Residents have been asked to help shape the masterplan for thousands of homes between Shinfield and Arborfield after the first planning application was submitted in October.
The first part of the Loddon Valley Garden Village will be built on Hall Farm in Arborfield and is expected to include 2,800 homes out of 3,900 in total.
Planned facilities include up to 100 custom and self-build plots, two primary schools with early years provision, one secondary school, a District Centre, a Local Centre and a Sports Hub with pitches and pavilion space.
The new community sits across three different ownerships, so there will be separate planning applications for each. On 9 March Wokingham leader Cllr Stephen Conway signed off a public consultation on a strategic design code to try to create architectural consistency.
He said: "It’s effectively a masterplan to provide what the council thinks is necessary to ensure a high quality and successful new development. "We’re establishing the principles to create a healthy and successful new community."
Cllr Conway is keen on a country park within the Garden Village and said: "It’s a big area with lots of space for preserving green spaces. In reality we’ve been able to preserve lots of green areas."
A large academic institution is expected to retain ownership of the ‘Eco Valley’ — a sizeable country park within the Garden Village.
Wokingham Conservative leader Pauline Jorgensen attended a public meeting in Shinfield and presented analysis of how access to the community would affect surrounding roads. She said: "I am interested to see that the council are planning to take the strategic design code for the Hall Farm development to public consultation. "I hope that the Lib Dems will consider the response to their proposals carefully, rather than simply dismissing them as they did with the woodlands avenue cycleway."
Ted O'Neill, Local Democracy Reporter
