Flooding at fields off Grenoble Road over the last weekend in January 2021. THERE are concerns over the site for potentially thousands of new homes after the fields became inundated by floodwater over the weekend. Land off Grenoble Road, Oxford, has been earmarked for between 1,700 and 3,000 new homes in a controversial housing plan. But some of the fields where the new homes could be built as a result of the South Oxfordshire Local Plan were left underwater over the weekend, as Oxfordshire bore witness to flooding for the third weekend this year. A local householder who did not want to be named, took pictures of water on the fields and expressed fears over whether they would be suitable for new houses.
Nine councillors abstained, including all but one of the Green Party group. Former Green councillor Sue Roberts resigned from the party to sit as an independent councillor after voting against the Plan. Sarah Gray, formerly a Lib Dem, also resigned from her party after she voted against the Plan. The two have now joined former Conservative councillor Elizabeth Gillespie in a new group on the council called the South Oxfordshire Residents Team, or SORT. SORT describe themselves as ‘working co-operatively across South Oxfordshire Council, to protect and restore our unique and ancient heritage and our natural world, to reduce carbon emissions, and to stand up for the people of South Oxfordshire’.
A HOUSING plan detailing where 30,000 homes can be built in South Oxfordshire has been approved after a year-long delay. The South Oxfordshire Local Plan, described as a ‘plan that no-one wanted’, was adopted by the district’s councillors after a tense and long meeting held on Thursday night. Many of the new estates in the plan will now be built around the outskirts of Oxford, including on sites at Grenoble Road and near the Sandhills estate. Others include plans to develop Chalgrove Airfield into a ‘new town’, and extra housing near Culham. The council’s Liberal Democrat-Green majority had hoped to scrap the plan and overhaul it due to concerns about how many new homes were being built on Green Belt land, countryside which is supposed to be free from development.