Opposition growing to Thame housing development

A petition of signatures from people opposed to houses being built on land adjacent to Elms Park in Thame, is growing, and the man leading the opposition has now written to English Heritage, and copied the letter to all Town and District Councillors. He now wants to inform the general public and to invite them to add their names to the petition by emailing their support to:  elmspetition@hotmail.co.uk 

The Elms field where the proposed housing development will be, as seen from the air

The man behind the campaign is Peter Webb, who lives in Thame. His letter reads:

” ‘Dear Councillor,
 The Elms Petition Group would like you to be aware of the substantial opposition which exists in regard to housing development in Elms Field, Thame. Please be aware that, during the Thame Plan consultation process, 82% of people who responded on the subject of building in Elms Field were against the idea. Why did the Plan Group ignore this?
 
“We should make you aware also that the Thame Mayor is being served notice under the Freedom of Information Act, to respond to requests for information relating to un-minuted meetings, agendas and participants etc. relating to the unneeded inclusion of Elms Field as a site for development within the Thame Plan. The following letter, sent to English Heritage yesterday is self explanatory.’
 
“Dear Mr. Peats,

This letter is from the 500, so far, residents of Thame who have signed a petition against development on Elms Field.

Your email of the 31st July to one of our number, states that you were informed by the developer’s then agent, the Nash partnership, that the land to the East was in different ownership in the early 19th century. This is surely not so and we find it surprising that you have not asked for a copy of the 1826 document which, we have told you, shows the house and all the 13-odd acre field in the ownership of a Paul Blackall.

You have also been advised that we have a complete record of ownership, from then up to the present day, and the only change that occurred was the gifting of some 3 acres, by Leonard Purser, to Thame, to create a Town Park.

And yet you don’t want to review this data? Neither are you willing to insist that the Nash partnership send you a copy of the material they presented to you in the presence of the (then) South Oxfordshire District Council Conservation Officer, Jamie Preston.

It is quite unacceptable that Nash can resist giving you a copy of the material they presented to you, on the basis that they no longer work for the developer who now owns The Elms. You should have obtained a copy for your records at the time you met with Nash but are surely entitled to insist that you be given a copy now. The current lack of a relationship between Nash and the developer is completely immaterial.

The fact is, your letter of the 25th October 2012, to the Thame Town Clerk assessed The Elms and the field as a valuable survivor of the mini estates that were common in small towns like Thame in the 19th century. The field has long been, and still is, a green lung in the centre of Thame. Is it not the job of English Heritage to preserve such green space? your letter is quite specific in emphasising that the field area both to the South and to the East are important to the setting of the Elms and you record that SODC Conservation took action in 2006 to extend the Conservation Area to include the Field and Park. You repeat their statement that the Park and Field together represent an “Important open space” in Thame.

Your letter was quite firm in finding the development proposal “deeply damaging”. So what has changed and why are you unwilling to examine whether there is evidence of manipulation in this whole affair?

It should be pointed out also that the setting of The Poplars, also a listed building and until the Toovey sale in 1928 in the same ownership as The Elms, is adversely affected by the proposed development of the Eastern part of the field. Surely ownership of the field is not relevant to that fact.

You should be made aware also that the meeting you and Jamie Preston attended, where, due to suspect information provided by Nash, you accepted the possibility of building 35 houses, has no minutes to record who said what. The Town Clerk refuses to explain this lack. Who was present? The developer? Who else? Why is this, so far as we know, the only meeting held with a developer?

Then, why did the Town Council later call a second meeting, where they upped the number of house to a maximum of 45? Who arranged that meeting? Why are the minutes so lacking in content? Why was one Councillor who said he was against any development in Elms field told (by whom is not recorded) “That is not a Council matter”. Also why does the Town Clerk now claim that it wasn’t a Council meeting , when the so-called minutes are clearly headed “Meeting of the Thame Town Council”?

Why was the site being considered at all? There was no need for it since the potential housing sites suggested to the Town Council by SODC were more that adequate to accommodate the 775 houses allocated to Thame. Each of those sites had developers associated and awaiting a decision by the Council as to how the houses would be allocated. Did any of those developers attend meetings with the Plan Group to push their sites? We think not.

It doesn’t directly concern your opinion of the importance of retaining Elms field as an open space, either as a pasture, as it has traditionally been or in some other suitable form but, as background, you might be interested to know that the Town Clerk went into print to tell citizens that there would be no point in voting “No” to the town plan because 775 houses were going to be built anyway. So, no point voting at all. Which many didn’t. The point is that the 775 was not the issue. Where to build was the issue and the “Yes for Thame Campaign” leaflet makes no mention at all of where the Councillors had decided buildings would go. So people had no idea what they were voting for. That same leaflet is inaccurate and misleading in several other ways, which are not the subject of this letter.

In conclusion, You are asked, by a rather substantial number of citizens, to re-examine your position. Were you misled and should you reinstate the opinions contained in your letter to the Town Clerk?

A copy of this letter is being sent to all Town and SODC Councillors, SODC Planning, and to the press. Thame Councillors should ask themselves whether they have been unduly influenced by interested parties and also how they have come to accept the idea of 44 houses jockeying to get to and from the Elms Field site via Nelson Street and Southern Road, when they turned down the idea of 7 houses on the Old Dairy site, due to the fact that those same two streets are severely congested.”

Signed, The Elms Petition Group

Anyone who wishees to join the petition against The Elms development, can do so by emailing a list of petitioners (over 18s) together with a house address to elmspetition@hotmail.co.uk. For people who do not have access to the web, they can drop a note of their support, with names and address, in an envelope adressed to Elms Petition, at Petcare in the Cornmarket, Thame.

Addresses outside OX9 will be listed within the petitioner list as “Friends of Thame”

LINKS to previous news items on this topic: https://www.thame.net/?p=7949
                                                                                   https://www.thame.net/?p=7950