Housing issues top voters' concerns

Demand for housing in Wokingham has pushed prices up

Ahead of Thursday’s general election, BBC South is taking its red sofa out to key constituencies across the region to hear what matters most to voters.

The thoughts and concerns voiced by the public will then be put to the candidates standing in the seat.

We have taken the sofa to Wokingham, Berkshire. Since 1987 it has been held by the Conservative MP John Redwood, once a key member of Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Not now though - he walked away from politics at the end of May. Whatever happens this week, Wokingham will have a new MP, and the Liberal Democrats have the seat firmly in their sights.

Wokingham is one of the country’s wealthiest towns and is hugely popular with families. That popularity brings its own problems - foremost among them, high house prices.

'Three or four generations'

Rio Amber Mackie says house prices are unaffordable in Wokingham

Rio Amber Mackie is 22 and lives with her parents.

She said: "My family have lived here three or four generations back their whole lives and I can’t afford to live in Wokingham.

"Living here in my future isn’t on the cards because of house prices."

'Really hard to get an appointment'

Web Chinduta is concerned about local public services

For those who can buy, another concern is what they see as a lack of facilities to go with the thousands of new homes built here in recent years.

Web Chinduta shares those worries. He said: ‘Sometimes you just wonder if there’s a match between the number of houses being built and the local services, like in terms of the GPs. It’s really hard to get an appointment.’

'Traffic has multiplied'

Diana and Christopher Singleton have lived in the town for four decades

Christopher and Diana Singleton have lived here since the 1980s.

Christopher told me: "We talk about politics a lot because it really does concern us."

Diana said: "We have got lots of houses being built here, thousands of houses."

Pointing to all the cars streaming past us in Wokingham’s Market Place, she added: "This is the problem, the traffic - 40 years on, the traffic has obviously multiplied many times."

What do the Conservatives say?

Lucy Demery is the Conservative candidate

The Conservative’s candidate, Lucy Demery, said: "We’re the only party that has prioritised as one of our top three campaign issues development and protecting our green spaces, because this really does matter to local people."

She also says the Conservatives would build 1.6m new homes over the next five years if they win the election, but only in what she said would be "the right places".

The Conservatives also say they would scrap stamp duty on homes worth up to £425,000 for first time buyers.

What do Labour say?

Andy Croy stood in for Labour candidate Monica Hamidi

Labour’s Monica Hamidi had to pull out at the last moment and so we put locals’ concerns to her stand-in Andy Croy instead.

He said: "There is a need to build houses, we need places for our people to live.

"I would love it if we could do that, it would be absolutely fantastic. There’s one-and-a-half million families who do need housing.

"They deserve to be housed and we have to house them. Carrying on with the piecemeal development we’re seeing does lead to disruptive house building."

Labour say they’ll build 1.5m homes over the next five years if they win the election.

The party also says it will protect the green belt from over-development, concentrating on what it says is lower quality "grey belt land" instead.

What do the Liberal Democrats say?

Local councillor Prue Bray stood in for Lib Dem candidate Clive Jones

The Liberal Democrat’s candidate for Wokingham Clive Jones also was not well enough to meet us at the brewery and sent a stand-in, local Lib Dem councillor Prue Bray, to talk to us instead.

She said: "The last thing we want to do is to have all this in-fill development.

"What happens with that and what really distresses local people is you don’t get the local infrastructure, so actually bringing in a purpose-built community can bring in the infrastructure that people really long for.’

Her party says it would build 1.9m new homes over the next 5 years, creating 10 new garden cities in the process, ALthough she could not tell us where any of those garden cities would go.

What does Reform UK say?

Colin Wright is the Reform UK candidate

Reform UK’s candidate Colin Wright said: "Across the Wokingham area we have 30,000 people who are homeless. There are houses available for that but we need to tackle that infrastructure problem first.

"So we look at developers first. Developers are there to make profit and we need to perhaps change that and the planning regulations need to be that they first and foremost need to put the extra infrastructure in."

His party says it will ensure that people can own their own home by "unleashing" housebuilding across the country and cutting immigration. Reform UK also say they would fast-track planning processes and create extra tax incentives to encourage developers to build on more brownfield sites.

What do the Greens say?

The Green Party candidate is Merv Boniface

The Green Party candidate Merv Boniface said: "With all the building that’s been going on in Wokingham it’s basically now been joined up with Reading and Bracknell.

"I think the biggest focus is that new developments must be built nearer centres of communications so people don’t have to get in their cars and drive long distances to shops and other facilities."

The Green Party also says it would push for a national housing insulation programme to help people tackle climate change while lowering energy bills.