Shinfield Parish major development

For any site issues please contact the developer or the Council's Compliance Officers at Construction.Problems@wokingham.gov.uk.

Alder Grove Church of England Primary School is our new primary school in west Shinfield. It is managed by the Keys Academy Trust and opened in September 2020. For more information about the new school and how you can apply for a place for your child, visit the Keys Academy Trust website. 

In order to make good practical use of the new school building, while the number of children in attendance grows, the upper floor is subject to a change of use application for offices for use by the Education Team, for a temporary period until required by the school. This will allow dual use of the school with teaching taking place on the lower floors and office use on the upper floor. This application has now been approved.

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Community forums

Get involved and help us build real communities, not just buildings. We created community forums for each major development area as your way to find out what is happening and to get involved. We haven't been able to hold the forums for awhile, but you can sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with what is happening. 

Shinfield Studios online information event

On 24 March 2021 the council's planning committee approved an application for temporary film stages at the Thames Valley Science Park, which are now under construction.

Shinfield Studios are holding a public online information event on Tuesday 11 May 2021 at 6pm.

Take a look at the information leaflet below to find out more and for how to register for the event:

• Shinfield Studios online event information leaflet (PDF Document)

Community centre 

A community centre in Shinfield is now under construction. The parish council held a design competition for the design of the new building to ensure local residents had a community centre that was both innovative and bespoke to their particular needs.

The new community centre will provide a large space for activities and events, a new café, meeting rooms, library facilities, a bespoke children’s space, and an enclosed garden area.  Details of the designs for the new centre can be found in planning application number 191387.

Sports centre 

The former Ryeish Green Sports Centre has been updated and re-opened as the Ryeish Green Sports Hub with a new health and fitness gym, changing facilities, a club room and a new car park, along with a refurbished sports hall. The new and refurbished facilities together with the recently improved sports pitches will create a dynamic sports hub in the western part of Wokingham Borough.

Building works concerns

Working hours on building sites are generally Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and Saturday from 8am to 1pm. On Sundays and Bank Holidays no building works are allowed. If you have a complaint about the building on one of the major development sites, call us on 0118 908 8100 or email constructionproblems@wokingham.gov.uk  

Rubbish and recycling information

• Find your bin collection day
• Find your garden waste collection day
  
  

Getting around

• The My Journey website is your one stop destination for sustainable travel information, including cycle routes, walking maps, and public transport timetables
• Visit our transport section for more details about local travel
  
  

Find your nearest doctors surgery

To find your nearest doctors surgery, type your location into the NHS choices website.

New residents meetings and social groups

When there are about 100 new homes being lived in, we host a ‘new neighbours’ meeting to welcome new residents to Wokingham. We use this meeting to introduce ourselves, our partners and the services that we provide. We work with partners in this effort, usually the developers, Churches Together and housing associations. We encourage the residents to build relationships, establish a Facebook group, and then start a Residents Association. Some of the events we’ve held in the past include pub quiz nights and community lunches.

Email CEM@wokingham.gov.uk to find out about the community building work we are doing in your area.

The Shinfield Parish major development site will see about 3,000 new homes in total, spread over extensions to Shinfield village, Three Mile Cross and Spencers Wood.

All of the allocated sites that make up this major development location have outline planning permission. Of the 2,765 that have reserved matters or full planning permission, 1,595 homes were occupied in March 2020.

Shinfield Village  

• Shinfield West (Shinfield Meadows) Phase 1 and 2 - 1,200 new homes and an additional 150 places for specialist housing to include sheltered housing. Phase 1 - 359 homes complete. Phase 2 - 114 homes complete.  
• Cutbush Lane – 126 new homes. All complete
• The Manor – this development is just outside the development limits of the Strategic Development Location, but can be considered part of the major development as it is adjacent. 125 new homes. 37 homes complete.
  
• Land south of Cutbush Lane - 249 new homes. 
           
  

Three Mile Cross and Spencers Wood

• Land to the east of both villages, north and south of Croft Road – 899 new homes. 577 homes complete
• Land north of Hyde End Road - 31 new homes. All complete
• Small site north of Croft Road (Darcliffe Homes) - 9 new homes. All complete
• 2 Rose Cottage sites on Croft Road - 6 new homes. All complete
• Land east of Basingstoke Road, at the northern end of Spencers Wood - 100 new homes. All complete
• Land east of Basingstoke Road and north of Grazeley Road - 272 new homes. All complete
• Land at Parklands, Spencers Wood, has been granted permission at appeal for up to 55 new homes 

On-site works are underway for a 15,000 metre square archive facility for the British Museum (BM-ARC). Ref: 182059.  For further information, visit the British Museum website.

Shinfield Eastern Relief Road

The Shinfield Parish major development includes a relief road that will begin at the A327 Eversley Road near the Magpie and Parrot and run east of Shinfield Village up across the M4 on a new bridge and connect to the Blackboy roundabout. The relief road is intended to minimise the impact of traffic growth on Shinfield Village and the surrounding rural lanes. It is now fully operational and was built by Swindon-based contractor, Hochtief UK, for the University of Reading.

See the Major New Roads map.           

There will be 2 primary schools in the Shinfield Parish development location - 1 in Spencers Wood and 1 west of Shinfield village. The Shinfield West school will have 2 forms of entry with a nursery, and be able to accommodate up to 3 forms of entry. The school is now built and opened in September 2020. See top of page for admissions information.

The Spencers Wood school will also have up to 3 forms of entry, and will include a nursery. Outline planning permission, granted in 2010, states that the school should be open by the time the 200th house is occupied.

The development will include an extension to the existing village centre in Shinfield to include a new community building as well as a supermarket, and other retail shops and office space nearby.

Included in the outline planning permission for the Three Mile Cross / Spencers Wood development is provision for upgrades to a Listed barn to convert it to a community building.

The sports facilities included in the Shinfield Parish major development location consist of upgrades to the sports hub at Ryeish Green so that it will have 6 grass pitches, and improvements to the pavilion and car parking facilities.

There will be a sports hubs at Hyde End Lane, Spencers Wood consisting of 2 pitches which will be part of a later phase of the development.

There will also be a sports hub at High Copse Common, Shinfield West, consisting of playing pitches, including a cricket and sports pavilion, which will be part of the last phase of the development which could be as late as 2026.

There will also be new and improved cycleways and footpaths to improve connectivity between the 3 villages and the new sports facilities.

Parks

A new children's play area opened in spring 2017 in the South of Croft Road development, called Croft Gardens.

New recreational open spaces

As part of the new development, there will be several new recreational open spaces. These open spaces will include parks and gardens, public open spaces, children’s play areas, playing pitches, allotments and SANGs (Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace).

SANGs (Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace), commonly called nature parks, are designed to attract residents and dog walkers as an alternative to the Thames Basin Heath Special Protection Area. This area supports rare ground nesting birds such as the dartford warbler, woodlark and nightjar, and is highly sensitive to visitors.

The nature parks to be provided as part of the Shinfield Parish major development area include

• Langley Mead nature park (known as Loddon SANG) – this site is located south of Shinfield Village, just off Hyde End Road. It consists of open recreational natural space with footpaths along the river, benches, common grazing land, and a car park. The SANG opened in May 2015.  An extension to the SANG, to land south of Arborfield Road, was refused by planning committee. Ref:181499 
• Five Acres nature park – this site is located near Ryeish Green. It consists of an open recreational natural grass field with a pond. The SANGs (Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace) is now fully open to the public.
• Clare’s Green Field nature park – this site is an existing council-owned site that was already open to the public and which had improvements funded by the development
• May’s Farm Meadow nature park – this is located near the junction of Church and Hyde End lanes. It consists of open recreational natural space with a lake, footpaths and a car park. It opened in November 2015
• Ridge nature park – this is located near Ryeish Green Lane and Shinfield village. It will consist of meadows and hedgerows along a prominent landscape ridge with far-reaching views. It will come in phases, with the first phase in late 2017 and the rest expected to open in 2022
• Sports pavilion at High Copse Farm.  Ref: 190410.  Application withdrawn.  The applicant will revise the landscaping for the scheme in consultation with planning officers and we will receive a revised scheme in the future  
• Sports pitches and allotments - approved in March 2020. Ref: 173477 
  

New Thames Valley Science and Innovation Park

The Thames Valley Science and Innovation Park (TVSP) will be a cluster of knowledge-based businesses, to assist growing companies. The proposed Thames Valley Science and Innovation Park will comprise employment floor space and be linked to the University of Reading. Outline planning permission has been granted for phase 1 which is about 18,850 square metres of floor space. Reserved matters for phase 1A has been approved and is under construction. Gateway Building 1 was completed in 2018. An outline application for Phase 2 of the Science Park was approved in July 2017 for 57,110 square metres of research and development and innovation floorspace.

The Thames Valley Science and Innovation Park will offer opportunities for the borough’s highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce. The TVSP will help with the sustainability of the Shinfield Parish major development area. It will become a place where people can choose to live, work and shop in very close proximity, and can use alternatives to the car to get around.

More widely, the TVSP (Thames Valley Science and Innovation Park) will have close transport links to London and Heathrow and help to highlight the University of Reading as a promoter of research and development.

The TVSP will deliver a high quality, flagship development within Wokingham Borough. It will encourage inward investment and a new commercial offering to the knowledge-economy markets in London, the Thames Valley and the South East.

Future development of the Borough

With a lot more housing needed in the Borough in the years ahead, we are currently working on our blueprint to ensure the new homes are built in the right places and come with the right schools, roads and facilities.

Updated national government policy provides a standard method for calculating the minimum number of homes that each council should plan for. In order to ensure these homes are properly planned, we are updating our Local Plan, which will set the principles of where and how the homes and other development should be provided.

The Local Plan Update will be produced in conjunction with a wide range of organisations as well as with input from public consultation and engagement. To find out more about the stages and timescales of our Local Plan update, visit the Local Plan Update web page.

Shinfield Parish also has a neighbourhood plan which will follows the boundaries of the civil parish and therefore includes the major development area.

Contact us

To find out more about the Shinfield major development email us at CEM@wokingham.gov.uk.

View the planning applications

To view planning applications, make a note of the application number on the progress map and use our planning application search.

Useful websites

• Visit the  South of M4 Strategic Development Location website
• Visit the  Shinfield Parish Council website 
  
  

Background documents

• Read the  South of the M4 Strategic Development Location Masterplan (PDF document)
• Read the  Infrastructure Delivery and Contributions SPD (PDF document)
• Read the  Core Strategy – Local Plan document on the Planning Policies page
• Read the  Managing Development Delivery Local Plan on the Planning Policies page
• Read the  notes from the South of the M4 community forum (PDF document)