You may have recently seen that a proposal for a major housing development has been published online by the North Witney Consortium: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23819120.witney-plans-1-250-homes-north-oxfordshire-town/
Yesterday, I was pleased to attend the public consultation meeting on Witney North.
I share the view of other residents that Witney is a town that has very much taken its fair share of new homes over the years.
Regarding these particular proposals, I have serious concerns that the infrastructure has not been given proper thought.
I am most concerned about the proposals not including any plans for a West End Link Road, a second river crossing, to alleviate congestion. This sadly appears to be a clear demonstration of the anti-motorist approach adopted by the Council, which has led to the unpopular closure of Witney High Street, LTNS and crude, ineffective blanket 20mph zones. All of this, in order for the Council to meet its massive reduction in car journeys of a quarter by 2030, with no sensible plan to achieve it.
It seems to me that we do need this second river crossing to alleviate not only existing congestion within and around Witney, including along West End, Bridge Street and through Crawley - but to cope with the additional pressure of, perhaps, 2,000 extra cars.
To hope that all of these people will cycle or walk everywhere in our rural area, or that Witney’s existing congestion can remain unaddressed, is simply pushing ideology over reality.
This does rather seem to be another case of our Councils ignoring the need for proper infrastructure to plough on prioritising their ideological anti-motorist agenda.One other concern I share with local residents is that we need to see much more detail on proposals to counter the obvious and severe risk of flooding which has been a major issue on the past, and of course we will need to scrutinise school and doctor provision, in particular, carefully.
But what do you think? Please fill in my survey below to let me know what you think, and so I can accurately reflect your views to the consortium and the Councils.