You are invited to a Public Meeting at Thame Town Hall, Wednesday 11^th May, 6.30 – 8.30pm.

Need not Greed Oxon has been invited by Thame Town Parish to give a presentation on the campaign, its origins and objectives, and our work around the OxLEP public consultation on the Strategic Economic Plan.

Speakers will include:

Helen Marshall, Director, CPRE Oxfordshire

Dr Sue Roberts, South Oxfordshire Sustainability (SOS)

Professor Richard Harding, Chairman, CPRE Wallingford District

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

Chair: John Gordon, South Oxfordshire Sustainability (SOS)

All welcome!

The meeting will be held in the Upper Chamber, Thame Town Hall, Thame, OX9 3DP.

How to get there

For more information email: info@neednotgreedoxon.org.uk

RESPOND TO THE ONLINE OXLEP CONSULTATION HERE

OxLEP – Oxfordshire’s Local Enterprise Partnership – the unelected quango that is driving the economic growth in our county – is holding a public consultation on the ‘Refresh’ of the Strategic Economic Plan (SEP).

The consultation runs until Friday 27 May and is being hosted on the OxLEP website.

The public were not consulted on the original SEP – the economic strategy for Oxfordshire. When it was drafted in 2014, OxLEP promised a public consultation on its growth plans, but cancelled this due to ‘lack of time’!

But while the public are finally being given the opportunity to comment on some aspects of the Plan, the overall growth targets are not up for debate.

This isn’t good enough! We believe local people should be given a proper opportunity to have their say on the future of our county.Read more …→

On 14 April, 85% of residents polled in Woodstock voted for greenfields on the south-eastern edge of the town to be protected from a controversial development of 1,500 homes.

411 people voted to protect it, while 73 people said they did not want it saved from new homes.

Town councillor Sharone Parnes said of the result: “I’m very pleased that the people of Woodstock had the opportunity to consider their position on this.

“It’s useful to see what people are thinking. It was an inspirational exercise for the community; from the point of the town meeting when they demanded the poll and the way the District Council conducted it with real energy.”

Read more …→

Rural Oxfordshire Action Rally (ROAR), a founding member of the Need not Greed Oxon coalition, is organising a Rally on Saturday 30 April, at 11.00am, outside Woodstock Town Hall.

The theme of the Rally is ‘You are not alone’. Local communities from all over Oxfordshire and beyond are facing the same threats – inappropriate development on greenfields on the edge of villages and towns, the Oxford Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, because of the forced economic growth strategy for the county. The purpose of this Rally is to demonstrate the scale and the ubiquity of the problem.

Please come along and show your support!

Read more …→

A new study commissioned by Need not Greed Oxon finds that fewer than half of the homes proposed for Oxfordshire over the next 15 years are needed to meet local demand.

Local councils have committed Oxfordshire to providing 100,000 new houses by 2031, the equivalent of two new Oxfords, however a report by Alan Wenban-Smith, a leading planning consultant, suggests that, even allowing for a normal pattern of jobs growth, just 45,000 houses would be required over that time to meet ‘local needs‘.

Read more …→

In a letter to the press Need not Greed Oxon coalition members, Peter Jay of ROAR and Alan Lodwick of Kidlington Development Watch said the OxLEP SEP ‘Refresh’ Workshops did not constitute a ‘meaningful consultation’ and were part of a ‘crude PR exercise’.

Peter Jay and Alan Lodwick said: “these events were not a meaningful consultation, least of all about the big issues of the democratic illegitimacy of the LEP or the arbitrary and subjective numbers generated by the SEP. They were part of a crude PR exercise in generating an illusion of consent to a deeply damaging and dishonest promotion of vested business and property interests.”

OxLEP – the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Parternship, tasked with driving forward forced economic growth in the county, held a series of workshops over the past fortnight with the purpose of engaging the public in the SEP ‘Refresh’. But as Peter Jay and Alan Lodwick quite rightly point out in their letter to the press, “The plan is clear: to impose this economic plan on Oxfordshire come hell or high water; and no burbling about democracy, localism or the public interest is going to be allowed to get in the way.”

Read the letter in full below.
Read more …→

Gladman have now submitted a formal planning application for 60 homes on greenfield land to north of Didcot Road, in the village of Harwell.

Keep Harwell Rural strongly object to this proposed development since it would erode the last green barrier between Harwell and Didcot.

Read more …→

The Oxford Green Belt Network March 2016 Newsletter is now available.

The lastest newsletter provides a round-up of current threats to the Oxford Green Belt. 

The picture presented is one of relentless efforts to develop in the Green Belt.

Read more …→

Developers Blenheim Estate and Pye Homes whose plan to build more than 1,500 homes on the edge of Woodstock was turned down have proposed another, smaller development.

The developers now want to put up 280 properties on a smaller site, on land South East of Woodstock.

About 900 residents in Woodstock have received a leaflet informing them of the scheme, but many are sceptical and fear the number of homes could steadily grow.Read more …→

The Friends of Lye Valley campaign group have pledged to protect Warren Meadow which lies next to the Lye Valley nature reserve in Oxford after development plans were given the go-ahead.

Friends of Lye Valley secretary Heather Armitage said residents were “bitterly disappointed” after city councillors approved plans to build 10 homes on the meadow east of Warren Crescent.

She added councillors have pledged to “call in” the application, allowing planning officials to review the proposals and give the group more time to voice their concerns.

Ms Armitage said it was vital to protect this fragile habitat, known by residents as Warren Meadow, since it is a rainwater catchment area for springs which go down to the 8,000-year-old Lye Valley Fen.

She added: “Developing could be detrimental for this very rare habitat that is so precious but we don’t know because it would be an experiment.”

Read more …→