An Open Letter from Tony Walton

BaECON

An open letter from Tony Walton - Chairman of BaECON (Bicester against ECO CON).

There has been a lot of press recently regarding the proposed ECO TOWN at N W BICESTER and to avoid confusion plus help inform the uninitiated I list below relevant FACTS in bullet point form that are some of the reasons we comment so vigorously on Bicester’s Eco Con.

• Eco-houses are unlikely to sell there is no demand for code 5 housing in these volumes, plus they are likely to be they will be expensive as the build costs are higher.(Professional opinion of Estate agents Barton Fleming)
• If being green is the object why is it not striving to achieve Code 6 instead of the cheaper Code 5?
• Cherwell are proposing a very slow rate of development for NW Bicester – less than 100 houses a year. Even that may be too high an estimate of completions. Therefore the whole site of 850 acres could at this build rate take 50 years to build, if it ever got finished.
• Cherwell has already committed £9.2 million to the first phase to fund infrastructure costs and that they hope to recover it from future developers. What happens if there are no further developers? They are gambling public funds on a potential white elephant.
• In any case, NW Bicester is all farmland. Why build there, why not on Brownfield land elsewhere? How can this be sustainable development when food producing land is sacrificed?
• It is also remote from the town centre, schools, health services etc. therefore there will be a heavy reliance on cars. How green is that?
• Bicester’s secondary schools have limited capacity for more students. The Cooper School, the nearest has none. Their kids will have to travel across town to get to school at BCC. How green is that?
• Meanwhile, other land is becoming available, where development is more economic, better located and which can meet Bicester’s housing need for the next 20 years. (The new proposed local plan under consultation reflects this at Graven Hill etc).
• When the initial consultation was drafted everybody, except Cherwell DC objected, most particularly Oxford County Council who were most critical.
• The then and now current Conservative County Councillors for the affected ward are both against it.
• Caversfield and Bucknell parishes were against the whole concept of the ECO TOWN, together with Chesterton and Middleton Stoney.
• The Ministry of Defence objected, plus others.
• The then Chair of Caversfield Parish council was the wife of the first farmer to sell to the developers,
• N W Bicester was offered as an alternative to the Government promoted Weston Otmoor ECO TOWN proposal, but apparently this was a diversionary tactic never expected to happen. (Bucknell Residents were told this at the time by the leader of Cherwell D C).
• The Government at the time called Cherwell’s bluff and Cherwell got caught out.

We think it should be renamed Woods Folly.

This scheme, when proposed, wasn’t contrary to Cherwell DC’s local plan. That is because there isn’t an adopted local plan!!

• Two BaECON members stood as single issue independent candidates in the District Council Elections last May.
• Both finished second in 4 horse races against national political parties. (No logos were allowed to be put against their names on the ballot sheets as we are not a political party).
• At least 3 of the 4 candidates for Caversfield, where the site lies were against the ECO TOWN.
• The winning Tory vote dropped from 76% in 2008 to 43.35% in 2012.

Summary

• So this was an apparent mistake or bad judgement, forced upon the local community with limited chances of success, requiring public subsidy to make get it off the ground and with no guarantees of getting it back.
• It is not wanted by anybody locally, other than by the Tory run Cherwell District Council. It is a poor design in a poor location that will require car use to get people to schools and services.
• It is a criminal waste of Greenfield land.
• All in all it is a potential disaster waiting to happen.

BaECON ask ‘Free Bicester from the Eco-Albatross Now’

BaECON,

22 Lucerne Ave, BICESTER, OXON. OX26 3ZN

Eco Town may never be completed according to the Council

Today Cherwell District Council published its draft plans for the next 20 years for Bicester.  These have not yet been put to us for consultation - the Council is deciding at the end of the month when they will do that.

It seems that BaECON has been right all along about the Eco-town proposals being a half-baked and badly thought through idea. In their plans the Council has announced that their Eco-town will only be 40% completed by 2031 - almost 20 years away.  At that rate of building the whole area would take another 34 years to complete, with ongoing development work from now until 2065.

Election results show massive opposition to Eco-Town

On May 3rd two BaECON founder members stood as independent candidates in the elections for Cherwell District Council. 

With the issue of the Bicester North West "Eco" Town being one of the major election campaign issues, Tony Walton and Colin Cockshaw secured significant results, finishing in second place inthe Caversfield and Bicester North wards respectively.

The high proportion of votes they both secured serves to highlight just how much local opposition there is to the Council plans.

The full election results can be found here:
Caversfield Election results 2012
Bicester North Election results 2012

Colin Cockshaw publishes Bicester North leaflet

BaECON member Colin Cockshaw who is standing in this year's local elections as an Independent candidate has published a leaflet to residents of the Bicester North Ward, explaining the issues around the "Eco" Town and why he has decided to stand for election to Cherwell District Council.

Tony Walton publishes Caversfield leaflet

BaECON member Tony Walton, who is standing for election to the Cherwell District Council on 3rd May, has published an election leaflet explaining why he has decided to stand as an independent in this year's elections.

Eco-Town is election battleground

According to the Bicester Advertiser this week, the Eco-Town is set to be a battlefield in this year's elections for Cherwell District Council.

The Bicester Ad reported that the Tory candidate for Caversfield in the election is against the plans, and that he has been "... allowed dispensation to go against policy and vote accordingly." Unfortunately the other councillors in Cherwell District Council seem dead set on pushing through the plans despite the wave of opposition from local people and those consulted on the plans!

BaECON Members to stand for election

Two of BaECON's founder members have decided to stand as independent candidates in the forthcoming elections to Cherwell District Council, which will be held on 3rd May 2012.

BaECON founder Tony Walton is standing in Caversfield Ward, and Colin Cockshaw is standing in Bicester North Ward.

The Caversfield Ward includes the villages of Bucknell, Ardley with Fewcott, Bainton and Stoke Lyne, while Bicester North includes both Bure Park and Southwold estates.

Many objectors to the plans

The planning application for the "Eco" town which was considered on 11 August 2011 drew many many objections, and can be studied in detail here. This is a very long document, so we have summarised some of the main objections that various organisations said in their comments on the plans:

Objectors:
Oxfordshire County Council - Many pages of concerns, but these boil down to: Economic strategy light on detail, public sector expected to pay for the Eco-Business Centre and recover the money later, site for the proposed school is unacceptable, no funding for the school, temporary educational arrangements or transport, no commitment to when the community space will be delivered, proposed bus service not sufficient, no net bio-diversity gain.
OCC commented "It is the County Council's clear policy that additional service needs arising from a development need to be funded by the proposal.
In addition to leaving a substantial funding shortfall for services that are needed to support the application, the failure of the applicant to make an appropriate contribution towards those services sets, in our view, a dangerous precedent not only for future negotiations associated with any development in Bicester but more widely across the County...
... The discussions of the last few days with the applicant have served only to reinforce earlier concerns as to the financial soundness of what is being proposed"

Commission for Architecture of the Built Environment (CABE) - No masterplan, eco-credentials of the scheme are limited, little deviation from the standard suburban housing model, housing density far too low, lack of variety of house types.
Bucknell Parish Council - on grounds of traffic, light pollution, noise,  no master plan.
Middleton Stoney Parish Council - not consulted, no master plan, no public consultation and site chosen by a small group of councillors, no public examination, lack of infrastructure to serve the development, location of the development, loss of agricultural land, alternative brownfield sites should be used, financial viability.
Caversfield Parish Council - Unclear where new jobs will come from, traffic rat-running through the villages, building on greenfield site, top-down approach with no consultation, long-term sustainability of the bus route, traffic safety concerns.
Sport England - development doesn't include any playing field land, no information on sporting provision.

Comment or concerns:
Chesterton Parish Council - did not object but comments included: no public consultation and there should have been, alternative sites should have been investigated, private car usage, need to consider alternative brownfield sites, the Exemplar will have parking for 600 cars, financial viability questioned.
Natural England - The application does not have the feel of an exemplary Eco town site, not least in terms of biodiversity, concerned with the lack of clarity in the calculations of the green infrastructure within the development.
Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) - extensive list of wildlife issues, including the comment: "the biodiversity enhancements within the scheme design remain uninspiring and there is little to justify the scheme’s billing as an exemplar of eco-town development."
Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) - Main concern is loss of 850 acres of greenfield land currently being farmed, overall strategy needed before agreeing the plans, need for far more certainty over financial viability and delivery of the whole eco town before embarking, need to review alternative sites, not clear how local job formation will occur, the "Exemplar" won't have houses built to the highest bulding code standard and therefore won't be exemplary. The report comments: "They (CPRE) are strongly of the view that the Exemplar scheme should not proceed before a viable Masterplan for NW Bicester Eco –development has been agreed in the context of a plan for all of Bicester."
The Environment Agency - Bicester sewage treatment works won't be able to cope if the whole development goes ahead, bridge design needs modification, assessment of risks to nature conservation is incomplete.

Supporters:
Bicester Town Council - but they raised many concerns, including: improvements promised for whole of Bicester are not considered, master plan should dovetail with a wider blueprint for the whole of Bicester, want to see opportunities for sustainable "self build" in NW Bicester, the promised jobs are normal building jobs not high skilled or green technology, application includes a site for a primary school but no plans or money to pay for it, no medical facilities or services in the application, transport problems.  They stated "Bicester Town Council is concerned that the ‘eco concept is being diluted to satisfy the commercial viability of the development and will only continue to support the project if the eco concept remains strong."

No Objections:
Network Rail - The developer has promised a contribution of £186 per household to rail infrastructure.
Chiltern Railways - no objections but the rail contribution should be provided to them.

Planning Committee "notes" progress on the "Exemplar"

Cherwell District Council's planning committee met on Thursday 22nd March 2012 to consider a number of planning matters, including one item on the progress of the Eco-town "Exemplar" which is what they are describing the first 400 house proposals as.

You can read the full report which the planning committee considered here.

In essence the report stated that some progress has been made towards finalising the legal agreement which was a condition of the planning permission, and some progress has been made towards creating a "Master Plan" for the site. 

At the meeting the Councillors agreed to "note" the contents of this report.

We still haven't been shown a Masterplan for the site, and the Section 106 agreement (which the developer and other interested parties have to sign for the development to go ahead) hasn't even been fully agreed.