WE were shocked to have discovered at the Wolvercote Neighbourhood Forum AGM last week that there are plans afoot to increase the number of dwellings on the Northern Gateway site from 500 to 800.

The City Council has always argued for this development on the basis of job creation and the expansion of research facilities related to academic and medical work.

Housing was not the original priority for the Northern Gateway site. Indeed, Oxford City Council, in Background Paper 1 (Conformity with the Core Strategy) issued in 2014 suggests increasing the number of dwellings from 200 to 500, ‘but it is not considered to be appropriate, sustainable, or consistent with adopted policies, to deliver any greater levels of additional housing on the site because it would be at the expense of losing the employment focus’ (Para 26).

Those of us who were invited to represent local opinion at the inquiry in 2015 argued that the increase in traffic and air pollution in the area caused by the development (which at that stage included ‘only’ 500 dwellings) was already too much for the Wolvercote area to bear.

We also drew attention to the strain on local schools and medical facilities which having 500 new dwellings on the site would mean.

To plan to increase that number by a third is beyond belief and, in our opinion, unsustainable.

ANGIE GOFF

Chairman

Wolvercote Commoners

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