Back in January 2017, Sustainable Stonesfield was formed after a meeting in the Village hall, called to alert residents to potentially catastrophic increases of inappropriate housing in Stonesfield. There was the potential for a further 200 houses being built.
At the end of the meeting it was decided to form a small Leadership Team of eight or nine people, and I was asked to chair the Team. That Team has now dwindled to just five people. The purpose was originally to inform the village via a leaflet of the proposed housing developments and canvas residents’ opinion. We then coordinated a campaign to get the proposed major development sites removed from the then emerging WODC Local Plan 2031. Finally we campaigned, with your help, against the planning application from CALA Homes – and won.
SUSTO also campaigned to get Stockey Woods declared a village green, protecting your rights to roam in the woods in perpetuity.
The developers are circling again. There are three major development sites on the District Council’s ‘call for sites’ website – the field north of the Woodstock Road (Rectory Homes, the former CALA site), Blenheim field south east of William Buckland Way, and the Eastwood/Oakeshott proposal for the Manor Field at the top of the Combe Road. Each site is capable of more than 30 houses, in the case of the Woodstock Road probably more like 60 to 70 houses.
An application has been submitted for Permission in Principle to build a house on the field at the top of Brook Lane. In the Neighbourhood Plan village survey 86% of more than 550 respondents wanted to protect this field from development by designating it a Local Green Space.
These sites may be included in the new draft West Oxfordshire Local Plan 2041, which is due out for public consultation in the following months. So a whole new campaign will be starting shortly to ensure the village gets the new housing it needs, NOT what the developers want or is most profitable for them.
The Leadership Team needs help
After seven years, I and the rest of the current leadership team would like to be able to stand aside. If you want SUSTO to continue campaigning against inappropriate housing developments in Stonesfield, in the AONB, it’s time to step up. The current team will happily provide advice and guidance – but we need new people with energy and new ideas to take this forward.
We plan to organise a public meeting in the village hall in October at which we will briefly review our past successes and outline the consultation process for the new draft WO Local Plan 2041 which will be published in the coming months. Hopefully WODC will have published their list of preferred development sites by then.
SUSTO doesn’t have a constitution, it was just an ad hoc team formed from that original 2017 meeting, so there’s no process for electing a new leadership team. In the first instance I would ask for new volunteers to come forward now to join the existing team. Please get in touch by emailing: sustainable.stonesfield@gmail.com or call me on 898210 for a chat.
Work continues on the Neighbourhood Plan, led by the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group, a sub-group of the PC. This Steering Group is completely separate from SUSTO, though some individuals sit on both.
Richard Morris
Chair Sustainable Stonesfield