Developers behind the Maidenhead Golf Course redevelopment want to make changes to a key junction to access the site \u2013 but councillors raised safety concerns and deferred their decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Royal Borough approved an outline application for the highly controversial development in December 2025.<\/p>\n
Cala Homes is planning to build up to 1,500 homes on the course and is also proposing a secondary and primary school as well as a community centre and commercial spaces.<\/p>\n
A roundabout was initially proposed to serve as the primary vehicular access at the southern entrance to the site off Harvest Hill Road.<\/p>\n
At a Maidenhead Development Management Committee meeting yesterday (Tuesday), councillors were presented with proposed alterations to the approved plans, known as a Section 73 variation.<\/p>\n
Some of the planning conditions would be varied as part of this, and one of the changes looks at replacing the roundabout with a T-junction.<\/p>\n
Leona Hunnify, the applicant\u2019s agent, said the roundabout would need a substantially larger area of land and extensive excavation.<\/p>\n
The roundabout was proposed with 2,000 homes in mind, but now that the scheme has been scaled back to 1,500 homes, a T-junction is a \u2018simpler and more proportionate solution\u2019, Ms Hunnify said.<\/p>\n
Royal Borough highways officers raised no objection \u2018in principle\u2019 to the proposed change, subject to legal agreements being secured with the developer.<\/p>\n
The developer would have to provide details around how the road would change, including a road safety assessment.<\/p>\n
But Councillor Gurch Singh (Lib Dem, St Mary\u2019s) remained concerned about the safety on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the wrong design for the wrong road,\u201d said Cllr Singh and stressed that he wants to \u2018future-proof\u2019 the road.<\/p>\n
But Louise Reid, the council\u2019s deputy head of planning, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve explained several times that you\u2019re putting the cart before the horse.<\/p>\n
\u201cHighways [officers] have come back and to the best of their knowledge at this stage in time, until they start getting into the detailed work, [their view] is that the junction is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
At this stage the applicant is not required to give \u2018extensive\u2019 details about the works.<\/p>\n
Ms Reid later explained that both the roundabout and T-junction work when it comes to highway safety, but the junction is better for active travel \u2013 \u00a0including pedestrians and cyclists.<\/p>\n
But Cllr Mandy Brar (Lib Dem, Bisham and Cookham) said she was \u2018a bit puzzled\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur own highway officer should be here to answer questions at the panel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to make your mind up when the highway officers are not present at a planning meeting and they should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cllr Mark Howard (Lib Dem, Bisham and Cookham) said he was \u2018a little bit conflicted\u2019 between the roundabout and a T-junction.<\/p>\n
He asked if the traffic generated from the proposed schools was taken into account when looking at the change.<\/p>\n
The meeting heard a transport statement was submitted which showed how traffic would impact the development as a whole \u2013 including peak morning and evening rush hour traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is clearly strong disquiet about the roundabout changing to a T-junction \u2013 I think that\u2019s very clear,\u201d said Cllr Howard.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, councillors voted to defer the application and seek further information around a\u00a0road safety audit (RSA).<\/p>\n
They also asked for an assessment to look at the wider traffic impacts for the overall Southwest Maidenhead development site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developers behind the Maidenhead Golf Course redevelopment want to make changes to a key junction to access the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9826,44,16454,5100],"class_list":["post-41050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-council-and-politics","tag-golf","tag-maidenhead-golf-course","tag-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}