10/10/11….’The Core Strategy Remains A Threat’
Dear Editor, The meetings about the Thame Town Plan held over the past weekend were informative and thorough and I think the Town Council is to be congratulated on providing them. I found it especially useful ? and worrying – to discover that South Oxfordshire District Council?s Core Strategy is NOT dead. There have been reports in the past on the SODC preference for the pig farm off the A418 as the site for some 800 new houses, and on the Town Council?s preference for Site C in the South of the town, close to the Chinnor Road roundabout.
As I understood the meetings I attended at the weekend, the Core Strategy is to be the subject of an Inquiry, probably next Spring. The weekend consultations were held with a view to Thame?s drawing up its own Neighbourhood Plan, under legislation yet to be enacted. The idea is to have serious and convincing local proposals ready to put before the Planning Inspector, as an alternative to the Core Strategy.
I am happy to be corrected on any of this information, if I have misunderstood it. It is very complicated.
I was impressed at the extent of the detail of the weekend study and the consultants? grasp of Thame?s character and needs.
To sum up: as I understand the situation, it still remains a fact that Thame could be instructed to build 600 homes on the pig farm site, with the ?privilege? of deciding itself where a further 175 homes would be built. Everything depends on the Inspector?s ruling and on our Council?s ability to convince him or her that our alternative, when it is drawn up, is better.
A lot seems to be hanging on the new consultation. About 400 people attended these meetings. I wonder how many of those unable to attend are aware that the Core Strategy may be lying down for a while. But it is very much alive.
I think few may have argued against the need to provide homes for future generations. I certainly do not. But a disproportionate block influx of say, 2000 people, with their cars, maybe two per family, would put the quality of life, the traffic flow, the various services and above all the unique good humour and manners of the people of Thame to great strain.
Norman Brand
6 Fanshawe Road, Thame
