MODEL LETTER

Below, you will find a ‘model letter’ that can be used to make your views known to the Planning Inspectorate who will be conducting the appeal. If you agree with SUSTO’s assessment of the position, you can simply cut and paste the completed text into an email and send it to:

robert.wordsworth@pins.gsi.gov.uk

The requirements for your letter are quite specific and you will need to provide the following information:

Your name and address

Planning Inspectorate appeal reference numberAPP/D3125/W/18/3209551

Address of the appeal site– Land East of Stonesfield, Woodstock Rd, Stonesfield.

Dear Sir / Madam,

In 2017 I wrote objecting to CALA’s planning application to build 68 houses on the Woodstock Road, Stonesfield. I want to ensure that all the comments I made then still apply in relation to this appeal. I am against the appeal proposals for the same reasons as given by the Local Planning Authority together with this additional comment.

The core of any assessment of this application must be based upon whether it complies with NPPF guidance related to the AONB. If an application does not pass that test, consideration of other points is academic.

The Planning Inspectorate has completed its examination of West Oxfordshire District Council’s Local Plan and recommended a range of specific amendments to enable a conclusion that ‘the West Oxfordshire Local Plan 2031 satisfies the requirements of Section 20(5) of the 2004 Act and meets the criteria for soundness in the National Planning Policy Framework (March 2012)’.

The Inspectorate found that:

• WODC had been unable to show there was any substantial need for additional housing in the Burford / Charlbury sub-area.
• That there was little case to provide more than the 774 dwellings already in the pipeline.
• There was no need within the wider District that required a contribution from the AONB as ‘it is likely that the plan will provide for the delivery of the 2011–2031 housing requirement (15,950) and a rolling five-year supply of deliverable sites for housing.
• As a result the allocation of four specific housing sites, which included the Woodstock Road site, would not be sound.

As a result the authority could not claim that exceptional circumstances existed to override the considerable protection afforded to this site in the AONB by the NPPF guidelines.

WODC has agreed with this conclusion and removed the Woodstock Road site from their Local Plan; it goes before the full Council on 27 Sept 2018 for adoption by the Council.

Conclusion

The key changes to the Local Plan that are relevant to this application and appeal are all related to the ‘great weight’ that the NPPF guidelines require to the conserving of landscape and scenic beauty in AONBs.

The Inspector examining the Local Plan has clearly determined that there are no exceptional circumstances that can be claimed for development of this site.

If the outcome of an appeal would be to reverse the decision to reject the application, that decision would be at odds with the NPPF guidelines as interpreted by both WODC and the Planning Inspectorate and incompatible with the outcome of the examination of the Local Plan.

I urge you to reject this appeal.

Yours faithfully