Plans for 86 homes on agricultural land in area with 'exceptional demand' in Chipping Norton

National housebuilder Cala Homes has outlined how it envisages the new homes in Banbury Road in Chipping Norton will look in an application listed this month.

This comes as West Oxfordshire District council officers granted permission for up to 90 homes, including up to 40 per cent ‘affordable’ housing, for the site in December 2023.

An applicant planning paper says: “A central green space provides a verdant focal point at the heart of the development and the green routes radiating from this space form connections to the surrounding green spaces and help embed the development within its surroundings.

“It is envisaged that the proposed development would have a character that complements the existing local character.”

Grant Stevenson, planning director at Rainier Developments, added: “Despite a subdued housing market nationally, we recognise there is still exceptional demand for quality housing in the right locations.”

Central green and surrounding areas are said to form the “core of the site” and the development would contain a mix of one-to-five-bed houses.

Open space would consist of parkland and wild flower meadow, communal growing space as well as combined play provision and associated infrastructure.

Construction is set to begin in early 2025 with the first homes expected to be available for sale towards the end of the same year.

Former Top Gear star Jeremy Clarkson, whose Diddly Squat Farm is in Chadlington, said last year in a national newspaper column that Chipping Norton has “too many houses”.

The plans have been sent to the council only weeks after Gleeson Land submitted plans for development of up to 104 homes with 234 car parking spaces east of Burford Road and south of Charlbury Road in Chipping Norton.