Berkshire’s six councils have joined forces to tackle issues across the area, but a council leader is ‘struggling to know what we’ve achieved’.
The Berkshire Prosperity Board, made up of Reading council, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham and Bracknell Forest, was set up in 2024.
It replaced the former Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to help improve major areas across Berkshire, from health and employment to infrastructure and housing.
At the board’s meeting on Monday (June 15), council leaders heard an update of what has been achieved so far.
But some leaders wanted to see tangible benefits they could share with residents.
Councillor Simon Werner, the Royal Borough leader, said: “I am a simple man; I like things on the ground. I like to be able to say, ‘we’ve done this’.”
He said he would like to see a ‘real list’ of what residents ‘will be able to grab on to’ showing how, jointly, the Berkshire board has improved people’s lives.
Susan Parsonage, the chief executive of Wokingham Borough Council, said: “There is a lot of groundwork to actually take us to a different level as well and that does take time.”
But councillor Jeff Brooks, the leader of West Berkshire Council, said he was also ‘struggling to know what we’ve achieved’ that couldn’t have been done through the six councils working together informally.
“I think I’m getting to the point where I’m going to reflect on all this effort going in and whether it’s really delivering anything for people. I’m sorry to be so disappointed in it, frankly,” Cllr Brooks said.
He recognised there is a lot of work going on and said ‘getting together like this is positive’ to be able to talk about common issues and challenges.
“I wouldn’t want to lose that,” he said, but argued the prosperity board doesn’t have ‘the momentum it needs’.
Cllr Brooks said: “I know I’m going to get other people tell me, ‘you’ve got to put the building blocks in place’, but at some point, you’ve got to start delivering. One thing is missing substantially, I believe, and that’s communications.”
Cllr Wal Chahal, Slough’s council leader, agreed that the local authorities need to see action.
“We need to see outcomes, we need to see on the floor impacts,” he added.
Although Cllr Stephen Conway, Wokingham Borough Council’s leader, agreed that the prosperity board needs to communicate its achievements with residents better and ‘blow our own trumpet a little bit more’ , he argued the board is delivering improvements.
The opportunities created by the Berkshire Prosperity Board so far include £9.5million being invested over five years into Connect to Work, Cllr Conway recognised.
Connect to Work is a Berkshire-wide free, voluntary-supported employment programme, funded by the Government, to help people with disabilities and long-term health conditions find ‘secure and meaningful employment’, a report said.
Cllr Conway said the prosperity board is also ‘having some success’ with Homes England in getting grants for individual local authorities.
But he said ‘the really big money’ for affordable housing will only come through a strategic authority.
“We are not yet realising the full potential we can get out of partnership and collaboration [level],” he added.
“But that in my view, is not a reason to reflect and move back from it. It’s a reason to move forward with renewed urgency, not in the opposite direction.”
Others agreed with him, with Cllr Helen Purnell, the leader of Bracknell Forest Council, saying there have been ‘real-time changes’.
She said 59 properties across Berkshire have accessed £971,132 to go towards energy efficiency measures through the Warm Homes Local Grant.
Cllr Brooks recognised this work is happening but said he is ‘just putting the marker down to get urgency in outputs’ and ‘boast about them’.
