First and foremost…thank you so much to everyone who braved the torrential rain to show their face and fill the space today on Windsor Drive. There were some very wet dogs and their owners out there today.

We are not going to dwell on the lack of respect shown to residents by CBC in not letting us know they had changed the venue to the Houghton Hall Visitor Centre. Just be assured that we were clear on how disgusted we were with their lack of thought.

Around 15 of the Friends of Windsor Drive Group and local councillors attended the meeting, which lasted for around an hour and a half.

From CBC there were Councillor Ghent - Executive Member, James Yeomans - Head of Housing Operations. In addition, they brought an external consultant with them Benjamin Stephenson. We will share the minutes of the meeting when they arrive, but in summary;

1- We pushed them hard on whether or not they would consider a no build option for Windsor Drive. They squirmed but stated formally that they would;

2- For the record, we asked if the meeting was merely lip service or were they genuinely going to listen to the community. They stated that they didn’t need to hold the meetings, they could have gone straight to planning for real. They recognise there is massive opposition to their plans;

3- We stated the lack of trust residents have in CBC as a consequence of their actions to date e.g. The Brook, Community Centre, Leisure Centre etc.;

4- It was clear that they knew very little of the history and previous planning attempts on Windsor Drive, we briefly filled them in. e.g. 2017 Windsor Drive was deemed unsuitable for development and subsequently for a cemetery. We asked them what has changed between then and now to make building on the land viable. Very disappointing that they had not done their homework, yet are potentially willing to waste tax payers money and our time and energy pursuing their plans. e.g. apparently there is a survey of Windsor Drive next week to check flood risks etc.;

5- They couldn’t confirm the percentage of open land they intended to build upon at this stage, they have committed to let us know once they have conducted more research/studies etc.;

6- We asked who’s portfolio the land at Windsor drive sits in as in December 1996 it was the responsibility of the Leisure and Recreation Team. When was it moved to housing?;

7- They have agreed to hold another meeting, in a local venue, in the evening so that more people can attend. Now that’s something we can prepare for and show up in force to.

As you can imagine the discussion became heated at certain points, however they did appear to listen. Does that mean we trust them…hell no. We will keep you posted on whatever we get from them.
Thank you so much to everyone who took time out of their day to attend, in some cases, time off work, just wow! It’s amazing to see the Community come together when needed.

Now we need to make this bigger, better and more powerful, please share the hell out of this so when we have the next meeting we have a big fat 2 at the beginning of number of signatures. We want to see this plastered all over Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, emails - we will not roll over, with the support of all of Houghton Regis we will show them.