Fleur S – Page 17 – Crowmarsh Gifford

New Children’s play area

Results:

The responses for the new children’s play area and outdoor gym survey have now been collated and can be found here: Results from community playground consultation. Thank you for your support.

Village meeting on 19th April (7pm) at Crowmarsh School to discuss the local community plan for Crowmarsh Parish.
Our Community is delighted that planning permission to construct houses on the ‘Field east of Benson Lane’ was recently refused unanimously by the elected Councillors that comprise the District Council Planning Committee. We now need to plan for the next Bloor attack on the village. We understand that Bloor Hallam are hard at work preparing a case to Appeal to have the Planning Committee decision reversed (and you thought you lived in a democracy!). They will be looking at the comprehensive list of objections to their proposal in order to try and undermine those objections; they may come back quickly they may wait until the six month appeal deadline is almost up. Either way we need to be prepared for them.

There are two immediate tasks we need to deal with:

The first is to get ‘Land east of Benson Lane’ currently listed as land allocated for housing in the draft Local Plan Preferred Options 2 document removed. This draft document was published the same day as the Planning Committee meeting.
The second is that we need to progress our own Local Community Plan to an extent that it will make our wishes as a community clear to the Planners and to any Appeal Inspector.

Removal of the ‘Land East of Benson Lane’ from the draft Local Plan requires each and every one of us to raise an objection to it having been included as suitable for housing development. It has now been demonstrated that the site is not able to provide sustainable housing at this site at the edge of the village (see the Refusal Letter from SODC to Bloor Homes on the Save Crowmarsh Facebook page if you want to include details). It is vitally important that you do this for the village. The Local Plan is available with the comments form for you to complete at www.southoxon.gov.uk/newlocalplan . If you have not already registered with SODC you will need to fill in a few details about yourself. Not difficult, it will take you ten minutes at the very most to tell them why ‘Land East of Benson Lane’ should not be allocated for housing development. An objection could be just that the scale of the development is too big, or:

Grade II agricultural land should not be developed while lower grade land is available,
our school cannot cope,
our Medical Centre cannot cope,
our roads cannot cope,
150 houses is too many,
etc.

The second issue is that Crowmarsh Parish Council voted in favour of proceeding with a Local Community Plan at their meeting at the beginning of this month. The necessary agreements between them and the District Council are now being put into place and work has already commenced on aspects of the Plan. The Plan is ultimately put to a community referendum, so it is your plan. It will be a Parish plan so it will include North Stoke and Mongewell.

So what is a Local Community Plan? It is the vision of the respective communities to see how we want to develop up until the early 2030s. It includes, most importantly, allocation of land for housing, which is why it is so timely for us to embark on this project, and it will also include other themed areas such as

Sustainable Community,
Environment,
Industry and Jobs,
Resources, including schools and medical care, and
Transport, including air quality in Wallingford.

A lot of the underpinning evidence base is already available while additional information will need to be sought from yourselves and others by questionnaires and surveys. We will need help with this project and this is where you come in.

We plan an inaugural meeting to introduce the Local Community Plan Project to you the community of Crowmarsh. A separate meeting is planned in North Stoke. The Crowmarsh meeting will be held at… on… and we look forward to telling you why we need and how we can together produce a Local Community Plan, a Plan that will ensure growth , but growth of a kind that will ensure a sustainable community.

We can also talk about raising objections to ‘Land East of Benson Lane’ being allocated for housing in the District Local Plan. CRAG will also brief you on its various recent activities and development of collaboration with other stakeholders in our future development.

If you feel you can help us develop our Local Community Plan, please contact the core Local Plan Team which includes Nick Robins (CRAG) [email protected] and Nigel Hannigan (Parish Council) either by messaging Save Crowmarsh on Facebook or the Parish Council also on Facebook. We look forward to working with you in order that we can Save Crowmarsh!

Please note: This meeting is open strictly to residents of Crowmarsh Parish ONLY.

Health and Wellbeing Open Day – Sat 25 March

Click below poster link to view details of the Open Day at Wallingford Medical Practice on Saturday 25 March 10am to 1pm.

To including talks on CPR and Defribulator use, and a day in the life of a GP. Plus advice and information on topics such as Children’s Health, Diabetes and Healthy Living.

Health and Well Being Open Day Poster.pdf

Crowmarsh Recreation Ground – new play area

Do you support the building of a new children’s play area and outdoor gym in Crowmarsh?

The old children’s play area in the Crowmarsh Recreation Ground is over 20 years old and in need of removal or replacement. We can apply for grants from various funding bodies if we can demonstrate community support. Would you like to see it replaced with new equipment such as jungle climber, swings, roundabouts, riders on springs and slides? Our plan would include an outdoor gym (training aids) and facilities suitable for disabled children.

If you support this initiative, please add your name to the comment sheet either at The Village Shop, The Primary School or online here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/YMDV2KS. EVERY NAME COUNTS! Only if we have people’s support can we apply for funding to pay for it. If you’d like to help us with any aspect of applying for funding please get in touch with Andrew ([email protected]).

Local 134 Wallingford to Goring – bus service saved

Please note the termination of the current ‘Go Ride’ Wallingford – Goring bus service on Saturday 28^th January.

After unsuccessful approaches to other local bus operators to take over the route, Mr Mike Ward, a Goring resident, has set up his own new company, “Going Forward Buses CIC”, to not only take over the route as of Monday 30^th January, but also to increase the number of daily services. Two mini-buses have been purchased, drivers have been contracted, the service has been registered with the Traffic Commissioners and all other necessary arrangements have been made. The following timetable will operate from 30^th January. Crowmarsh residents note the return journey is NOT via Crowmarsh.

Click here to view the new timetable.

Preparing for Winter

Do you need a little extra help or assistance should the parish suffer a power outage in the forthcoming winter months? If so, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks would like to get you registered with them so they can come out and ensure you are looked after during a sustained outage. It is a free service, and any information provided is strictly confidential. See leaflet below for more information.

Priority-services-leaflet