Warning issued on eco-town (From The Oxford Times)
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Warning issued on eco-town
11:55am Thursday 16th July 2009 in News By Sam Mcgregor
Warning: Keith Mitchell
Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith Mitchell has welcomed a new eco-town for north west Bicester but warned the Government it needed proper infrastructure.
He said: “We are delighted that the dreadful Weston Otmoor proposal now seems to be at an end.
“From the very start we knew that it was a highly unrealistic plan and the response of local people was unequivocally negative.
“The North West Bicester proposal is still very much alive.
“Local consultation will follow and it will be interesting to see what local people think.
“If the proposal does go ahead, the county council will work hard to make sure that the Government delivers on promises to provide the key infrastructure to go with the new homes.
“North West Bicester could not be a sustainable community without schools, health services and road and other transport links.
“Our priorities will lie firmly in that domain.”
He added: “We would also be disappointed if the lack of support for the Weston Otmoor proposal was seen as an excuse by Government to avoid committing to serious work at Junction Nine on the M40.
“As we all know, that is a very busy junction and improvements are needed.”
Comments(6)
Nick Mawer
says...
1:42pm Thu 16 Jul 09
Severian, please read the proposals, and you will find that your questions about traffic, and schools are answered. As for green space, 40% of the development at North West Bicester will be green space - that is a lot more than any other part of Bicester.
Let me assure Severian however that the Councils will be working very hard to make sure that promises on transport improvements especially at Junction 9 are kept.
Cllr Nick Mawer
Gimmerman
says...
10:58am Fri 17 Jul 09
Further to your comments i was assured by the planning office of Cherwell district council that this eco town would never be built as it was only to demonstrate that other options were more viable to Weston Otmoor. Now it looks like its going to go ahead. This will be another BIG house building project that is going to happen near chesterton where i live. At no point has there been any discussions with any of the local villagers which are going to be impacted by this new development. There are better sites around Bicester, one of which the MOD/Council has put up for sale which could be developed.
Surely it would be more ecological to develop brown field sites rather than ripping up farmland and greefield sites.
It stinks of hypocrasy.
Nick Mawer
says...
1:29pm Fri 17 Jul 09
I think that we can agree that it would have been preferable if we could have found a suitable brown field site.
Unfortunately any extension to Bicester is going to be near one or more of the outlying villages.
Without the NW extension, then with Government housing targets which are unlikely to change whichever party is in charge, there would have been a very strong chance that the next housing development would have been an extension of the stalled SW development, which I guess would be even more unpalatable to you.
hagar1
says...
3:12pm Fri 17 Jul 09
The Rockabilly Red
says...
1:02am Sun 19 Jul 09
Severian says...
12:52pm Thu 16 Jul 09
At no point did any of these people ask us the people of Bicester if this is what WE want!
Lots of pallying up to the people of Weston, but dumping on Bicester seems to be the order of the day.
No-one has mentioned how the traffic is going to be dealt with (because the people who move there WILL want to have cars), no mention of extra school places, no mention of bottlenecks, local services, the loss of even more green space. All that matters is keeping Weston happy and stuff the rest of you.
So much for democracy.