Huge housing plan set to be unveiled (From The Oxford Times)

Huge housing plan set to be unveiled

1:05pm Friday 6th January 2012 in Wantage By Ben Wilkinson

The plan

Plans for 2,500 new homes at Grove Airfield are set to be revealed this month.

Developer Persimmon Homes has pledged to put forward a planning application by the end of January.

Vale of White Horse District Council is relying on the scheme to ease its housing shortage, but the development has been delayed for five years.

Council leader Matthew Barber welcomed the company’s pledge, and said: “I am very pleased that Persimmon Homes is planning to bring forward an application.

“We have been at this stage before but we are closer now than ever to getting an application submitted.”

The council needs to provide about 800 more homes to catch up on a target set five years ago.

There are more than 2,000 households waiting for affordable housing in the district.

Mr Barber added that if the planning application for Grove Airfield had still not been submitted by the end of 2012 the council would have to start looking at other sites to meet the shortage.

He said: ”We would need to draw up our own plans if it does not look like Grove is going to happen, but we are doing everything we can to work with the developers to get it under way.”

The development is expected to take 16 years to finish, with 500 homes coming in the first five years.

It has been delayed due to land ownership issues.

When complete, it will double the population of the village, provide about 1,000 affordable homes, and bring new roads and schools.

Persimmon Homes special projects managing director Richard Briggs said: “As developers, we are very committed to this planning application and we are hopeful that it will be submitted later this month.

“The delay in the application is frustrating to us as developers and relates to the complicated land ownership issues of the site. However, we are hopeful that these issues have now been resolved.”

The Vale also wants to relax planning laws to allow house building in villages to catch up on the housing shortage, a move which has worried environmental campaigners.

Mr Barber said the council’s controlling Conservative group would want to avoid large housing developments in the future. He said: “The fact that it has taken so long to bring (Grove Airfield) along is a good example why we wouldn’t want to go down this road again.

“It is inevitable with this scale of development.”