The Eco-towns Team
Housing and Growth Programmes
Communities and Local Government
2/H9 Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU
Dear Sirs, 13th June 2008
In response to your consultation on eco-towns, we should be grateful if you would record the opposition of the Oxford Green Belt Network (OGBN) to the above proposal for an eco-town at Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire. OGBN exists to protect the Oxford Green Belt from inappropriate forms of development and to promote interest in the benefits of the Green Belt. The reasons for our opposition are set out below.
It is our understanding that the Minister, in introducing the present shortlist in a C&LG News Release on 3rd April announced that "Based on an evaluation of the bids, the Government can today announce no new homes would be built on Green Belt land". More recently we read in the Oxford Times of 6th June that "A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said that the Government would not abandon its earlier promise to protect the Green Belt". We would like to think that this means that the Government will not include Weston Otmoor in the final list of eco-towns since, as we are sure others will already have pointed out, around a quarter of the site of Weston Otmoor is in the Oxford Green Belt. On the face of it, Weston Otmoor is therefore ruled out.
But one has learnt to be wary of political statements. The same spokesman who spoke to the Oxford Times is recorded as saying, "But as we have made clear throughout, no eco-town will build housing on Green Belt land – and this includes the Weston Otmoor proposal". This leads us to believe that other forms of land use than housing could be built on the Green Belt portion of the Weston Otmoor site. We have to ask whether such a compromise is quite honest in the light of the promises we have received that the Green Belt will be protected?
If non-residential uses were to be allowed on the Green Belt part of Weston Otmoor, much of it to the east of the A.34, the most likely options would be recreational, for example sports fields and parks that would be considered justified in view of PPG.2. We are strongly opposed to such development, for two main reasons. Firstly the landscape would be changed from its present semi-natural state to one that is manicured and unnatural and one that would be certain to attract the range of ancillary uses that are associated with modern sports fields such as pavilions, car and coach parking, and floodlighting. In short it would become an urbanised landscape contrary to the whole idea of what the Green Belt is meant to be about.
The second reason is the destructive effect which development of recreational or any such forms of development would have on existing wildlife and protected areas. A portion of the area of Green Belt within the Weston Otmoor site is SSSI but, more than that, this whole area in the upper basin of the River Ray is important for its flower-rich meadows, wet grassland, and associated bird, butterfly and other forms of wildlife. It is a fragile and delicate landscape that would very quickly be destroyed by the drainage and other forms of treatment that are associated with organised recreational development. We hope therefore that you will carefully note the arguments against development put forward by knowledgeable bodies like BBOWT, the nature organisation, and by the Oxfordshire Branch of CPRE. We have to question whether an eco-town that had such a negative impact could be described as ecologically motivated.
Our final observation concerns the likely effect of Weston Otmoor on the town of Bicester. OGBN has supported the County Structure Plan and the South East Plan in their policy of steering housing to the "country towns" such as Bicester in order to take pressure off Oxford and its surroundings and to share OxfordŐs growth potential more evenly throughout the County. Bicester is now beginning to "take-off" in response to these policies but is still in need of investment in infrastructure and services if it is to realise its full potential. It is ideally placed for more growth with its rail services and sites available for development but all of this would be undermined by Weston Otmoor, and Bicester would lose the opportunity to diversify its employment and service base.
In short we believe that Weston Otmoor would be destructive of an important part of the Oxford Green Belt, would result in unnecessary loss of greenfield land (the airfield is largely grassland), is unlikely to be self-sustaining, and would compromise plans at District, County and Regional levels that over many years have sought to produce coherent solutions to the pressures on the Oxford area and the County of Oxfordshire. We hope that the proposal will therefore be rejected by the advisory panel that we understand has been set up to advise the Government in its final choice.
Yours faithfully,
D.I.Scargill