South Oxfordshire housing consultation – Ends 2 April – respond now!
23rd March 2015
How can South Oxfordshire accommodate 5 new Wallingfords by 2031?
Please respond, by 2 April, to this consultation on housing in the District.
South Oxfordshire District Council is currently consulting on the Refined Options for its revised Local Plan.
You can read the proposals and respond on the SODC website here.
– It says that 3,600 more houses are needed in the District by 2031, over and above the 11,500 already agreed in the existing Local Plan (a total equivalent to 5 new Wallingfords!) and asks for comments on where they should go.
– It also says that it may need to accommodate 3,000 houses as overflow from Oxford and gives options for locating these, including two sites in the Oxford Green Belt or a new settlement near the M40.
– It sets out potential development sites in Benson, Chinnor, Cholsey, Crowmarsh Gifford, Goring and Nettlebed.
CPRE Oxfordshire believes that:
– To retain the rural nature of South Oxfordshire, policy needs to protect the Oxford Green Belt, the Chilterns and North Wessex Downs Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), and the characters of our towns and villages.
– Such a dramatic increase in housing numbers is unsustainable and unsound, based on the overblown Oxfordshire Strategic Housing Market Assessment.
– Constraints in the District, such as the Green Belt and AONBs, water issues including drought and flooding, and the need for our towns and villages to retain their character and integrity, should have been taken into account and the housing numbers reduced accordingly, before we were asked to make choices about where houses should be allocated.
CPRE Oxfordshire’s full response to the consultation is available at the bottom of this page.
Please will you also send in a response? It is vital that we speak up for the Green Belt, AONBs and the rural character of our District. Your response can be as straightforward or as detailed as you wish, but please do make your views known – by 2nd April.
You can respond using SODC’s online questionnaire or by downloading their word response form. See SODC website here. Or send an email to planning.policy@southoxon.gov.uk
REMINDER: CPRE Wallingford District public meeting on Over-development in Oxfordshire
You are invited to a CPRE Wallingford District public meeting on Friday 27th March in Cholsey, to discuss the issues arising from over-development in Oxfordshire.
CPRE_Oxon_response_to_SODC_Refined_Options_Consultation_March_2015_FINAL.pdf