Kennet Meadows should be put into Public Ownership

READING & DISTRICT LABOUR PARTY MEDIA RELEASE
21 March 2010
John Ennis: “Kennet Meadows should be put into public ownership”

Southcote Councillor and long-time Kennet Meadows campaigner John Ennis says that Reading Borough Council should approach PRUPIM and the other land-owners of Kennet Meadows to try and persuade them to finally do the decent thing for local people and turn the land over to public ownership.
After causing worry to local residents for the last eight years the developers have finally abandoned their plans to build 7500 houses on the Meadows, and have dissolved the consortium that has been working on the scheme.
Cllr. Ennis has put down a motion for the Borough Council meeting on 30 March calling for the Chief Executive to explore, together with West Berkshire Council and local Trusts, acquiring land from PRUPIM and their partners and putting it into a trust and managed as a community and ecological asset.
He says: “Kennet Meadows is and will remain flood plain, and I think and hope PRUPIM’s decision means the people who own it know it’s never going to be developed. So it has limited economic value, but it is greatly valued by local people and this is a good time to see if we can’t get it into the ownership of a trust that will care for it into the future.”
//ENDS
For further information contact John Ennis 07891 382672
or R&DLP Press Officer Pete Ruhemann0782 1609206