THE painfully slow progress of work to draw up a comprehensive Local Plan to guide development in West Oxfordshire is highlighted by our report today on the idea of a park-and-ride site at Eynsham.
Land agents Smiths Gore put forward the idea for a park-and-ride centre four years ago in an early round of consultation on the district council’s draft Local Plan.
A final draft of the plan will not emerge until some time next year, while the district council awaits the new strategic housing market assessment for Oxfordshire.
Even then, there will have to be further consultation and revision before the plan is formally adopted and can give clarity to development of all kinds in our communities until the end of the 2020s.
In the meantime, there remains the risk of speculative housing proposals from developers hoping to take advantage of the absence of a comprehensive strategy to push their pet projects, along with the potential for such schemes to add to the pressure on local services, not least transport.
Park-and-ride buses from Eynsham could help to ease pressure on the A40 and clearly merit further study but this must be as part of a comprehensive long-term effort to address the district’s transport needs, not another piecemeal intervention.
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