Objections pour in over plans for nearly 200 more new homes in Banbury area villages

The plans include a ‘replacement’ plan for 60 houses west of Bloxham, 60 homes north of Cropredy (reported in the Banbury Guardian) and 71 homes on land off Station Road, Cropredy.

The Bloxham plan applies to 4.4 ares of farmland between a new-build estate opposite the Primary School on Tadmarton Road and a dairy farm. Submitted by Gladman Developments Ltd, it replaces a 2017 plan for 136 homes which was withdrawn when officers recommended it for refusal in 2018.

Nicholas King Homes has offered to build a new car park for the primary school in Cropredy if it is given consent to build up to 71 houses on land beyond the school at The Old Dairy Farm, currently a caravan park.

Villagers in both communities oppose the developments with residents of both arguing that infrastructure including schools and GP surgeries are over-subscribed and could not manage the additional people.

Objectors in both villages cite inadequate, pressurised roads that they say would become even more dangerous with additional traffic. And arguments are made about the loss of farmland and wildlife.

In Bloxham, residents living close to the proposed development site say enough new development has been taken in the area, that more homes and associated traffic would cause further risk of accidents outside the school. They say the plan offers no improvement to infrastructure which is ‘already at breaking point’.

The land is liable to flooding, close to a cattle farm and is ‘totally unsuitable’, being incompatible with the policies in the Bloxham Neighbourhood Development Plan, they say.

One objector said: “Bloxham’s NHS services across doctor and dental surgeries are over capacity, with the dental surgery not accepting new NHS patients.

"Bloxham Primary School is at or over capacity. An additional 60 dwellings with hundreds of people will only put further pressure on Bloxham’s already under-strain critical public services.”

In Cropredy, Old Barn Farm voiced support for the 71-home plan and its offer of a car park for the primary school.

But a neighbour of the proposed site said: “I strongly object to this number of houses. It will mean that Cropredy loses its village community. The land suggested would ruin local countryside and also the proposed exit would be very dangerous especially round school access times.”

Another resident said: "We... have a business running out of school lane, which has a quantity of lorries in and out - the School Lane road junction is so close to the railway bridge… a turning even closer to railway bridge would be impossible.

“The proposed carpark would... probably supply enough spaces for staff only. This development and the one proposed to the north of the village would mean another 130 houses, increasing the village by over another 50 per cent.”

Another villager said: "The road to the village is busy enough at the moment. Our small school is filled to the brim. The surgery is strangling already.”