Wokingham Borough Council's leader has refused to answer how close the new developments proposed for the town are to his own home.
At a full council meeting on Thursday, September 19, Conservative councillor Dave Edmonds asked a question to councillor Stephen Conway.
Councillor Edmonds said that given politicians were ‘frequently accused of nimbyism’, could the member for Twyford tell ‘the percentage and actual number of the houses within the local pan that are within two miles where he lives’.
This followed a heated debate on the borough’s local plan, which sets out where and how some 11,000 houses will be delivered across the borough by 2040.
Council leader Stephen Conway did not answer the conservative’s question, but rather his deputy – who did not provide any details of the distances.
The three large sites are located in Arborfield and to the South of Reading, and are located six to seven miles away from his ward, in Twyford.
Councillor Prue Bray, deputy leader of the council, said the question was ‘a completely fabricated and pretty contemptable attempt to smear him by creating the impression he has corruptly interfered with the local plan to benefit himself’.
The deputy leader further said it was a ‘slur on the integrity’ of the planning officers who had worked on the local plan, with sites going through a ‘rigorous and technical assessment’.
Councillor Bray argued the question was ‘based on an entirely false premise’, given that many of the sites in the local plan had been allocated by the Conservatives when they were in power.
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