Context 159 - May 2019

C O N T E X T 1 5 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 9 37 MALCOLM AIRS Creative thinking in a neighbourhood plan Identifying interim ‘heritage areas’ enabled an Oxfordshire village to provide the protection necessary to achieve the vision that was the primary objective of its neighbourhood plan. Given the importance of neighbourhood develop- ment plans within the current planning regime, it might be helpful to readers who are engaged with the process to reflect on the challenges that we faced and the strategy that we adopted to bring our plan to a successful conclusion in a rural community with a population of just over 1,000 residents. Dorchester on Thames is an attractive Oxfordshire village set on slightly higher ground between the open floodplain of the RiverThames and its tributary the River Thame. It has an extensive and well-documented history with visible evidence from its origins as an iron-age settlement, through its development as a Roman town, an important centre of Saxon and medieval Christianity and its later prosperity as a staging post on one of the principal routes from London to Oxford. It is well protected, lying wholly within the green belt and with an unusually high number of listed buildings, two contiguous conservation areas and five scheduled ancient monuments. It has an active, if aging, population and supports a primary school, several local businesses and three small farms. Following the Localism Act which came into force in April 2012, a well-attended public meeting in October that year urged the parish council to proceed with the formulation of a neighbourhood development plan and a small committee was formed to take this forward. Given its strong historic character this should have been a reasonably straightforward process but in the event, it took six years before the plan was finally made. There were a number of reasons why it took so long, and it is instructive to explore some of these. In the early years there was the usual problem of a committee composed of volunteers from diverse backgrounds with a variety of differ- ent priorities. Imposing a disciplined focus on the relevant issues was a challenge that was compounded by a constant turnover of the officers of the district council which led to a lack of consistency in the advice that was offered. A major diversion was the pressure that was placed on us to make a significant contribution to the housing figures for the district as a whole, despite our green belt status. Our local member happened to be the leader of the council and he was determined that our plan should help him meet his targets. At one stage it was even proposed by the district that a 35-acre field on the edge of the village should be removed from the green belt in order to accommodate 200 new houses and a great deal of time was spent in resisting this poorly formulated proposal.The plan was finally submitted in 2017 and following an independent examiner’s report in December it proceeded to a referendum in March 2018, where it received a 96 per cent ‘yes’ vote on a turnout of 52 per cent of those eligible to vote. A key factor in achieving such a ringing endorsement was that the village This architect- designed house of 1966 was identified as an undesignated heritage asset within the conservation area.

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