City Homes plan won't save towns

this is Oxfordshire.co.uk - 14th October 2005

Oxford City Council's proposal to build an 8,000-home settlement on the edge of Oxford may not be enough to save Bicester and Didcot from future development. The warning has come from the Campaign to Protect Rural England which said the divisions between local councils on new housing would have the Government "licking its lips".

Last week the city council said it was ready to release a huge city council-owned site for a settlement across 600 acres of Green Belt land south of Grenoble Road. The council is pushing the idea forward as an alternative to the county council's wish for a similar number of new homes on greenfield sites on the edges of Bicester and Didcot, and possibly Grove. But the CPRE says Oxfordshire could end up with the worst of both worlds with the Deputy Prime Minister likely to be all too happy to take up both housing development strategies.

The CPRE's campaign manager, Andy Boddington, said: "Residents in Oxfordshire should not be fooled. This is not an 'either or' option in the eyes of those determined to flood Oxfordshire with houses. "Government officials will leap on these divisions between the city and county councils as an opportunity to divide and rule." Until last week, the issue of an urban extension of Oxford had focused on a 370-acre site next to Grenoble Road and Oxford Science Park, owned by Magdalen College and Thames Water. But the city council said that farmland it has owned since 1899 could also be used, allowing the original Magdalen plan for 3,500 homes to be more than doubled. The city would stand to make tens of millions of pounds if its land south of Grenoble Road were to be developed. But city council leader Alex Hollingsworth said they money would be ploughed in to provide social housing to help combat the city's chronic housing shortages. Local councils and Oxfordshire residents are being invited to have their say on where in the county 21,000 new homes should be built between 2016 and 2026.

The consultation exercise has been launched by Oxfordshire County Council as part of the South East England Regional Assembly's South East Plan. The latest of a series of countywide exhibitions on the subject take place next week at: Willowbrook Leisure Centre, Didcot (Monday, October 17 to Sunday, October 23); Planning Services, West Oxfordshire District Council, Elmfield, New Yatt Road, Witney (Monday and Tuesday, October 17 and 18); Bicester Council Chambers, The Garth, Launton Road, Bicester (Wednesday and Thursday October 19 and 20). the consultation exercise ends on October 28.