PLANS are to be submitted for controversial road changes as part of a major housing development for Barton.

Grosvenor is to submit a planning application for the road infrastructure for the scheme later this summer.

Oxford City Council approved the 885-home scheme in principle in September.

Plans include a traffic light-controlled junction giving the estate access to the A40 and for buses to get between Barton Park and Northway.

But Northway residents have submitted a plan for land at Foxwell Drive to be registered as a town green in a bid to stop the junction going ahead.

A planning inquiry will be held in September to determine its future.

Paul Comerford, of consultants AECOM, which has been working with the city council, said he hopes for a decision by December.

He said: “This will help us get on site early in the new year so we can start creating the junction for the A40, with residential development starting at the back end of next year.

“The town green process has to run its own course and we have a junction that can work or not whatever the outcome is, and the development is still deliverable so we will have to wait and see.”

Stockleys Road resident Betty Fletcher said: “Obviously we don’t want the junction coming onto the estate. Once they start coming across from Barton it will be horrendous.

“This estate is small, we have trouble parking and we have already got buses going in and out of the hospital. It is just not good enough.”

Headington resident Nick Fell, who has campaigned against the junction and helped put together the town green bid, said: “It is madness. The junction will be dangerous.

“Trying to put a road at a right angle across four carriageways of traffic is stupid.

“If they want to get into Barton why do they have to go through Northway? It is not needed and much quicker to go via Summertown.

“We are not letting them have our green space. It is unthinkable.”

The first parcel of land has been put out for tender and an agreement between Barton Oxford LLP – a partnership between Grosvenor and the city council – and a homebuilder is expected to be signed soon.

The first 8.75-acre plot would take up to 237 homes at the west of the site.

The speed limit on the A40 from the Marsh Lane flyover to the Green Road roundabout would be cut from 70mph to 50mph under the plans.

An application will be made to the highways authority, Oxfordshire County Council, for this alongside the planning application.

The development was approved by a Government inspector in November 2012 after a two-week inquiry.

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