Clear advantages of Carterton housing sites (From Witney Gazette)

Absolutely right! This plan provides the opportunity to develop the REEMA Sites and the town centre, which Carterton Town Council must be in agreement with. It has also given CTC the additional housing they requested.

Actually CTC have got 1,850 houses, when they asked for 1,000. They should be careful what they ask for! I notice that CTC are asking for the town's views. They are promoting the allocation of more employment land. What is the point of that when there is unused land in the town. We need employers and not more wasted land.

It’s good that Carterton Town Council have published a newsletter inviting comments.

In the past the town council has supported an allocation in the west for all the wrong reasons. They did so because, as the town council newsletter states: “we felt it would have less impact on neighbouring villages, provide further scope for long-term expansion, would be more likely to draw people into the town centre and would support Carterton Community College by increasing the catchment area.”

Forget about the villages, the building of 1,000 homes in the next Local Plan will have a major impact on Carterton and its environment because it will destroy an area where people from all over the town enjoy with their families. It will also create a precedent (which obviously some town councillors want) for up to 4,000 homes to eventually stretch up the valley of the Shill Brook to Shilton. It will add more traffic. If the houses are built on the REEMA sites and at Carterton East the children living in them can go to Carterton Community College. The Carterton East land may be in Brize Norton parish (Burford School catchment area) but as with Shilton Park once it is built it is within Carterton and then it will be part of the CCC catchment area. This red herring has been put about by people who should know better and it really stinks!

People ought to write letters or emails to the town council. Hurry they must be in by 14 December.

Hopefully, in order to be totally transparent, the town council will publish them on their web site. We might then see those “thousands of people” who support the west allocation, as claimed by HappyJack of Witney in earlier on-line correspondence.

You wonder how much time CTC will have to incorporate people's views. According to the Town Crier, they are closing their own consultation on 14th, discussing the results on 18th and WODC's consultation closes on 19th. That gives them a day to ponder their views on something that has massive consequences for the town. Perhaps they have already made up their minds! It certainly seemed like it yesterday when they allowed a couple of chaps to stop people as they went in to the WODC roadshow and try and persuade then to support Carterton West. Not exactly an unbiased stance.