House row is set for appeal

12:00pm Tuesday 12th June 2012 in News Photograph of the Author By Damian Fantato, covering Summertown, Jericho and North Oxford. Call me on 01865 425429

HEADINGTON residents will soon get a chance to have their say on plans to replace a house which some say has blighted their area.

Plans to knock down the dilapitated house at 29 Old High Street, and then build five, three-storey houses on the site are to go before a Government planning inspector.

Owner Martin Young has not lived in the house for more than five years and it has fallen into a state of disrepair.

He applied for permission to demolish it last year but was refused by Oxford City Council.

The authority said the house – in a conservation area – “retains the character of a quite rural village”.

And in March it imposed an improvement order on Mr Young to refurbish the home, but the work has not been done.

He has lodged an appeal against the refusal of the homes plan with the Planning Inspectorate, which will hold a public hearing in August.

Sarah King, of Friends of Old Headington conservation group, said she objected to his plan.

She said: “We would like to see the house restored and turned into a family home. It is perfectly possible to do.

“It would be out of character for Old Headington to cram that many houses into a plot that size.”

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Mr Young, of Headington Hill, said: “I am expecting a barrage of flack of all sorts.

“When the court imposed the improvement order it said the house was an eyesore so I will be throwing that back at them.”

He previously hit Oxford Mail headlines for fighting Oxford Brookes University over its new £132m campus and attempting to turn a patch of land in Littlemore into a rubbish tip.

The planning hearing is at the Town Hall in St Aldate’s on Thursday, August 2 at 10am.

The council has said it will wait for the appeal result before deciding on any further action.

  • To give your views to the hearing, email teamp13@pins.gsi.gov.uk or call 0117 372 6372.

Comments (7)

5:29pm Tue 12 Jun 12

Andrew:Oxford says...

Isn't there another headline missing from the list?

He expressed disappointment just a few days ago in this very newspaper about the ongoing storage of a few of his personal items.
Isn't there another headline missing from the list? He expressed disappointment just a few days ago in this very newspaper about the ongoing storage of a few of his personal items. Andrew:Oxford

7:58pm Tue 12 Jun 12

simplicissimus says...

Our brave new police state is increasingly like old East Germany with its StaSi. An unhealthy collusion seems to exist at times in Oxford between authorities whose swingeingly exorbitant bills reach us in one and the same brown Council Tax envelope.

Are our police sufficiently independent? Many people's experiences wouldn't support the argument that they are.

A court has ruled in the matter of Mr Young's guns. Martin wrote a foolish letter to the overzealous Mel Mutch, who is presently said to be busy in another matter. A legally qualified octogenarian not far from the north Oxford ring road, seeks to protest her hounding by the likes of the - much - too pushy to the ECHR.

This eldely woman has asked her executor (a local priest) to take her case forward in the event she dies before she is able to do so, or should be harried to an untimely end. (After all, Beryl Mitchell, whom OCC pressured to the point that Vim Rodrigo championed her cause, died soon after she was "persuaded" to sign away and sell the Rose Hill home in which she'd hoped to spend her last months.)

OCC seems to have a knack of turning peoples homes - especially if they are vulnerable and isolated - into "Rose Cottages" or "Rainbows Ends", and the venerable, but horribly bullied, Mr Young isn't in his strongest years. OCC seems eager to "help" such vulnerable folk along!

Mutch too fond of jackboot kneejerkism and legalistic arm twisting involving needless EDMOs or CP (that's Compulsory Purchase, lest readers misinterpret the abbreviation).

OCC do not care for tenants or residents half as mutch as showing us serfs our place. The sooner Labour voters wak up, the better.
Our brave new police state is increasingly like old East Germany with its StaSi. An unhealthy collusion seems to exist at times in Oxford between authorities whose swingeingly exorbitant bills reach us in one and the same brown Council Tax envelope. Are our police sufficiently independent? Many people's experiences wouldn't support the argument that they are. A court has ruled in the matter of Mr Young's guns. Martin wrote a foolish letter to the overzealous Mel Mutch, who is presently said to be busy in another matter. A legally qualified octogenarian not far from the north Oxford ring road, seeks to protest her hounding by the likes of the - much - too pushy to the ECHR. This eldely woman has asked her executor (a local priest) to take her case forward in the event she dies before she is able to do so, or should be harried to an untimely end. (After all, Beryl Mitchell, whom OCC pressured to the point that Vim Rodrigo championed her cause, died soon after she was "persuaded" to sign away and sell the Rose Hill home in which she'd hoped to spend her last months.) OCC seems to have a knack of turning peoples homes - especially if they are vulnerable and isolated - into "Rose Cottages" or "Rainbows Ends", and the venerable, but horribly bullied, Mr Young isn't in his strongest years. OCC seems eager to "help" such vulnerable folk along! Mutch too fond of jackboot kneejerkism and legalistic arm twisting involving needless EDMOs or CP (that's Compulsory Purchase, lest readers misinterpret the abbreviation). OCC do not care for tenants or residents half as mutch as showing us serfs our place. The sooner Labour voters wak up, the better. simplicissimus

7:59pm Tue 12 Jun 12

simplicissimus says...

wake
wake simplicissimus

6:59am Wed 13 Jun 12

Danny A says...

The real crime is that a prime site has been left unoccupied for over five years (and under occupied for far longer) when we have a clear shortage of housing. Meanwhile the burden for paying for the state and all of the property rights that it defends, falls firmly on those that have to work for a living rather than those that collect windfall gains from simply holding the title to prime locations. A shift in the tax burden from labour and enterprise and on to land would ensure that (potential) developers decide what they want to do with the location (given the laws that we all agree to abide by) promptly rather than sit on it, push their luck and wait for the biggest windfall gain possible.
The real crime is that a prime site has been left unoccupied for over five years (and under occupied for far longer) when we have a clear shortage of housing. Meanwhile the burden for paying for the state and all of the property rights that it defends, falls firmly on those that have to work for a living rather than those that collect windfall gains from simply holding the title to prime locations. A shift in the tax burden from labour and enterprise and on to land would ensure that (potential) developers decide what they want to do with the location (given the laws that we all agree to abide by) promptly rather than sit on it, push their luck and wait for the biggest windfall gain possible. Danny A

8:23am Wed 13 Jun 12

simplicissimus says...

DA, look up "real" and "crime", please, before you libel an innocent man. Mr Young is dealing with a shCity council that has been convicted of real criminality. Mr Young, however is not criminal.

English Law has always respected private property ownership.

If you feel uncomfortable with that, please emigrate to somewhere like North Korea, where they share most things. Although it's mostly those who fall foul of The Party who starve to death first during famines.

Maybe the Lefties in Oxford would prefer the consequences of their politics of envy (and greed), brought to their natural conclusion here, too? Tickets to Pyongyang aren't unaffordable. Enjoy your trip, Danny!

For heaven's sake, do wake up. LABOUR are the perpetrators. Very deliberately they escalated mass UK immigration (legal and illegal) "to rub the nose of the Right in Diversity" (!), causing untold, permanent harm and hardship to their traditional core electorate. Labour deliberately overloaded and broke Britains social infrastructure. What sort of socialism is that?

By their fruits shall ye know them. Labour hates working folk. But it will pretend the very opposite. Labour controls Oxford, and it is a party riddled with criminality, as everyone knows.
DA, look up "real" and "crime", please, before you libel an innocent man. Mr Young is dealing with a shCity council that has been convicted of real criminality. Mr Young, however is not criminal. English Law has always respected private property ownership. If you feel uncomfortable with that, please emigrate to somewhere like North Korea, where they share most things. Although it's mostly those who fall foul of The Party who starve to death first during famines. Maybe the Lefties in Oxford would prefer the consequences of their politics of envy (and greed), brought to their natural conclusion here, too? Tickets to Pyongyang aren't unaffordable. Enjoy your trip, Danny! For heaven's sake, do wake up. LABOUR are the perpetrators. Very deliberately they escalated mass UK immigration (legal and illegal) "to rub the nose of the Right in Diversity" (!), causing untold, permanent harm and hardship to their traditional core electorate. Labour deliberately overloaded and broke Britains social infrastructure. What sort of socialism is that? By their fruits shall ye know them. Labour hates working folk. But it will pretend the very opposite. Labour controls Oxford, and it is a party riddled with criminality, as everyone knows. simplicissimus

11:06am Wed 13 Jun 12

sparky123456 says...

simplicissimus wrote:
DA, look up "real" and "crime", please, before you libel an innocent man. Mr Young is dealing with a shCity council that has been convicted of real criminality. Mr Young, however is not criminal.

English Law has always respected private property ownership.

If you feel uncomfortable with that, please emigrate to somewhere like North Korea, where they share most things. Although it's mostly those who fall foul of The Party who starve to death first during famines.

Maybe the Lefties in Oxford would prefer the consequences of their politics of envy (and greed), brought to their natural conclusion here, too? Tickets to Pyongyang aren't unaffordable. Enjoy your trip, Danny!

For heaven's sake, do wake up. LABOUR are the perpetrators. Very deliberately they escalated mass UK immigration (legal and illegal) "to rub the nose of the Right in Diversity" (!), causing untold, permanent harm and hardship to their traditional core electorate. Labour deliberately overloaded and broke Britains social infrastructure. What sort of socialism is that?

By their fruits shall ye know them. Labour hates working folk. But it will pretend the very opposite. Labour controls Oxford, and it is a party riddled with criminality, as everyone knows.
will 'ye' shut thee mouth. fool. martin young is an idiot. fact. he's had this property for knocking on 40 years and for probably 30% of that time he's allowed it to fall in to an utter shambles, in the vein hope that the council will just allow him to knock it down. he needs to be made an example of. He should be charged with the FULL cost of restoring the building to it's former glory. Old Headington is a conservation area, it has been for some time. All of the buildings there follow a character and style. And his property is the first building on the right as you enter this area. Allowing it to become flats would not only undermine the conservation agreement but it would also set a precedent stating it's ok to buy property. Leave it to fall apart then expect to be able to change it's original purpose (See Tesco - fox and hounds pub!!) lets also not forget that he's ignored a legally binding order to carry out emergency repairs on the property. Personally I think a minimum £50k fine and some stint of community service might snap this idiot out of his own little world.
[quote][p][bold]simplicissimus[/bold] wrote: DA, look up "real" and "crime", please, before you libel an innocent man. Mr Young is dealing with a shCity council that has been convicted of real criminality. Mr Young, however is not criminal. English Law has always respected private property ownership. If you feel uncomfortable with that, please emigrate to somewhere like North Korea, where they share most things. Although it's mostly those who fall foul of The Party who starve to death first during famines. Maybe the Lefties in Oxford would prefer the consequences of their politics of envy (and greed), brought to their natural conclusion here, too? Tickets to Pyongyang aren't unaffordable. Enjoy your trip, Danny! For heaven's sake, do wake up. LABOUR are the perpetrators. Very deliberately they escalated mass UK immigration (legal and illegal) "to rub the nose of the Right in Diversity" (!), causing untold, permanent harm and hardship to their traditional core electorate. Labour deliberately overloaded and broke Britains social infrastructure. What sort of socialism is that? By their fruits shall ye know them. Labour hates working folk. But it will pretend the very opposite. Labour controls Oxford, and it is a party riddled with criminality, as everyone knows.[/p][/quote]will 'ye' shut thee mouth. fool. martin young is an idiot. fact. he's had this property for knocking on 40 years and for probably 30% of that time he's allowed it to fall in to an utter shambles, in the vein hope that the council will just allow him to knock it down. he needs to be made an example of. He should be charged with the FULL cost of restoring the building to it's former glory. Old Headington is a conservation area, it has been for some time. All of the buildings there follow a character and style. And his property is the first building on the right as you enter this area. Allowing it to become flats would not only undermine the conservation agreement but it would also set a precedent stating it's ok to buy property. Leave it to fall apart then expect to be able to change it's original purpose (See Tesco - fox and hounds pub!!) lets also not forget that he's ignored a legally binding order to carry out emergency repairs on the property. Personally I think a minimum £50k fine and some stint of community service might snap this idiot out of his own little world. sparky123456

9:42pm Wed 13 Jun 12

simplicissimus says...

Sparky123456: "Allowing it to become flats would not only undermine the conservation agreement but it would also set a precedent stating it's ok to buy property."

Sounds pretty baseless. Can you clarify? What makes you come out with ideas so wide of the mark?
Sparky123456: "Allowing it to become flats would not only undermine the conservation agreement but it would also set a precedent stating it's ok to buy property." Sounds pretty baseless. Can you clarify? What makes you come out with ideas so wide of the mark? simplicissimus

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