Resident warns against development as sewage flows over path

A Thame resident has spoken of his fears for the consequences of building on the old pig farm in Oxford Road, Thame, one of the designated sites in the Thame Neighbourhood Plan.

Photo taken from Ford bridge on Oxford Rd looking west across Cuttle Brook field towards by-pass 11 am this morning – by Barry Yates

Barry Yates, a member of the Oxford Road Residents Association, which opposed Site F, as it is known in the TNP, to being adopted as suitable for development in the district council’s Core Strategy, said the following:

“We have lived here for 30 years and myself in Thame for nearly all my life. This is the worst flooding ever [I am too young to remember 1947].  The entire bank of the Cuttle brook has never been broken before. The water is up to the top of the Oxford Road bridge, with nowhere else to go but into the field! The field next to our house in Cuttlebrook Gardens is completely flooded up to the edge of our garden fence.”

“Water is flowing at the foot of the hill in the Oxford Road out of drains and from a manhole cover by Waterloo Cottage. There is raw sewerage, mainly on the path, spilling out. It happened last time it rained heavily; the drains cannot cope. This is one of the main reasons we opposed any development on site F, and so vigorously against 600 houses there under the initial SODC core strategy. With 203 allocated under the Thame Neighbourhood Plan as a minimum, with this possibly increasing to 326 if the Lord Williams’s amalgamation does not proceed, the impact on more widespread flooding cannot be overestimated. “

The adoption of Site F was very controversial during the consultation stage of the Core Strategy and the TNP, particularly when Thame Town Council switched its preference from Site D to Site F, attracting opposition from residents groups such as The Oxford Road RA and residents of The Renaissance (Rycotewood site), over flooding fears.

The Developer has always maintained that flooding on the proposed site could be prevented with the use of containment ponds in the lower corner of the site.