Posts by Nemone Caldwell
South and Vale Joint Local Plan: Our Response
CPRE Oxfordshire have submitted a detailed response to the South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse consultation, along with a request to participate in the hearings. We are largely supportive of this Plan and commend the extensive consultation which has been undertaken to produce it, including asking consultees to rank priorities, with “protecting the countryside”…
Read MoreJoint South Oxon and Vale of White Horse Local Plan enters final stages – but what about the Green Belt?
Following two previous stages of consultation, where CPRE Oxfordshire and our supporters actively engaged, the Joint South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse Local Plan is now entering the final stage before being submitted for external examination to the Planning Inspector. At this technical stage (known as Reg19) we are only allowed to comment of…
Read MoreInspector Rejects Draft Oxford City Local Plan, Creating Opportunity to Save the Green Belt
The draft Oxford City Local Plan, proposing highly inflated housing numbers to be largely offloaded to surrounding districts and the Green Belt, has been rejected by the Planning Inspector. The Plan, which prioritised its own city centre brownfield sites for employment rather than homes, used housing numbers based on the methodology of the highly criticised…
Read MoreThreat of mega reservoir looms closer following approval of Thames Water’s Resource Management Plan.
The threat of the costly and poorly thought-out reservoir south of Abingdon has been brought a step closer for the people of Oxfordshire, following the Government’s approval of Thames Water’s Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP), just one week after the public consultation closed. There are substantial and obvious flaws to Thames Water’s proposals for the 4.5sq mile…
Read MoreWe need more affordable housing – but proposed changes won’t deliver
If we’re serious about building affordable homes and helping first-time buyers, just building more houses won’t do it. Instead, new housing should be well-designed, higher density, and use the minimum amount of land. The Government’s revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sees mandatory housing targets re-introduced with changes to the standard method for calculating them.…
Read MoreCPRE Countryside Day – 7th September
Countryside Day is the CPRE network’s new annual celebration of rural England, inspiring us to protect and promote it for future generations and nature with lots of different activities organised by CPRE local groups all over England. This year, CPRE local groups Oxfordshire and Berkshire have organised a joint cross-border event, putting on a day…
Read MoreRevised NPPF under consultation
At the end of July, the Government issued a revised version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) for consultation. The NPPF acts as the rulebook for planning, advising local authorities and developers on what they can and cannot do when planning developments and includes a range of policies that ultimately determine what gets built…
Read MoreAbingdon Reservoir consultation response
Thames Water continues with their plans to build a new reservoir near Abingdon and are currently seeking responses in their consultation which closes on August 28th. It is CPRE Oxfordshire’s opinion that the consultation questionnaire does not cover several of the critical questions, so we have submitted a written response to SESRO@ipsos.com. If you have…
Read MoreShining a Light on Solar: Time to Look up!
We support solar, but here in Oxfordshire we can afford to be selective. There’s no denying that the transition to renewable energy is urgent and vital – we at CPRE fully support decarbonising our energy – but did you know that less than 1% of Oxfordshire is needed to produce more than all the solar…
Read MoreAnnouncing Hedgerow Heroes phase 4!
We’re delighted to announce that our Hedgerow Heroes project has now entered its fourth year having secured another round of funding. Working in partnership with Wild Oxfordshire, the next stage of the project will see local communities coming together to plant and rejuvenate hedgerows on seven sites across Oxfordshire. These will be in key Conservation Target…
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