To receive any questions or statements from members of the public that have registered to speak.
Minutes:
Eighteen members of the public addressed Cabinet on the South Oxfordshire Local Plan:
· Bev Hindle, on behalf of Oxfordshire County Council, spoke in support of the Local Plan proposals.
· Ian Goldsmith spoke on behalf of Cuxham with Easington Parish Meeting, urging Cabinet to remove Chalgrove Airfield from the list of housing allocations in the Local Plan.
· Michael Tyce, on behalf of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, believed none of the strategic housing sites were required in the Local Plan as the current plan provided adequate housing numbers.
· Mr Harris, on behalf of Horspath Parish Council, urged Cabinet to remove the housing allocation at Northfields from the Local Plan.
· Gill Bindoff urged Cabinet to change the Local Plan’s emphasis to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and require carbon neutral buildings and schemes to provide low carbon renewable energy.
· Richard Roberts, on behalf of South Oxfordshire Sustainability, questioned the vision for sustainable development in the Local Plan.
· Ann Pritchard spoke on behalf of Chalgrove Parish Council urging Cabinet to remove Chalgrove Airfield from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan.
· Vicky Fowler spoke on behalf of Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Limited, which held a business tenancy at Chalgrove Airfield, and urged Cabinet to remove Chalgrove Airfield from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan.
· Simon Reynolds, on behalf of the Chalgrove Airfield Action Group, asked Cabinet to remove Chalgrove Airfield from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan.
· Ian Gifford, a Chalgrove resident, asked Cabinet to remove Chalgrove Airfield from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan.
· John Storrs, on behalf of Save Culham Green Belt, asked Cabinet to remove Culham from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan.
· Caroline Baird, a Culham resident, asked Cabinet to remove Culham from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan.
· Steven Sensecall spoke on behalf of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Commercial Estates Group (CEG) to support the Local Plan proposals, including those to allocate land for housing at Culham.
· Robert Gardner spoke on behalf of Oxford Brookes University to support the Local Plan proposals, in particular allocating land for housing at the university’s Wheatley Campus.
· Alan East spoke on behalf of Holton Parish Council in support of the housing allocation site at Oxford Brookes University’s Wheatley Campus but expressing concern at the site’s removal from the Green Belt. He believed that the new homes should be on the eastern part of the site.
· Doug Lamont spoke on behalf of Wheatley Parish Council objecting to the removal of the Oxford Brookes University’s Wheatley Campus site from the Green Belt.
· Ginette Camps-Walsh, on behalf of Beckley and Stowood Parish Council, spoke against the Local Plan, the planned urban sprawl of Oxford, and the proposed inclusion of land in Elsfield parish as a housing allocation site.
· Ann Henman, a resident of Beckley and Stowood parish, spoke in objection to land within the Green Belt being allocated for housing rather than housing being provided in Oxford.
Cabinet also received addresses from the following district councillors:
· Councillor Elizabeth Gillespie believed there were no exceptional circumstances to remove land from the Green Belt to allocate it for housing and opposed the Local Plan proposals.
· Councillor John Walsh believed that Oxford Brookes University’s Wheatley Campus site should not be removed from the Green Belt and should be limited to 300 homes, and that the Bayswater Brook housing site allocation should be removed from the Local Plan.
· Councillor David Nimmo-Smith welcomed the exclusion of the housing sites near Reading, and he urged Cabinet to reduce the housing densities in the Local Plan to provide better homes.
· Councillor David Turner urged Cabinet to remove Chalgrove Airfield from the list of housing allocation sites in the Local Plan as it would not meet Oxford’s housing need, there was no evidence of how the road infrastructure would be funded, Martin Baker intended to retain its use of the site, and the airfield was used by the RAF for emergency landings.