100 homes set to go ahead (From Witney Gazette)

100 homes set to go ahead

9:00am Wednesday 19th April 2006 in Witney

PLANNERS are urging the go ahead for 100 new homes on a controversial site at Eynsham.

The development control committee at West Oxfordshire District Council has voted to recommend that the site, between the town and the B4449, should stay as part of planning policy and strategies until 2011.

The new homes were included in the Local Plan last year on the advice of a Government inspector after residents in Woodstock campaigned for smaller developments in both towns rather than one large development in Woodstock.

But 123 people, mostly local residents, wrote to the council to object to the inclusion of the site, known as Eynsham East, in the plan.

Resident Alan Minto, who lives in nearby Orchard Close, said: "The most annoying thing about this is they can ignore the conservation area. If I went in and said I want to build a brick shed in my garden they would be down on me like a ton of bricks. There's no one that wants this except the council."

Council senior planning officer, Tina Rowley, told the committee: "We all accept if new housing is built on the east of Eynsham it will change the character of that area. It doesn't necessarily mean that change is bad and will adversely affect the conservation area."

She also said that, if not included in the 2011 plan, the site was likely to be included in the next development plan. Eynsham councillor David Rossiter proposed holding another inquiry into whether the site should be included, but the proposal supported by all five Liberal Democrat councillors present was defeated.

Mr Rossiter said the situation had changed since last year because planning permission for 40 affordable homes for local people at Chilbridge road in Eynsham had since been granted, and because Oxfordshire County Council had since revealed that the B4449, which would provide access to the Eynsham East site, was one of the 20 worst accident blackspots in the district.

The committee will recommend to the council's cabinet that Eynsham East stay in the 2011 Local Plan. The cabinet will consider the matter today and a final decision will be made at a full council meeting on April 26.