DEVELOPERS building flats in Wokingham are asking permission to build less than the minimum required amount of affordable housing.

Plans for a four storey block with 38 flats have already got permission, at Mulberry Business Park, on Fishponds Road. Six flats will have one bedroom, and the other 32 flats will have two bedrooms.

Maxima Homes, the applicant, was asked to pay £714,701 Wokingham Borough Council towards affordable housing elsewhere in the borough, or make of the flats affordable.

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Usually builders must make at least 30 per cent of the homes they build in the borough affordable, or pay an equal amount, according to council policy.

But the developers said this would mean they couldn’t make a profit, and so are instead asking whether they can just make nine of the flats affordable. This means they are paying more than six per cent less than the policy normally asks builders to contribute.

Because the builders don’t want to pay the full amount towards affordable housing, councillors on the planning committee will have to vote whether to give permission. They will vote at a public meeting on May 21, which will be livestreamed on YouTube.

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Several neighbours wrote to the council highlighting concerns about the lack of affordable housing, and also the location: the flats will be built on an industrial estate.

Writing to the council, Bruce Blake said: “We are in desperate need for social housing and none of these units is to be social housing, nor are there any plans for the necessary shops and amenities to be placed nearby.

“Industrial estates lack the basic amenities required by residential homes. Unless amenities like coffee shops, leisure space and social housing are added to the plan, I will not support this application.”

The site was home to the former office block Sorbus House, which burned down in 2011.

Other neighbours highlighted how the block of flats would impact local services.

Lorna Catherin Shipton said: “There appear to be a considerable number of new properties being proposed for Wokingham, yet there does not appear to be any provision for additional doctors’s surgeries, nor primary schools. 

“With the huge increase in the number of residential properties, the already oversubscribed medical facilities and schooling, means that even more pressure will be placed on the facilities that are currently available to Wokingham residents.”