It’s the area of around 140 football pitches. Or two-and-half times the size of Oxford's much loved University Parks. And it is going, going and soon will be gone.

You may not have heard of the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) and even if you read it you might not realise its significance. The document is technical and dry, and it is only when you read the appendices that the significance of what city planners have in mind sinks in. And then only when you put all the maps together.

The development ambitions outlined in SHLAA include destruction of Southfield Golf Course and the closing of the green gap between Marston and Summertown. At Marston, developers' hopes include 450 houses on Court Farm allotments and adjacent fields, and 600 houses in the green belt north of the Victoria Arms. These will look over the River Cherwell toward 540 new houses beside Cherwell School. Existing hopes to develop Warneford Meadow and Warneford Hospital Playing Field have been extended by city planners to include 1,640 houses on Southfield Golf Course. Allotments at Wolvercote and green fields at Headington Quarry are also under threat. The city is keeping the siting of another 215 houses on green fields confidential; CPRE is challenging this decision.

If this wholesale decimation of Oxford's green space angers you, you have only a few days to object. City planners say that they will accept comments until the end of May. They should be send to the Chief Planning officer, Oxford City Council, Ramsay House, Oxford OX1 1PT.

21 May 2007

Further Information

• Oxford Core Strategy
• Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment
• Oxford's green spaces are under threat