News Update September 02004

The most important news is that SPADE, is amongst very few lobbying organisations invited to participate in the Examination In Public (EIP) of the County Council Structure Plan. We will be discussing development in the green belt on October 14th 2004. This has been one of our major goals since the very start of our campaign - to make sure that the voice of local people is heard on these important issues during this stage of the structure plan proc-ess. Although SPADE's committee and members have worked hard to achieve this fantastic success, it has only been possible with the extraordinary support we have received from you. THANK YOU!

We have been invited to the session discussing the proposal to build in the green belt and any proposed revision to the green belt boundary. Participants in this session include the County, District and a small number of Parish councils, various developers including those of 'Penbridge' ‘Pebble Hill’ and Grenoble Road, Thames Water and Magdalen College (owners of the land at Grenoble Road), Oxford Preservation Trust and Oxford Green Belt Network.

WHAT NEXT?

SPADE has now engaged professional planning advisors who are experienced in appearing at EIPs, and they will be supporting us and working with us to plan our strategy over the next few weeks. If you have any comments or suggestions for us, please contact one of the Committee members.

OTHER RECENT ACTIVITY…

In June, SPADE delivered 845 responses to the OCC Structure Plan Team, our members having over about four weeks, delivered a massive total of 4000 newsletters to homes in Sunningwell, Bayworth, Whitecross, Kennington, Sugworth Lane, Radley, North Abingdon, Boar's Hill, Hinksey Hill and Wootton. This is more than double the amount of any SPADE newsletter previously delivered and we had more than double the responses back, including a substantial number from Kennington and Radley. We do wish to apologise to residents of Wootton who received their newsletters very late in the day due to the failure of the post office to deliver them in the timescale required. We were still able to include in the region of 170 response forms from Wootton as part of our delivery though.

THE LONGER TERM…

Whilst the structure plan is the main focus of our attention at this point, we are very aware that there is a wider debate we need to engage in. You will probably have read about the proposals for an extra 40,000 houses (larger than the total number proposed in the whole Structure Plan) to be developed largely along the A34 corridor, as part of the plan to make Central Oxfordshire a ‘Strategic Development Area.’ Oxford City Council has successfully lobbied SEERA (the South East England Regional Assembly) for this to be included in the ‘South East Plan’ currently being drawn up. There is little opportunity for locally elected representatives to be involved in the preparation of this plan prior to its public consultation in early 2005. Sunningwell Parish Councillors had to fight hard to even be able attend the debates set up to discuss it and we congratulate them on their persistence. Local elected representation at SEERA is limited to only one councillor from each district council, with the county council being represented by its leader, Keith Mitchell (chair of its regional planning committee) who is vocal in his condemnation of SEERA’s undemocratic nature. SPADE's committee and Sunningwell Parish Councillors are working closely together to lobby other local parish councils to get in-volved, and to look at how best we both might engage in this new process whilst remaining focussed in the short term on the EIP.

We’ve always believed this was going to be a long haul - now we're starting to see the true nature of the battle lying ahead. We welcome new members and if you’d like to join us, please contact one of the Committee via the contacts page. We always welcome extra pairs of hands to deliver newsletters, and if you have any skills or experience in planning matters that would be particularly useful. The professional advice we need to represent you properly is expensive and we also are very grateful for donations. If you can help in this way, please contact Dick Gould on 07909 992808 (Dick@sunningwell.org)