Whilst it might appear all quiet on the planning front as far as Stonesfield is concerned, in the wider context of Oxfordshire there are really important campaigns taking place. Here are reports on two of them. The first shows the results of the alternative survey that the Stop the Arc campaign put out. The clear message to Government from the survey is that this is the wrong project in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Here’s what Stop the Arc said, and the link to the full survey results is at the end.
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| The second campaign relates to the pollution in our local rivers, the Windrush and the Evenlode. The campaign group, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP), have produced a very detailed report detailing the discharge of untreated sewage into the Windrush and the Evenlode.
Depressingly, our Witney constituency was the 6th worst in England by total hours of spilling to watercourses at 13,295 hours in 2019. Chipping Norton sewage works, which is in the AONB and discharges to the Evenlode, was identified in the report as spilling on 69 days between Jan 2020 and April 2021, with 26 of these spills illegal. Here’s the link to the full report: and another link to the Oxford Mail who reported it. There were also articles in the Times and the Financial Times. Richard Morris |