Plans would ‘contravene agreed Neighbourhood Plan’ claims Heritage watchdog

ENGLISH Heritage, the leading, national advisory organisation concerned with preserving and protecting the country’s historic places, has said that it cannot support published plans to build houses on land at The Elms in Thame.

Meadow land at The Elms that could one day be the site of new homes for Thame

The planning application for development at The Elms, is opposed by many in the town and is the subject of a petition to have it removed from the Thame Neighbourhood Plan. This latest criticism from English Heritage will be a further blow to the ambitions of the owner of The Elms, Simon Vickers, whose company, Rectory Homes Ltd, has applied for planning permission to build 45 new homes (including 18 ‘affordable’ homes) on the park land around his Listed house, the creation of new public open space; provision of new vehicle access from Elms Road and a new pedestrian/cycle link on to Upper High Street with associated infrastructure works and landscaping.

An English Heritage spokesman said: “We became involved with The Elms two years ago when the site was proposed for development as part of the Thame Neighbourhood Plan. We raised concerns at the time that housing on this site could be harmful to the grade II listed villa and the surrounding conservation area. However, further investigations suggested that the eastern part of the site is not as closely linked with the main listed building as we thought, so we accepted limited housing there. The Plan did state though that the area to the south of The Elms should remain undeveloped.

“Recently, the site’s owners produced new proposals which involve housing on the land to the south of The Elms. We are not able to support these plans as they currently stand as they would contravene the agreed Neighbourhood Plan and be harmful to the setting of this important historic listed building.”

A spokesman for Barton Willmore, planning consultants on behalf of developer Rectory Homes, has defended the application, and said: “We have worked closely with Thame Town Council and South Oxfordshire District Council to create a scheme that will be of the highest quality and sensitive to its surroundings. It includes a total of 18 affordable homes and will open up a brand new park for local people to enjoy on land that has never before been accessible to the public.

“In addition, a further planning application has been submitted for a series of improvements to Elms Park, which will be funded through the development of the Elms.”

In a previous interview with Thame.Net, Simon Vickers insisted that Rectory Homes would “respect all of the ecological, all of the archaeological, all of the aesthetic [concerns] and satisfy all of the statuatory authorities.”

The application will be considered by the Town Council in early September. The council will then send its comments to South Oxfordshire District Council which, as the planning authority will decide the outcome, taking into consideration its own Local Plan and the legally adopted Thame Neighbourhood Plan. Public Consultation on the plans for The Elms will close on September 4, 2014.

SEE previous reports on this subject: LINK  https://www.thame.net/?s=The+Elms. The report headed ‘Parking the issue – Elms parties have their say‘,  may be particularly helpful in clarifying the position of all the antagonists in this battle.