MORE than £1 million will be spent on a village near a new 160-home estate.

Taylor Wimpey is set to splurge £1.4 million in and around its Bampton Meadows housing estate in West Oxfordshire.

Roughly half the cash will be spent on school facilities.

Bampton CE Primary School is set to benefit from about £770,000 for its expansion, with a further £80,000 set aside to increase the capacity of the school’s nursery.

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Six-figure sums will be spent on sport and recreation facilities (£185,000) and increasing the frequency of buses between Carterton and Witney (£160,000).

About £130,000 will be spent making improvements to children’s play areas in the village, while another £48,000 is to be used to improve the village library.

Meanwhile, more than £20,000 is going to be put towards 'artist-led enhancements' of public areas in Bampton.

Gary Needham, land and planning director for Taylor Wimpey Oxfordshire, said: “Supporting the communities in which we build is a key priority for Taylor Wimpey, so I am delighted that we will be funding a wide range of projects in Bampton through our planning contributions, from helping the village primary school to take on more pupils to improving public transport links.

“Our work does not end here and we will continue to support local groups and organisations in the village to ensure that our Bampton Meadows development leaves a lasting positive impact in the village.”

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Construction work began at the estate at the end of June, with the first homes potentially due to go on the market by the end of the year.

The estate, off Mount Owen Road, was originally refused by district councillors.

Last September, West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) refused Taylor Wimpey’s application due to the ‘height of the flat block and the lack of ameliorative landscaping’.

The refusal further said that the proposed estate was ‘considered to represent an overly dominant form of development that would adversely affect the character and appearance of the area’.

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The council had received 28 letters of objection prior to a planning committee meeting last August, with criticisms including the impact on tourism and an increase in traffic and parking.

At the meeting, committee members derided numerous aspects of the site, including the design and flood risk.

With reserved matters planning permission granted by WODC in December, Taylor Wimpey is now pressing ahead with the new one and two-bedroom apartments, and two-to-five-bedroom homes.

The housebuilder said that the site team is operating in line with the latest Government guidance regarding coronavirus, and under a robust set of health safety practices and protocols.

Bampton parish councillors chose the name of the new estate prior to construction work beginning.

Taylor Wimpey was formed through the merger of George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow in 2007.

The homebuilder has 24 regional offices across England, Scotland and Wales, and also runs operations in Spain.