‘No more extra homes’ says town council

THAME Town Council is to make is very clear to the local planning authority (SODC) that the town has already been allocated ‘its fair share’ of new homes for the future and will not take any more.

Image courtesy of http://www.nihe.gov.uk/

The decision to make Thame Town Council’s feelings known was made at Tuesday’s council meeting, when the SODC’s preferred options for building 5,900 more homes in the district, as part of the Consultation around the Local Plan 2031, were discussed. Thame has already been allocated 775 new houses in the Core Strategy and has accounted for these in the Thame Neighbourhood Plan. South Oxfordshire District Council has been told to find these additional homes following a recently published, government commissioned report, known as SHMAR (Strategic Housing Market Assessment Report) which concluded that the need for new homes in the district will be greater than originally estimated. (Read more HERE )  The report specifically identifies a need for 965 additional affordable homes per year in South Oxfordshire, throughout the period, 2011-2031.

The various options for providing the extra homes, laid out in the Consultation, can be seen HERE (though the public consultation ended on July 23)

The town council agreed to register its doubts about the validity of the way the new numbers were arrived at (a view shared by others, including CPRE – See LINK, to ask that so-called ‘Windfall sites’ – that is those not planned for but which come forward for planning permission during the period eg ‘in-fill’ on private land etc – be included as part of any of the options adopted, and that any developments should be sustainable in regard to jobs, communications and infrastructure.

In a statement today the town council has said that its preferred options are that additional housing should be dispersed among the smaller towns and villages or to be integrated into the ‘Science Vale’ located near Didcot and Abingdon.

WHAT THOSE AT THE MEETING SAID:

Cllr Vaughan Humphries: “It would make sense to start from scratch with a new settlement and a by-pass around Watlington.” (Option D – North of Benson, towards Thame)

Cllr Peter Lambert: “What are the chances that SHMAR will be thrown out? Everything keeps changing! How are we supposed to keep up?”

Jake Collinge, the town council’s Planning Consultant: “Councillors have to decide whether the proposals could deliver more infrastructure and affordable homes for Thame or whether the town has had enough.”

Cllr David Dodds: “The whole thing is absolutely wrong! The inexorable growth in the South East needs to be addressed nationally. We cannot keep growing, and growing in this rural area. What happens after 2031? I am afraid we will become ‘Greater Oxfordshire.  Also, these houses are being planned for, but are not being built. It is a nonsense!”

Cllr Mike Dyer: “We know we have the community behind us.”

Cllr Vaughan Humphries: “At what point does saturation mean that a market town ceases to be a market town?”