• V365 Volunteer Recruitment Fair

We took a table at this event in Newbury Corn Exchange last Saturday. Our hopes were that we would find people who wanted to do some volunteering for us (and whom we could, in return, provide skills training); that we would meet organisations who needed help with promoting volunteering requirements of their own (which we do at no charge); and it would generally be a good networking event. All three of these aspirations were amply rewarded.

“Run by Volunteer Centre West Berkshire (VCWB), the free annual event once again proved to be the largest volunteer recruitment fair in the district,” VCWB’s recent newsletter said. “More than fifty charities and community organisations took part, representing a wide range of causes including disability support, mental health and wellbeing, youth services, environmental action, and community development.

“Throughout the day, residents had the opportunity to speak directly with charity representatives, learn about different volunteering roles, and discover how their skills, experience, and time could make a meaningful difference. From hands-on roles and fundraising to trustee positions and behind-the-scenes support, the fair highlighted the diverse ways people can get involved.”

“‘Our local charities rely on volunteers to survive and thrive,” VCWB’s CEO Rachel Peters added. “Events like V365 show just how much goodwill, energy, and commitment exists locally. Whether people are able to give a little time or take on a bigger role, every contribution truly matters’.”

If people couldn’t make the event and are interested in volunteering, they can contact VCWB on 01635 49004 or vbase@vcwb.org.uk or explore the database of roles by clicking here.

• A consultation from the fire service

Royal Berkshire Fire Authority (RBFA) is consulting all Berkshire residents and staff on Council Tax funding for the next financial year until 9am on Monday, 2 February 2026.

“RBFA is committed to delivering value for money across the services provided to local residents,” the RBF explains. “However, due to significant budgetary pressure as outlined in this letter, to protect our services to the public, RBFA is proposing a £5 increase for 2026/2027, based on a Band D precept, to £91.31.

“This year the Government has announced a three-year settlement of central funding, instead of a one-year settlement. To align to this and help us plan our finances effectively over the longer term, RBFA is also consulting on an increase of £5 per annum in Council Tax, based on a Band D precept, for the next three years.”

For more information and to take part in the consultation, please click here.

• Enforcement issues

West Berkshire Council has recently been granted an extension to the high-court injunction it obtained regarding the unauthorised travellers’ site at Aldermaston. The aim is that it will provide enough time to establish how many families are actually on the site, current estimates ranging from one to twenty. This will run out later this month: then what?

It’s been suggested to me that as a retrospective planning application has been lodged, as long as this covers all the work that’s been done on the site, this will have the effect of pausing any legal challenges while the planning system takes over – and we all know how slow that is. Perhaps I’m being very stupid, but if that is and was always going to be the case, what was the point of issuing the stop notices and the injunctions in the first place?

There have long been concerns that WBC has for a long time not been able to allocate enough travellers’ sites. This has led to unauthorised developments which have then been granted retrospectively – a kind of development by self-selection rather than by policy and which asks the question as to whether WBC is in this regard really a plan-led authority.

It’s also not clear to me (though I’ve asked WBC) whether the total number of identified pitches – those allocated in the plan plus those that have subsequently been granted retrospectively – has now reached the number that the Council is required to provide. If it has, then presumably any future speculative applications should surely fail.

Returning to the question of enforcement, there’s also an issue in Enborne where a retrospective application has been lodged for a site which is processing and burning waste, which is probably in breach of any number of regulations. Here again it appears that the lengthy planning process will need to be followed before anything can be stopped. In both cases, the Council appears to feel that its hands are tied.

These are just two examples. Between them they involve an unauthorised encampment at the gates of a major nuclear weapons facility, a direct challenge to the integrity (and perhaps to the very purpose) of the DEPZ emergency zone, stop notices which have been completely ignored, high-court injunctions which have been partly ignored and, in Enborne, worrying cases of potential air and water pollution. If these don’t constitute reasons for immediate and firm enforcement then it’s very hard to see what would.

Many residents, including this one, are pretty confused by all this. It may well be that WBC is doing all that it can with a system that’s in many ways loaded against it and, perhaps, against common sense. It’s also possible that it’s being a tad over-cautious in how it’s interpreting its responsibilities. In either case, there would seem to be something fairly serious with the laws that underpin the system which planning authorities have to operate.

• A look back at 2025

We’ve covered a large number of stories in this area over the last twelve months. See last week’s column (below) for some of the major ones, several of which won’t go away or keep coming back…

• A look back at 2025

We’ve covered a large number in stories in this area over the last twelve months. We’ve picked out some of the major ones below, several of which won’t go away or keep coming back…

• Faraday Road football ground. This saga of closure, confrontation, thwarted development dreams, delay and expense has continued since the ground was shut in June 2018 and has partly and slowly been remedied since. Football has returned, a 3G pitch has been identified as viable and WBC has agreed to fund this. What seems less clear is whether the proposed, and much delayed, playing pitch strategy is committed to returning the ground to the standard that it previously enjoyed.

• The Kennet Centre redevelopment has attracted interest not only in Newbury but also further afield. The first (Eagle Quarter) plan was refused by WBC, whereupon an utterly different (Old Town) application was lodged. The Eagle quarter refusal was appealed, and rejected by the Planning Inspector: the Old Town plans, however, were passed by WBC. Most agree that, of the two, this is by far the more preferable although concerns remain about the lack of affordable housing. The demolition work is expected to start some time this year although, as of early January, the S106 agreement has yet to be signed and pre-commencement conditions yet to be discharged.

• Pedestrianisation in Newbury. A contentious issue, as such matters always are, which was consulted on as part of the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order regarding the banning of cars for most of the day in the town centre. Comments on this from WBC are expected in early 2026.

• The Resource Centres. At the WBC budget meeting in February, it was announced that the district’s three day-care and respite centres, one of which is in Newbury, would probably be  outsourced and the existing centres therefore possibly closed. After a campaign of opposition, this decision was reversed. How permanent this will prove to be given the state of WBC’s finances is uncertain: this is a service that must be provided but not necessarily by the council directly.

• Sandleford. One of the biggest development projects in the area, and one which has been percolating for about twenty years, seems set to get under way in earnest in 2026.

• Educafé in Newbury meets every Wednesday during term-time in the Library and provides a wide range of support services, including help with loneliness and isolation, language barriers, maternal wellbeing, diversity, mental health, cost of living support and employability. An excellent institution, which Penny attends most weeks, and which we’ve been delighted to help promote and support. Congratulations also to Speen Community café, which performs much the same kind of work.

• The Newbury Show. Following the three-year pause from 2020 to 2022, the show is now firmly back in the area’s early-September calendar following another successful event in 2024.

• The travelling showmen in Enborne. We’ve been following this complex, divisive and technical issue for some time which has involved, involved other things, leaflets, accusations and counter-accusations and a judicial review.

• The proposed Marsh Benham egg farm. The proposal for a large number of hens to take up commercial residence between the A4 and the Kennet in the summer was met by concerted opposition, mainly from local residents who feared the the protected chalk river would soon deteriorate into the same sorry condition as had the river Wye as a result of intensive chicken farming. The application was refused in August.

• Safety on the A34. This issue has been raised by the area’s MPs – as it was by their predecessors – particularly with regard to some of slip roads, such as East Ilsley. Short of rebuilding these, and perhaps the who stretch of road, it’s however hard to see what can be done to improve safety on this road which many treat as a motorway.

• The sports hub in Monks Lane. This proposal, which at times was described as a “replacement” for the above-mentioned Faraday Road ground, may now be dead but its echoes linger on: partly in the form of a Scrutiny Committee Task and Finish Group inquiry into the procurement and partly because the problem of the much diminished ground at Faraday Road still remains.

• The Victoria Park Café. This Newbury Town Council project to rebuild was paused when inflation got the better of it and has since re-emerged in a scaled-down form as a major refurb of the existing building.

• Damp and asbestos. We covered a sorry tale of some very badly-maintained Sovereign flats at Springhurst House in Newbury. In this instance at least, this seems to have helped produce some improvements for residents.

• Other local stories and events we’ve covered included the oft-delayed Thames Water works in Greenham, the continuing an. excellent work done by local voluntary groups including the Speen Community Café and a developer’s desire to retract a previous promise to make land and funding available in Donnington for a new school, as well as other issues including allotments, a shop and a footpath.