Wokingham Online is an independent news and information site for the borough of Wokingham. We read what the council publishes and write down what is in it, and we keep the practical local pages right.
The borough, not just the town
Wokingham town is where the name comes from and where the council sits, but it holds only a fraction of the borough’s 189,000 residents. Earley and Woodley are each nearly the size of the town, and both are joined to Reading rather than to Wokingham. Round the rest of the boundary sit Twyford, Charvil, Wargrave, Remenham and Sonning by the Thames, Winnersh and Sindlesham in the middle, and Finchampstead, Barkham, Arborfield, Shinfield, Spencers Wood and Swallowfield in the south. We cover all of them, and we try to be clear about which place we mean rather than writing “Wokingham” and hoping.
What we report
Wokingham has been a unitary authority since 1998, which means one council decides planning, bins, roads, licensing, council tax and schools. Its planning register is where we spend most of our time, because that is where a change to your road is recorded first. Alongside it: committee papers and decisions, licensing notices, police.uk crime data, HM Land Registry sold prices, Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings, Environment Agency flood warnings for the Loddon and the Emm Brook, and company filings in The Gazette.
Our standard
Named source, linked, on every fact. Where a document is ambiguous we say so. Plain British English, no press releases dressed up as reporting, and no photographs lifted from other outlets. We use software to help us watch the sources and draft routine updates, which is how a small site keeps up with a borough this size, but nothing is invented and anything sensitive is read by a person first.
Tips and corrections
Email hello@wokinghamonline.co.uk. Tips about a planning row, a road closure, an opening or an event are welcome and treated in confidence, and corrections are made quickly and noted on the page.
Wokingham Online is part of the GOB Media Group.