A FORMER council countryside manager has stepped up in the lengthy feud between Oxfordshire councillors and the Secretary of State for housing.

Oliver de Soissons, who worked as a countryside manager for Oxford City Council for more than 17 years, has called on his ex-colleagues to save the rich wildlife of Sidlings Copse and College Pond reserve near Barton from a housing proposal described as a 'plan that no-one wanted’.

The housing site is part of the much controversial South Oxfordshire Local Plan 2035 in which Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick intervened in March.

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He ordered South Oxfordshire District Council to go ahead with the 28,500-home development even though members wanted to scrap it.

But the housing plan that was approved earlier this months after a year-long delay, threatens Sidlings Copse, which boasts 'ancient broadleaved woodland, limestone grasslands, reedbed, fen, a stream and rare Oxfordshire heathland'.

According to the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, the nature reserve supports over 400 plant species.

The site is also teeming with birds and insect life; butterflies include the purple hairstreak, brown hairstreak, common blue and marbled white.

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This is why Mr Soissons claims Oxfordshire would be 'much poorer' in wildlife if the development is allowed.

He commented: "I am deeply frustrated that while public attitudes and Government policy are changing in response to the extinction emergency, a part of Government is poised to cause irrevocable loss of wildlife in Oxfordshire."

During his time working for the council, Mr Soissons was in charge of Shotover Country Park and Port Meadow, and a number of smaller sites in and around the city.

He then became biodiversity officer for the authority's planning department, leaving Oxford City Council in 2013.

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Speaking on the effects of the extra housing on the reserve, Mr Soissons added: "The additional visits caused by the proposed development would cause the loss of the characteristic and rarer plants of these habits.

"For example, through trampling, soil enrichment from dog poop, and disruption to vital grazing."

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