Proposed development at Rushy Bank, Forest Road

Tue 31 Mar 2015, 21:50 (last edited on Wed 1 Apr 2015, 10:55)

I started this thread - it feels like a long time ago! - with a post on behalf of the Friends of the Evenlode Valley.

The group has now sent a detailed planning assessment to WODC which should be up on their website soon. I will post its conclusions separately but among the points it makes are that the group do not question the motives of those involved in the Beacon Project (in wanting to build their own homes) nor the laudable objectives of the proposed YDUK facility. What they question is the choice of site.

That said, the scheme is said to be 'community led' and is partly portrayed as providing homes for local people. That normally works well enough for affordable housing. It is irrefutable however that the 'open market' value of the self/custom build properties would be considerably higher than the combined costs of the plot and building the moment they are completed. What is not clear is how those properties could or would be kept available 'in perpetuity' at a discount for 'local' people. That is more of a legal question than a planning one. If nothing else, it poses difficulties of definition, enforcement, what happens if there is no 'qualifying' buyer when owners want to sell or what happens with the discount if (when) a property has to be sold to a 'non-local'. I don't pretend to have the answers to those questions but the expectation must be that, over time, the 'local' connection would be lost. Not to mention the 10 full price dwellings to be built from the outset. What importance you attach to these aspects is for you to decide.

To comment on another point raised, there is of course no 'principle' that a town should only exist on one side of a river. Ah mean, sarf Larndon wuudn't exist otherwise nah wuud it?! Or norf, depending on your preference if you have one. But here in Charlbury we have successive WODC assessments commenting on the quality and sensitivity of the landscape around the western side of the town in particular - and it's that (among other things) which makes the FEV group oppose this development. As others have said, the fact that this site is available at an 'affordable' price simply reflects its unsuitability for development, as WODC have already found.