Villagers near Banbury 'very disappointed' after permission granted to build 170 houses
Villagers in Hanwell have expressed their disappointment following the Planning Inspectorate’s decision to overturn the council and approve the construction of up to 170 houses between the village borders and Banbury.
The original application submitted by developer Vistry Group was rejected by Cherwell District Council’s planning committee in August 2023 after it received over 480 objections from local residents.
However, Vistry appealed the council’s decision with the government’s Planning Inspectorate, saying that the council could not demonstrate the minimum five-year land supply, which shows sufficient sites available to meet housing needs.
In the document published yesterday (July 29), D M Young JP BSc of the Planning Inspectorate, said that he agrees with Vistry's statement regarding the council’s inability to demonstrate land supply and agreed to approve the development.
He said: “In my view, the delivery of 170 dwellings, 68 of which would be affordable, in the context of a national housing crisis and in an area that has staggering levels of unaffordability, is the weightiest consideration in the planning balance.”
Many of the villagers of Hanwell were concerned that the development would result in Banbury’s northern suburbs merging with their village, causing it to lose much of its identity and picturesque views.
They also expressed concern that the building project would impact upon the status of Hanwell’s conservation area and cause potential damage to hundreds of years of village heritage.
However, the inspector disagreed that the housing development would damage Hanwell’s picturesque beauty and would result in the village becoming merged with Banbury.
He said: “The appeal site falls within ‘Northamptonshire Uplands’ and forms part of the attractive rolling landscape to the north of Banbury. However, it does not lie within any local or national landscape designations and is not a ‘valued’ landscape.”
“The proposed development would undeniably erode elements of the functioning space between Hanwell and Banbury.
"In doing so, it would increase the size of Banbury and extend its northern edge further towards Hanwell. However, the appeal site does not itself adjoin the settlement boundary of Hanwell, and as such, the appeal scheme would not physically unify the two settlements.”
The inspector also noted that ‘a wider area of intervening land between the two settlements’ would stop the two settlements from joining one another and ‘would protect their separate identities such that they would remain clear and distinguishable from one another.’
Campaigners from the Keep Hanwell Village Rural protest group have said the overturned appeal result has marked a sad day for north Banbury residents.
They said: “Hanwell village’s Keep Hanwell Village Rural action group and residents in all nearby villages, including Horley, Shotteswell, Drayton and Great Broughton, are very disappointed by this unexpected outcome to build 170 new homes on such valuable Grade 2 farmland, not to say the inevitable coalescence this will entail.
"We feel this decision will also open the door to more speculative green-space land grabs all the way down to the current housing development at Southam Road. A sad day for north Banbury residents, rural communities, wildlife and farming.”