 29 (8 days ago)

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to Andrea


Regarding filming yourselves I have requested this over a year ago and offered to pay for the equipment. If you do not film yourself and share the material in full then you do not really have a leg to stand on when I have a civil right to film matters of public interest in a public place.
I agreed to your rules since they were and still are sensible. I have using my efforts to promote democracy and in no way have mislead the public and fortunately the law is on my side. Your rules require that for filming to be not allowed it must be by a councillor who explains why it is clearly in the publics best interest that the information is not shared.
Failing that someone may film tonight.

There is no legal reason not to film. There is the expectation to allow filming and editing and comments.

Department for Communities and Local Government
3/J1 Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

Our Ref: ER/001412/14
Your Ref:
31 January 2014

Dear Mr Lokuciewski

Thank you for your email of 10 January to the Secretary of State about filming at planning
meetings. I am replying as I work in the team that is responsible for the policy on access
to council meetings.

I am pleased to hear that your Council allows filming at public meetings. However as
local authorities are independent of the central government and are directly accountable
to their local people, I cannot comment on why your Council does not allow filming
at planning meetings. The Government message is, councils should adopt maximum
transparency and openness by embracing the filming of their public meetings by members
of the public. Therefore, planning committees like any other council committees should
be opened to the public so that the proceedings can be reported. Also, section 3.5 of the
Procedural Guide- Planning appeals – England, issued in October 2013, explains the
openness and transparency planning appeal hearings.

Here is the link to the guide:
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/pins/procedural_guide_planning_appeals.pdf

You may also wish to know that the Local Audit and Accountability Bill became law
yesterday and section 40 of the Act gives the Secretary of State the power to make
regulations that may allow local people including citizen journalists to attend public
meetings of the local government bodies listed under section 40(6) of the Act and report
the proceedings by using various communication methods such as filming, tweeting and
blogging. This is a significant change in favour of openness and transparency, as, once
the secondary legislation is made, councils and other local bodies will be compelled to
allow members of the public to film or tweet at their public meetings.
In view of this, I suggest that you contact your Council to ascertain how their decision to
prevent the filming of planning meetings reflects the recent changes.

Yours sincerely

Tayo Peters

Democracy