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Government puts up cash for work on Grove airfield homes


THE Government has put up tens of thousands of pounds to help a district council plan a controversial 2,500 home development.

Vale of White Horse District Council has been given £30,000 in Government cash to pay for expert assistance with the Grove Airfield development.

Executive member for planning Mary de Vere said: “This funding is a tremendous boost for the development and will help ensure the site provides the infrastructure people want and need. The whole development should be an attractive place to live.”

But resident Don Summers, of Hawthorn Crescent, Grove, said: “I’m not encouraged by this latest development and a lot of the people who have lived here for years, and know more than the planners, are upset.”

A planning application for the 2,500-home project was due to be submitted by Persimmon Homes in September 2008, but was put on hold because of the recession.

It was resurrected last September and the company expects to submit an application in the summer.

The 137-hectare development will include a new village centre, a library, shops, community and employment facilities, a secondary school and two primary schools.

A Persimmon Homes spokesman said: “We have restarted our work on the planning application together with our fellow developers, Taylor Wimpey, which was suspended due to tough economic conditions.”

The council was one of seven in the South East to receive a share of £1m, jointly provided by the Department of Communities and Local Government and Defra.

Comments(9)

flynn77 says...
5:03pm Sat 6 Mar 10

Police Station - Closed
Accident and Emergency - Closed
No Cinema - Closed
Sports Center - Woefully undersize

We all know that all the money for the facilites and infrastructure in the Vale goes to Abingdon and Didcot... so why does Wantage/Grove get chosen to act as the Vales sink estate. They'll be moving spongers in from miles away to fill those 2500 houses because who in their right mind would want to move here choice.

Victor's_friend says...
7:52am Sun 7 Mar 10

you seem a tad unhappy about these positive developments.

Yet you are still here since '77?

To suggest that here will become a sink for spongers etc is a bit weak and unfounded.

Even our humble traveller's site has become East Challow Caravan Park. Hopefully now the former country club can be developed for housing with a safe thoroughfare.

flynn77 says...
11:45am Sun 7 Mar 10

Police Station - Closed
Accident and Emergency - Closed
No Cinema - Closed
Sports Center - Woefully undersize

You mean these positive developements?

I was born on a council estate, in those days they most the people on them still worked. Over the next 25 years I witnessed the slow but sure degredation, working familys moving out. broken and "sponger" families moving in. They now really do look like a ghetto and it's self induced, the culture is that the majority of people there don't want to work and frankly do not need to work and it's the long hard hours I've been doing to crawl my way out of the situation thats paying for it.

Secondly because we've got so many of them now there's no money left to support things like Police stations and Hospitals. But then of course even if there was it would be spent on Abingdon and Didcot.

gwoxeg says...
4:53pm Sun 7 Mar 10

Flynn you talk complete tosh. I've lived on what was a council estate since it was built in 1977. Most people work some of then actually work hard. There will always be a few that won't or can't work - are you jealous of them by any chance?
The money we pay in taxes should be ample, the trouble is successive governments prefer to spend the money on wars we shouldn't be involved in.

Stokie71 says...
6:14pm Sun 7 Mar 10

Flynn you know nothing, Didcot isn't even in The Vale, it comes under South Oxfordshire District Council - fool!

Lutra80 says...
10:24am Mon 8 Mar 10

Personally, I think Flynn77 has every right to feel peeved or "jealous", as suggested above. You get up, work, go home, sleep, wake up, work, sleep, work... and you're rewarded with barely enough to even rent in this area, especially if you're living on your own. On the other hand, you could just sit on your backside, claim handouts and get GIVEN a house. How is this fair?
I'm all for affordable housing, as we really need it in this area, but by that I mean a general lowering of all house prices to something a bit more realistic.

newcy says...
12:44pm Mon 8 Mar 10

Stokie71, since the merger of operations between SODC and VWHDC, it's fair to be unclear as to who exactly is in charge of what area!The Vale seems to have invested all its funds past present and future in the mess that is the ABITS trafiic scheme, trying to, and disposing of the costly heap that is the Old Gaol, and pie-in-the-sky plans to further wreck any opportunity to drive through the town -rather than sit at one end of the traffic jam that is Abingdon's through traffic).

Ringo says...
12:43pm Sun 14 Mar 10

I'm all for more housing as long as it isn't more stupid over the top high rise flats.
Nice new streets with proper houses is the only way forward and the only method i welcome.

AmyOxford says...
4:46pm Mon 15 Mar 10

I live in Grove and have done for all of my life (26years).

I worry that 60% of this new housing development will be social housing and then people like me would have to put my life savings and scrimp and save to live on an estate like this.

My second worry is that these fields are likely to flood as they have done in the past.

My third worry is that there is not enough infrastructure in Grove/Wantage to provide for these people.

How the hell are we going to get out of Grove onto the A338 without absolute chaos???

My worst concern of all is the monkeys that we have in power that come up with these ludicrous ideas. Why don't they put the housing in Didcot where there is a train station etc.

I strongly believe that the majority of decent people in the area will not be happy about these plans for Grove. Lets just hope that the good people don't all leave.


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