Fresh application for 105 homes on site at centre of ‘virtue signalling’ row
Wigan-based Ainscough Strategic Land has submitted a reserved matters application for 105 dwellings on land east of Witney Road in Ducklington known locally as The Moors.
Plans for up to 120 homes were unanimously refused permission by West Oxfordshire District Council’s planning committee in March 2022.
However the land promoter appealed and won.
It led to a row in which Ducklington Conservative councillor Ben Woodruff resigned claiming WODC’s cabinet were to blame for failing to demonstrate a five year land supply due to their focus on “virtue signalling”.
He told the Oxford Mail urgent questions about the proposed development were rarely asked at council meetings and argued the West Oxfordshire District Council cabinet was “too busy posting videos of themselves doing mundane things which have no consequence for anyone”.
After losing the appeal the council wrote to the Environment Agency (EA) to ask why it downgraded the flood risk at The Moors.
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The EA carried out a review of its flood map for Ducklington and found that the flood risk for the proposed development had been “under-represented”.
The new plans include designs for the layout and appearance of 105 units of apartments and houses providing 40 per cent affordable housing.
In the application the developers say the site “offers the opportunity to create a sustainable urban extension for Oxford”.
“Wain Estates’ vision is to create a high quality, attractive, sustainable urban extension” which will respect “the landscape setting of the locality” as well as creating new ecological features “as part of any future residential expansion”, it states.
It adds that “the site is capable of accommodating new dwellings in a highly sustainable location with amenities and transport connections all accessible within close proximity to the site”.
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Vehicle access will be taken from Witney Road and “an appropriate frontage will be created “using landscaped buffer areas and garden spaces” through existing and new planting.
The application has drawn six objections.
One neighbour wrote: “The land itself is clearly susceptible to flooding, a fact that received an important upgrading in flood risk by the EA, and as at November 25 2024 has demonstrated this yet again with elevated water levels, affecting adjacent land and livestock.”
Another added: “This field is currently flooded by at least 80 per cent. It has happened every year for at least the last 10 years. No owner of any property on this site would get house insurance.”
