RESIDENTS have praised a public exhibition as “local democracy at its best” after they viewed the latest vision for the Botley area.

More than 100 people went to Seacourt Hall to give feedback on the emerging Neighbourhood Plan, which will provide detailed planning policies for North Hinksey and Botley.

Phil Bloomer, 56, who attended the event on Saturday, said: “We are getting everyone involved and giving the neighbourhood the opportunity to give feedback. This is local democracy at its best.

“Inevitably there is a huge pressure on the Green Belt and there should be future development to ensure housing prices do not go through the roof. That is one of the tough choices we will have to make.

“It is a balance to make sure we do not lose some of the rural landscape of the parish.”

A team of more than 20 volunteers has worked for 18 months on the draft plans.

North Hinksey Parish Council chairman David Kay, who is on the Neighbourhood Plan leisure group, said an extra pair of hands would help move the process along.

He said: “This is obviously a very time consuming process, but we want to do it the right way.

“The reason why we hold these exhibitions is to gather feedback so when the referendum to decide whether to adopt this plan takes place there will not be any surprises for us or residents.

“As the steering groups for the plan are all made up of volunteers we work on this in our spare time.

“We would love to have more people involved, even if it was just distributing leaflets for our next exhibition, to help us make this a great thing for the area.”

A neighbourhood plan gives more local control of where any developments are sited and protect strategically important sites.

Mr Kay added: “We have several steering groups focusing on different aspects of the plan.

“I’m part of the leisure team and we’ve earmarked four sites we think should be protected because the community would suffer without them – Louie Memorial Playing Fields, Brookes’ Harper Hall campus, Botley Rugby Club and the tennis club.”

The steering groups will take feedback from the exhibition and will hold another consultation in a few months’ time.

Visit nhinkseynp.org.uk/