Taplow New Town: campaigners urge Government to disregard think tank plan

A New Town in Taplow would 'destroy the village as we know it', campaigners say as they urge the Government to disregard proposals put forward by a think tank. 

The Government is seeking to embark on the ‘largest housebuilding programme since the Second World War’ and has set up a New Towns Taskforce to earmark prime locations.

One site, proposed by the UK Day One think tank, is Taplow which its plans said was ‘a promising location’ near the Elizabeth line featuring ‘underused land with low biodiversity’.

Three parish councils – Burnham, Dorney and Taplow – and a civic society have mobilised and combined resources to fight the threat of a mass housing building venture.

Group Working Party Chairman Roger Worthington, a Taplow Parish Councillor and chairman of the Taplow and Hitcham Civic Society said the plans would ‘destroy Taplow as we know it’.

The Working Party has submitted an objection to Sir Michael Lyons, who is leading the New Towns Taskforce, setting out reasons for refusal.

“Clearly, the local sentiment was 100 per cent in favour of objecting,” Mr Worthington said.

“A lot of that is very emotional; it’s a beautiful place to live, it’s green belt, it’s got a lot of heritage etcetera.

“But we thought, in addition to talking about that, what the Government needs to know about are serious practical objections and so that was the approach we took.

“To look at the sheer logistics and infrastructure problems that would be accounted and the most obvious of that is the site is dissected by the A4 and the Great Western Railway.

“The principal argument is you’d end up with two, sort of, townlets and not the integrated town the Government is looking for.”

Other problems identified in the objection include building homes on flood plains in the Dorney area and placing more pressure on an already congested A4 Bath Road.

Expensive and time-intensive infrastructure projects like widening Maidenhead Bridge would be needed to mitigate these pressures, Mr Worthington said.

He said that the authors of the Taplow New Town report were ‘totally unaware of all these very pratical problems that would be in the way’, having never been to Taplow.

Mr Worthington said: “If they built all those houses, it wouldn’t be a New Town - it wouldn’t really be a town - it would simply be a large housing estate connecting Burnham and Slough to Maidenhead.”

“It would destroy Taplow as we know it.”

A Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) spokesperson said: “No decisions have yet been made on the locations for new towns, but these will be well-designed, beautiful communities, delivered as part of the largest housebuilding programme since the Second World War.

“The New Towns Taskforce will make its recommendations on locations for new towns later this year.”

When approached for comment on criticism over whether its New Town report authors had visited Taplow, the UK Day One think tank did not respond.

The objection can be viewed on the Taplow Parish Council website.