Green grid 'to protect city'

3:52pm Thursday 11th October 2007

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A 'GREEN Grid' is being proposed for Oxford to protect the city's dwindling green spaces.

With the Green Belt expected to be reviewed to allow an urban extension south of Oxford, a new approach to limit development in Oxford is being urged on local councils.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England says a 'Green Grid' needs to be drawn up across the city and into the neighbouring green belt to stop meadows sports grounds and nature reserves disappearing in a piecemeal fashion.

It would involve the formal recognition of a series of green corridors, linking areas such as the Lye Valley to Headington Quarry and Shotover.

Some of the green corridors within the Green Grid already exist, while others would need to be created.

The CPRE also says there is already widespread public support for an 'East Oxford Arc', linking Christ Church Meadow and the threatened Warneford Meadow and Southfield Golf Course.

With some conservationists and councillors believing that a proposed 4,000-home development, near Grenoble Road, is now inevitable, the CPRE can expect its call for fresh thinking to be given serious consideration.

The CPRE has called on Oxford City Council to work with neighbouring district councils to examine its feasibility.

Andy Boddington, of Oxfordshire CPRE, said: "With both the Green Belt and green spaces within the city at their most threatened for decades, it is time to think more strategically.

"The Green Grid that we are calling for would link up the green spaces that matter for people and wildlife. It would be a long-term project. It would take vision and determination to develop it, as well as extensive negotiations with landowners and tenants.

"One of the striking deficiencies in the draft core strategy for Oxford is the way it treats green spaces, meadows, sports ground and nature reserves are looked at in isolation, as a list of sites rather than a network of interlinked spaces."

The CPRE, which has strongly opposed the Grenoble Road proposals, fears the Green Belt had come to be viewed as something outside the city.

Mr Boddington said: "Many people do not realise that 52 per cent of the city is open space and 27 per cent is in the Green Belt.

"A grid would seek to 'green the Green Belt' close to the city by developing nature reserves, community woodlands and recreational use. But it would certainly require a commitment as strong and as far-sighted as that of the city councillors in the mid-1950s, who set out to create a Green Belt around Oxford."

Debbie Dance, director of Oxford Preservation Trust, said the idea deserved to be looked at.

She said: "The green fingers that run through the city are what give Oxford its character. Anything that ensures that they are kept and made accessible deserves wholehearted support."

John Goddard, the leader of Oxford City Council, said:" There are large slices of Green Belt through the city because most of the large green spaces are on flood plain."

He feared it would prove impossible to link green spaces across the city without knocking down buildings in already developed areas.

But Mr Goddard believed high-quality green areas could be incorporated into the city's Green Belt as part of a major review that is now expected.

He believed this would more than compensate for the loss of the Magdalen College land near Grenoble Road, developed for new homes.

"If the CPRE are now accepting the need for a Green Belt review, that is fine," he said.

Meanwhile, the idea of a radical review of the Green Belt's 50-year-old role as a buffer zone between town and country is to be considered by the Government's environmental advisory body.

The board of Natural England's met this week to discuss "a mature examination of Green Belt principles to see if and how they can evolve to fit 21st-century circumstances".