1,000 houses proposed at Alvescot Downs

An application for over 1,000 houses has been submitted at Alvescot Downs, Carterton. The site was rejected in the draft Local Plan but the Council’s current lack of 5 Year Housing Supply could see it sneak through.

Crest Nicholson has submitted a planning application for over 1,000 houses on the beautiful open countryside of Alvescot Downs.

Crest seeks to accelerate the timeframe for a decision via a Planning Performance Agreement, with a planning committee hearing date of 16th June. This is despite only submitting documents on 28th March, which gives little time for responses from the public and statutory consultees.

CPRE West Oxfordshire Chairman Gareth Hammond said: ‘Crest is open about justifying the application by citing the lack of a 5 year housing supply in West Oxfordshire, which they are clearly happy to exploit. This is just the sort of application that should not be allowed to proceed and it would be a travesty if a crack in West Oxfordshire District Council’s defences had opened up to let this through.

‘Apart from the fact that large allocations should be determined via Planning Policy and not applications, this site is clearly unsuitable and has been deemed so in WODC’s latest Sites & Housing assessment.  It is divorced from any settlement, completely open and includes the Shill Brook corridor, which is a Biodiversity Site and also a Conservation Target Area. It has farm buildings, hedgerows and dry stone walls, which date back to the Alvescot Inclosure of 1796-8.

‘We hope WODC will stand firm against this proposal, as the growth of West Oxfordshire must be led by them and not by developers taking advantage of the current political situation.’

 

Take action! Please tell WODC that this site is not a sustainable location for this development.

You can see the planning application here.