Cherwell Local Plan – Consultation Dates

Cherwell District Council published their Local Plan just before Christmas and can be found here. The Local Plan is an important document which outlines the future development of the area, including the policies and proposals for new development. It also sets out the council’s plans to respond to climate change, to protect the environment and…

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Family of Four Complete the OGBW

Are you looking for some inspiration this New Year? We recently heard from Lottie Adams to tell us about completing her new year’s resolution for 2024: to walk the Oxford Green Belt Way with her husband and two kids – the youngest being just 2 years old! She told us: “We set off from Beckley…

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New NPPF a Cause for Concern

a housing development

Following a consultation earlier in the year, the government has now published a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) with bold intentions to change the planning system. The revised framework re-introduces mandatory targets for councils, with significant increases in the numbers of new homes expected and while a “brownfield first” strategy remains key to the…

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CPRE Oxfordshire opposes proposal for 500 new homes on Farmland

Croudace Homes have applied for planning permission for almost 500 new homes on farmland along the Shillingford Road north of Wallingford. CPRE Oxfordshire strongly oppose this application and urge our members to respond and comment. The deadline is 13th Dec. Here’s the link. Comments to consider making ( in your own words ideally), include:

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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”…

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Citizen Science – Ancient and Veteran Trees

An ecologist notes down the details of a possible veteran tree

You can’t protect it if you don’t know it’s there! Knowing the countryside is the first step to protecting it, and it’s local people who are best placed to do this. There are lots of citizen science projects you can get involved with, from measuring water quality in your local river, to monitoring pollinators in…

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Joint 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…

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Inspector Rejects Draft Oxford City Local Plan, Creating Opportunity to Save the Green Belt

View of Oxford with trees in the foreground

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…

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Threat of mega reservoir looms closer following approval of Thames Water’s Resource Management Plan.

Image of proposed Abingdon reservoir

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…

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We need more affordable housing – but proposed changes won’t deliver

detail of a brick wall

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.…

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