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Bicester chosen for eco-town

9:36am Thursday 16th July 2009 in


Bicester has been confirmed of one of the sites shortlisted by the Government for an eco-town.

And, as predicted, a proposal for 15,000 homes at Weston Otmoor has been rejected.

It will mean celebrations for pressure group Weston Front and its supporters and dismay for villagers who live near the successful site north-west of Bicester.

Cherwell District Council offered 345 hectares of farmland at North West Bicester as an alternative to the Weston-on-the-Green proposal.

The decision over which sites were given the green light was announced in Parliament this morning.

Plans for the site — the equivalent of 383 football pitches — is expected to house 10,000 people and could include a monorail, three schools and green businesses.

There is also a proposal for a bio-mass plant and forest area which could produce enough energy for homes and businesses at the eco site as well as a large area of Bicester.

Residents would be encouraged to work on site and the council hopes to attract new businesses, possibly green organisations — to create up to 5,000 jobs.

There could be two primary and one secondary schools, state-of-the-art eco homes and shops.

Cherwell's proposal does not include motoring restrictions, but the layout would be designed to encourage walking, cycling or public transport use.

But councillors Catherine and Andrew Fulljames, who represent the villages effected, condemned the move.

They said: “This is a bad day for Bicester.

“Our real complaint is the whole thing has been dealt with in an underhand way with no consultation with local people barring and invited few.

“We feel very strongly that our electorate is opposed to this eco development “They are building 5,000 homes on a site with a rail embankment going through it — it does seem amazingly stupid because there is going to be this side and that side.”

Development consortium P3Eco, made up of architects, designers and housing association A2Dominion, was set up to fund and facilitate eco towns.

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Comments(13)

Nick Mawer says...
10:05am Thu 16 Jul 09

As a District Councillor for Bicester North and Town Councillor for Bicester West, I welcome the news. The Cllrs Fulljames are wrong if they say it is a bad day for Bicester, it is not. There are some in the villages for whom it might be a bad day, but for those who operate service industries in the villages, or who want to live near to where they grew up in affordable housing, it is still a good day.
Can I reassure the people of Bicester, that councillors will be working hard to mitigate the effects of the new development on the existing residents of Bicester, and to take forward positive ideas about what could be added to the new development.

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snert says...
5:04pm Thu 16 Jul 09

10,000 people... I don't care how eco-friendly the development will be, they will still own cars and need to park them and the road network is passed breaking point on the road into Bicester from there. Bicester Village cripples the road network on a weekend. How is the massive development going to cater for the large influx of cars. Everyone keeps saying that the development will be eco friendly and promote public transport, bicycles and walking. That's great but people will still have a car.

Let's see, positive ideas... don't waste money on what people don't want or need? Put the money into finally redeveloping Bicester town centre? The redevelopment project is a long running joke as it has gone nowhere. The town infrastructure cannot take that many new residents. There are few decent shops in the town. Chesterton will soon be a suburb of Bicester rather than a nice village.

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js3 says...
6:50pm Thu 16 Jul 09

"councillors will be working hard to mitigate the effects of the new development on the existing residents of Bicester" - in other words "There's going to be a negative effect on Bicester, and we're going to try to smooth you guys over".

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Nick Mawer says...
9:41am Fri 17 Jul 09

snert, you are right people will still have a car, you are right about Bicester Village as well, but you will see improvements in the road network even before the Eco extension goes ahead, and I am not just talking about Junction 9.

The Town Centre re-development is an entirely separate issue. Cherwell has already invested a significant amount of time and money in the project, but it is a commercially lead project and the global recession has made delivering the new town significantly more difficult. However, I believe that work will probably start on moving the brook before the end of the year. One of the positive aspects of the new eco development means that there will be more "decent" shops in the town centre.

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Nick Mawer says...
9:45am Fri 17 Jul 09

JS 3 There will be construction traffic - and we will try and make sure that this does not cause disruption on our existing roads.

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Stephen WJ says...
1:13pm Fri 17 Jul 09

What's happened to the Tories locally? Don't they understand that a dominant party that loses touch with what the electorate wants usually ends up in opposition - just look nationally for the model!

This is the wrong development in the wrong place. Anyone that thinks this will be a panacea for lots of infrastructure development during the next 10 years of 'post-Brown debt payback' can think again!

If it does go ahead (heaven forbid) and the 5k houses contribute to the local housing plan allocation for the town, does this mean the SW Option is dead - as we don't need it to fill our 'quota' - bet not!

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Nick Mawer says...
1:41pm Fri 17 Jul 09

Stephen,

I must emphasise that the NW Bicester development has vigorous cross party support. Cllr Sibley was very keen to emphasise this when I was speaking to him this week.

You are correct, unfortunately the SW Bicester houses were built for a different quota so will be going ahead.

Without NW Bicester, we would be getting more houses anyway, and without any of the Government money that is going into this development.


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bicester born and breed says...
2:50pm Fri 17 Jul 09

Dear Councillor
You may have cross party support, but that is the only support for this scheme. You do not have support from Bicester or any of the villages.
Since Cherwell council was created it has been biased towards Banbury, and now the council are trying to bribe Bicester with the so called extra money this scheme would bring.

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Gimmerman says...
3:14pm Fri 17 Jul 09

This decision has reallt got me angry. With the SW option and now this NW Eco town, Chesterton is fast becoming suburb of Bicester. After all the re-assurances of the Cherwell council saying that the SW Option will not affect Chesterton, it goes and plants a new development at the top! No councillors words will make me think otherwise. It stinks! Bicester has a HUGE brown field site up for sale RIGHT NOW (RAF BICESTER) That could be used for this ECO town as it has existing buildings and Infrastructure and its right on the Bicester ring road. It would be ecological to build here as the disruption would be less and you wouldn't be taking greenfield and farmland away.

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hagar1 says...
3:23pm Fri 17 Jul 09

Again Gimmerman is worried about dear old Chesterton - doesn't he realise using RAF Bicester could impact on North Bicester, Launton, caversfield, Stratton Audley but then again I don't suppose he cares about anybody but himself. If you look up the definition of NIMBY in the dictionary I'm sure it would say GIMMERMAN!

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Gimmerman says...
4:47pm Fri 17 Jul 09

Hagar

How would using RAF Bicester impact all those other area's? The land exists with buildings on it, there is solid infrastructure (this being water supply/electricity/s
ewer drainage/roads etc etc) and the Bicester ring road just outside the gates of the place. Where they are planning to put the Eco town is all b roads meaning that land is going to be ripped up and tarmac'd. Its not a case of NIMBYism its just why not use a site that can be redeveloped easily and have less of an impact on the ecology and land scape of Oxfordshire when there is a site ALREADY built on that people accept being there.

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hagar1 says...
5:10pm Fri 17 Jul 09

Gimmerman

Using the same logic why not build it next door to Chesterton? Upgrade the roads and bob's your uncle straight onto the M40! Little bit of rejigging of the infastructure on YOUR door step and everything is sorted. Do you honestly think that the existing infrastructure on RAF Bicester could cope? Of course it can't! It would need replacing, whereas extending the services from Greenwood Homes would be a doddle. There are merits/demerits to every solution but you seem to think you have no responsibility to anybody but yourself.

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bicester_lady says...
12:45am Sat 18 Jul 09

I think it's a bad decision for Bicester! I think there is enough people living in the town already. I wonder how many who made this decision actually live here and will have to deal with the increased traffic and people! (As if it's not bad enough already!) As a tax paying resident of Bicester, I don't recall being asked my opinions about this! As a side note, why not redevelop RAF Upper Heyford, a place that has already been concreted over instead of destroying more of our nature?

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