THE owners of a site that might be used for 1,100 homes on Oxford’s Green Belt have asked authorities what environmental impacts should be assessed.

Christ Church, Oxford and Dorchester Residential Management want to use land north of Bayswater Brook for the homes, a local centre and a primary school.

New junctions onto the A40, Marsh Lane, Bayswater Road and Barton Village Road would also be built.

The project has been included in South Oxfordshire District Council’s (SODC) Local Plan after that was approved by councillors in December. It must now be approved – along with the rest of the plan, which includes 28,500 new homes – by an independent planning inspector.

Pegasus Group, on behalf of Christ Church and Dorchester Residential Management, has submitted a scoping report to SODC and Oxford City Council.

It has asked the authorities give their views on what the ‘likely significant environmental effects’ of the controversial development might be.

Barton Park, where 885 homes will eventually be built, is south of it.

Pegasus’ report notes there might be impacts to 11 areas, including transport and access, air quality, noise and biodiversity.

‘Low level’ Bronze Age activity and other ‘possible' Iron Age work has been recorded near Bayswater Brook.

The report also notes a Roman villa, which was recorded in an excavation in 1849, is ‘thought to be located somewhere within the north-eastern part of the site’.

But the precise location of that is still unclear.

A campaign calling for Christ Church to halt its project has been signed by hundreds of people online.

A call to ‘Stop Green Belt Destruction in Oxfordshire’ had been signed by 361 people yesterday afternoon.

It says ‘meadows and fields from the edge of Sandhills in the east, crossing Barton [and] down to Elsfield Road in the west would be lost forever to 1,100 hugely expensive executive-style homes.”

It continues: “Air toxicity levels are already damagingly high and the development would add further congestion.”

Other Green Belt sites in SODC’s Local Plan include Grenoble Road, where the city council has wanted to build for decades, and Culham.

The only major site SODC wants to use in the plan that is not in the Green Belt is Chalgrove Airfield.

Up to 3,000 homes could be built there. Homes England owns the site but many residents are opposed to that project.