Building to begin on contentious development site outside a Banbury area village

The pony paddocks on which Hayfield Homes will build 40 eco-homes

Building is about to begin on a contentious 40-home site on pony paddocks outside Adderbury.

Cherwell District Council has now given the green light for the details of the development on the ten-acre site off Berry Hill Road.

The proposal was first designed for 60 homes and Adderbury villagers put up a fierce fight to prevent the greenfield site being built on.

The plan was reduced to 40 homes but this was refused by Cherwell District Council for a number of reasons. A planning inspector overturned this decision because Cherwell could not demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites.

A site plan for the Hayfield development of new homes outside Adderbury

This week housebuilder Hayfield, which announced in February that it had purchased the site, with outline planning consent, from a private landowner and promoter Hollins Strategic Land, says it will begin construction before the end of the year.

The company says the £20m development will deliver a range of one, two, three, four and five-bedroom ‘eco’ homes in a variety of designs, and will include 14 affordable properties.

Hayfield Manor, as it will be called, is Hayfield’s fourth in the county following successful schemes in Great Bourton, Southmoor and Stanton Harcourt.

Andy Morris, Managing Director, said: “We are delighted that planning permission has been granted and that we can soon begin construction on a range of homes that will create housing choice as well as new amenity spaces.

“The design and layout has been carefully considered to create a new built environment for the 21st century.”

All of the homes will be fossil-fuel free and installed with PV panels, air source heat pumps, energy-efficient underfloor heating, fibre-optic broadband and an EV charging point.

The company says the layout will be ‘tenure blind’ with no discernible differences between private and affordable homes. Many will have designated parking, private drives and garages and a number of visitor parking spaces will be available.

Included will be several five-bedroom homes, some of which will have a home office over the double garage.

"Construction work is due to start before the end of the year with the first homes available in spring 2023,” the company said in a statement.

The first application in 2019 was for up to 60 homes and Cherwell refused this for a number of reasons. These included the site being outside the built up limits of the village in open countryside, the unsustainable location, the urbanisation of the area and that the plan did not fit with the Adderbury Neighbourhood Plan. The council felt such a development with much-needed small and 'moderately-sized' homes would also have a visual impact on the rural character of the setting and the village which give adequate balance to any adverse impacts. See the Banbury Guardian story here. West Adderbury has seen a number of housing developments extend the village out towards Milton in recent years and residents have tried to resist more development. Hayfield is in the process of delivering over 500 homes at eight developments across Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire. The five-year-old company is on track to increase turnover to £150m this year.