Header Image for Kidlington Parish Council

Green Belt

A great attraction of Kidlington is that it is at present surrounded by Green Belt. Kidlington Parish Council is committed to the preservation of a Green Belt ring around the village. We are developing a scheme for a network of interconnected green spaces linked by paths and cycle tracks. We strongly support the proposal by Kidlington Development Watch to designate part of this ring as Local Green Spaces.

Cherwell District Council's decision to to build 4400 dwellings on Green Belt sites in and around the village will significantly reduce this Green Belt ring. The Green Belt gap between us and Oxford will be reduced to a narrow strip between the A34 and the railway line, after 1360 new houses have been built South of the railway. There will be 120 new houses at the South-West end of the village, by Stratfield Brake, and 430 around the Bicester Road cemetery. The size of Yarnton and Begbroke will be vastly increased, with 2490 new houses in the two villages, though we will be separated from the developments by a green gap between the railway line and the canal. See here for a map and further details.

The proposed East-West Expressway, with massive traffic consequences for Kidlington, has now been taken off the government agenda. But the Council continues to view with concern the huge population increase envisaged by the associated Oxford-Cambridge Arc scheme.

The Council is also opposing Network Rail’s planned closure of the Sandy Lane level crossing. And we will continue to press for better infrastructure provision to support the new housing developments.
 


 

Green Belt around Kidlington

 

Green Belt on the East edge of Kidlington 

 

Oxford - Cambridge ARC

The Arc is the major government economic development scheme for the counties stretching from Oxford to Cambridge, originally associated with the apparently defunct East-West Expressway. A recent consultation is vague about numbers, but those previously associated with the scheme envisaged a million new dwellings across the counties, and doubling the population of Oxfordshire.

The Council is by no means against growth, but we believe growth on the scale apparently envisaged for this region is undesirable for a number of reasons:

  • The scheme seems potentially to cut out the local planning process.
  • Oxfordshire has high employment and a buoyant economy. A proposal on this scale will generate more jobs and the associated housing across north  Oxfordshire on top of the 100K houses already planned for the county.
  • The proposals are inconsistent with the government's own levelling up agenda; the emphasis should be on boosting the economy in other areas of the country that need it.
  • The power of virtual working means that there is not the same need to link the two university towns by a series of new towns.
  • The proposals are just not sustainable in a crowded part of south eat of England.
  • Whilst the government has scrapped the Expressway there is a real possibility that this will happen by default along the line of the Arc.
  • The proposals will destroy further large swathes of green space.
  • The proposal do not fit with the need to do everything in our power to reduce the risks posed by climate change.