Dear Councillors

On Thursday 16th of May, you are tasked with making a critical decision with very serious implications for the residents of Hanwell Fields, Hanwell Village and quite possibly Wroxton and Drayton.

You are considering Application 12/01789/OUT.

We are vehemently opposed to Planning Permission being granted to the Developers on the following grounds.

• We challenge the need for these houses. We have produced a set of figures which has been passed to the Council, which show a much smaller number of houses needed for the Council to meet its housing provision obligations.
• The Council has produced its figures using the old South East Plan, which is now superseded by the National Planning Policy Framework. The NPPF requires housing provision to be made on fact based assessment - this figure is now 10,080 houses (calculation based on ONS 2010 figures) and not 16,750 as currently published (old SE Plan). This means Banbury new figure = 3,326 and not 5,954 again as published.
• We consider any decision made to be premature in the absence of an adopted Local Plan. We are asking primarily for permission to be refused, but at the very least we would expect the decision to be deferred on grounds of "prematurity"
• The Council-commissioned Landscape Sensitivity and Capacity Report clearly identifies this land as being the LEAST suitable of all the sites the Council has marked for development. Moreover, this report goes further and the recommendation for future Management and Maintenance advocates an ENHANCEMENT of the existing informal recreational uses. We are upset and angry that the results of the report will have been totally ignored if planning permission is granted.
• As part of the Design Brief for Hanwell Fields, the Council itself designated Dukes Meadow drive as the natural northern boundary of Banbury, in order to prevent "urban sprawl". solicitors conducting searches for potential house buyers on Hanwell Fields were given the assurance that the northern side of Dukes Meadow Drive would not be built upon. We do not believe that the Council has sufficient grounds on which to propose breaching this natural northern boundary. Salt Way is not considered by the Council as being suitable for development as it forms a natural southern boundary for Banbury. It is inequitable that the northern boundary be treated any differently. Salt Way was the subject of a Public Enquiry. We demand at least the same fairness applied to the residents of Hanwell Fields, Hanwell Village, Wroxton and Drayton.
• Planning Permission has already been granted to Bankside. This number of houses 1,090 delivers all of the Council's Housing Provision/Five Year supply and more (infact this one development would deliver 8.86 years - using our fact based figures). We know that the Planning Inspectorate have been advised by Ministers that in the case of any planning appeals, any unimplemented planning permissions should be taken into account. Therefore we ask the Council to take the common sense approach and refuse this Planning Application, unfettered by fear of the Planning Inspectorate.

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