08/11/11….Battle of the Thame housing sites goes on

THE planning inspector currently looking at where thousands of new homes will be built across the district, including a minimum of 775 for Thame, has been taking evidence from the various Thame protagonists.

As part of his ‘Examination for Soundness’ of the district council’s Core Strategy for future development to 2026, representatives from several of Thame’s Residents Associations, prospective developers and landowners waiting to see if the final decision will make them multi-millionaires, spoke at last Wednesday’s session.

The three options that the Inspector will have to eventually decide between are whether Site F, previously the pig farm opposite Lord Williams’s school in Oxford Road will take 600 new homes, whether the same number will be built on site D, part of the greenfield site between Thame Park Road Cuttlebrook, or, Thame Town Council’s and some residents’ groups preferred option, the houses spread around a number of smaller sites.

The arguments generally continued along previous lines, concerns over inadequate control of flooding on Site F, increased traffic to and from the site to the town centre, traffic congestion, the relative effects on the Landscape of sites D and F, whether or not sufficient infrastructure can be made available from each option and the relative effects on community cohesiveness, the town’s economy and age demographic.

Further details about the Examination to date, future hearings and all documents relating to it, can be viewed on South Oxfordshire District Council’s website http://www.southoxon.gov.uk/services-and-advice/planning-and-building/planning-policy/core-strategy/core-strategy-examination