Development plans should be scrapped (From Oxford Mail)

Development plans should be scrapped

10:20am Monday 30th April 2012 in Letters

As a long-term resident of Barton, I object to the Area Action Plan, as it would destroy a green landscape as a means of profiting commerce by way of the house builders to the disadvantage of the environment, wildlife and rural landscape.

Oxford City Council does not have a genuine desire to fulfil a pledge on social and affordable housing, as it has allowed private building at Gloucester Green, near the Green Road roundabout, at Green Ridges and allowed Oxford Brookes to build at Headington, a brownfield site, which it could have acquired itself to build on.

The Gloucester Green development was opened by Andrew Smith MP, who unfortunately supports the plan.

Brownfield sites only should be built on for housing need, with associated roads, and wrongly diminishing-in-number green areas and wildlife habitats, which also involve attractive scenery and leisure walking, should be preserved as part of an unspoiled rural environment.

Reasoning by Oxford City Council to portray the plan as trying to create a world-class city, when in fact it would very ruin a green environment with ugly roads and unsightly development, is perverse.

An intention by the Government to allow developers a free-for-all in the Green Belt and countryside is equally as bad and needs to be thoroughly condemned, being unwise and contrary to sound green policy.

The Barton Area Action Plan should be abandoned by way of common sense and sanity.

In a highly objectionable fashion, Oxford City Council makes no mention of a need to preserve the Green Belt and countryside as it stands, paving the way for developer blight.

DAVID SCOTT, Bayswater Road, Barton, Oxford