Posts by Nemone Caldwell

Oxford City is currently consulting on a new round of high growth-based housing figures for Oxford. Brownfield sites are being prioritised for employment, meaning the pressure on housing supply in the city will increase with ‘affordable’ housing remaining out of reach for most households. CPRE Oxfordshire believes these sites should instead be focused on high…

CPRE South Oxfordshire and Vale of the White Horse responded to this consultation in June 2022.  A review of the consultation has now been published and is available to download. We are encouraged that the majority of the issues we raised in the consultation appear in the report and and we trust they will be…

Will yet more Oxford City overspill be coming soon to a Green Belt near you?   The same consultants are back with a new round of high growth based housing figures for Oxford. But with brownfield sites in the City still being prioritised for jobs growth rather than housing, it looks like the City Council will…

We are calling on our Local Authority Leaders to make an immediate commitment to producing a county-wide Renewables Strategy, including public consultation, and to set an early deadline for completion.  Currently renewable projects, such as the potential grouping of sites at Tetsworth, Nuneham Courtenay and Culham and the proposed huge Botley West solar farm, are threatening vast…

Government Consultation on Planning Reforms – closes 2 March 2023 The Government is running a consultation on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework ( NPPF), including the proposed removal of 5 Year Housing Land Supply Rules that have led to speculative and inappropriate development across Oxfordshire. The  Framework is the basis on which Local…

A Guide to responding to the current water consultations –  Water Resources South East Plan and Thames Water Resources Management Plan Consultations on both the Water Resources South East (WRSE) Plan and Thames Water’s Management Plan (WRMP) are now running . Together, these plans will determine Thames Water’s investment plans for water supply in the…

Hedgerow Heroes at work in Watlington. Image credit Nicola Schafer The government has announced an ambitious target to create or restore 30,000 miles of hedgerows a year by 2037, and 45,000-miles of hedgerows a year by 2050, under the new Environmental Improvement Plan 2023. In a landmark decision for hedgerows, the government target underpins aims…

Oxford City Council has launched a new round of public consultation as the next stage in developing its Local Plan 2040. This will focus on housing need, with a new independent report providing the evidence base underpinning the local plan. We are concerned that its projections don’t follow the Government’s Standard Methodology and are biased towards…

Community football pitches at Stratfield Brake CPRE Cherwell objects just as strongly to the proposals to build a new stadium on an alternative piece of Green Belt land as we did to the original plan to build at Stratfield Brake.  It seems that the labyrinthine process by which one proposal has been superseded by the…

Dark starry skies are a beautiful sight, and a distinctive feature of the countryside. But too often, light pollution means that many of us can’t see the stars. To celebrate our starry skies and to help to protect and improve our view of the stars we are inviting the nation to be ‘citizen scientists’ and…