After seeing this week that Octagon House is the latest Bracknell building earmarked to be turned into luxury flats, I decided to do a little house-hunting, Jonjo Maudsley wrote in a letter to The Bracknell News on Monday.

The first company I came across was Bellway, who are marketing new build homes in Amen Corner. This is the opening line of their website: “Amen Corner is a striking development of new homes in Binfield which benefits from a highly desirable location just 1.5 miles from Wokingham town centre and with excellent transport links to London.”

I had to laugh. They couldn’t even get past the first sentence without mentioning London.

It gets better. According to Redrow, currently building “The Quarters”, Bracknell is: “… an ideal base, with lots happening locally, plus swift rail links to London in around an hour soon to be enhanced by the arrival of Crossrail at Reading Station.”

Are we so resigned to the reality we are becoming a dormitory town for London that we’re actually marketing homes based on the fact?

I don’t understand. Why would we spend £240 million regenerating our town centre if Bracknell’s chief selling point is its railway line to The City?

Why doesn’t anyone call Bracknell “a wonderful place to live”? How about “a warm and welcoming community”?

I know it’s unavoidable that many people moving to Bracknell will end up working in London but I hope these people will recognise that Bracknell is their home, rather than their “base”.

And I hope property developers will recognise this too.

What do you think? Email us at news@bracknellnews.co.uk