A post on social media by Jack Rankin, the local Tory candidate, celebrating the opening of the first tranche of what will be 450 Woodland Village units, part of Legoland, next to the world famous theme park, got me looking back at the application.
Big shout out for the £35m investment which will go on to generate around £50m a year or more for Legoland… how does that directly benefit Windsor?
It had been voted through by him and fellow Tory Cllrs just before the elections in 2019 and what I was particularly interested in was how much CIL had been committed.
The document appears to mention a commitment to 60 full time jobs… there had been mention of 200 in the social media post 😉 They would need employees anyway, so not sure why this is mentioned in the CIL doc.
The main focus was on a Travel Plan based around Legoland employees getting to the fair on time. Most staff had ignored the survey but a comprehensive plan was produced and it sailed through planning.
By comparison, if a local resident wanted to extend on such a scale then they would be expected to pay around £10,000,000 to RBWM in CIL.
Obviously the vast majority of visitors will come by car…
The roads in RBWM are in a terrible state. £10,000,000 would essentially double the highway budget for 5 years and allow many more of our road crunch points, where we see 10 potholes gathered, ready to smash our suspension, to be fixed.
Does the travel plan give Woodland Village holiday residents free travel into Windsor?
Families seemingly only get a 1 day pass for Legoand on a 5 day £1500 booking for 2 adults and 2 kids so it would directly help the town if they were to add that to the offer.
All signed, sealed and delivered so Legoland doesn’t have to do anything more than keep on building.
Thanks Jack & chums… hopefully the LibDems can turn the CIL policy into something which is fair for all and not just benefiting a few.
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Community Champion
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