At the recent meeting to discuss the latest plans for the Community Hub, it was announced that further meetings would be held to discuss some specific topics related to this. These meetings are part of the Parish Council’s and Thomas Homes’ ongoing commitment to consult with residents at every stage of the Neighbourhood Plan and Planning Application process.
The meetings will be held on Saturday 19th March between 9am and 5.30pm at St Mary’s Church. There will be five separate sessions. It is hope as many residents as possible will attend. In particular, please attend if you have a special expertise or interest in one or more of the topics.
The sessions will be run by Chris Brotherton from Thomas Homes and some sessions will also have expert advice available. The agenda and details of each session are below.
Agenda
09:00-10:30 School/Pre-school and Village Hall
10:45-12:15 Biodiversity
12:15-13:30 Highways
14:15-15:45 Housing design
16:00-17:30 Energy
School/Pre-school and Village Hall
Whilst the layout of the school is determined by Oxfordshire County Council and The Diocese, we would like to present the layout of the hall and seek comment, especially from the user groups. The architectural elevational design style proposed is similar for both the school and the hall. We would like to discuss the designs and materials proposed, to see whether our distinctive, modern high quality proposals are what the village would like to see.
The outside space for both buildings is important and we would like to hear how this space will be used, and key needs to inform the design.
Biodiversity
The Government has recently changed their requirements for biodiversity on new developments. It is now very challenging to provide the biodiversity gain on site, and an alternative to this is an off site payment. This is not ideal in this instance and we would like find a way with the village to provide as much of the biodiversity gain on site. As well as ticking the biodiversity box, we want to make the site landscaping as attractive as possible and would like to hear from the village their vision as to how the site could be designed.
Highways
This will not just be about entrances, speed and safety on the Didcot Road. It will be a wider consultation around pedestrian/cycle access to the site; parking standards; drop off provision and making sustainable travel a priority.
Housing Design
We have proposed a mixture of modern and traditional designs, incorporating a modern take on barn and farmyard architecture. We would like to discuss this in detail and how this can be achieved on the site.
Energy
We would like to explain the up coming changes to Building Regulations and how we intend to better these requirements. This will be a discussion around fabric performance, heating, lighting, home working, Internet and car charging.
At least cycle provision cannot be worse than the current arrangement. New cycle lanes blocked again today by parked cars. Gridlock/road rage a weekly occurrence when traffic meets head to head by the school.
The whole situation is a mess – clearly Oxford to Didcot traffic cannot be accommodated on roads designed for a small village without further traffic calming to deter people using the village as a shortcut to the A34.