SODC Core Strategy

Dear Member,

As anticipated in our Spring Newsletter, SODC have now published its "Preferred Options" for its Core Strategy. The document runs to 144 pages and is available on SODC's website at www.southoxon.gov.uk It will be recalled that the Core Strategy is the basic element of the emerging Local Development Framework which will replace the old Local Plan. Agreement on the Preferred Options follows reconciliation of the results of the consultation at the beginning of 2008 with the related plans of Oxfordshire County Council and other agencies and the needs of national government.

The Preferred Options are now subject to a further round of consultation, as explained below, in which you are encouraged to participate.

The nub of the document is the intention to concentrate new housing development in the market towns and in Didcot. Some is however reserved for the larger villages, of which Goring is one of six in the eastern, predominantly rural, half of the district. These six larger villages would be expected to accommodate 600 dwellings by 2026; thus Goring's share would be 100 of these, an increase of about six a year, of which a proportion would be " affordable". From the document Goring - the case for modest growth, it will be seen that we regard this as meeting the criteria for the "modest growth" of the village which has been advocated previously.

In other respects, the aims of the Preferred Options are unexceptionable; for example, there is encouragement for vital village shops and services, and much else in similar vein.

We are asked to respond by Friday 1st May to a series of broad questions about the Preferred Options. To enable the Association to present a balanced response, we invite you to send the writer your comments both on the Preferred Options and on the notes now attached. It would help us if these were received by Monday April 20th, please. Of course, you are entirely at liberty to send directly to SODC your own answers to the questions contained in the Preferred Options document, in which case we would much appreciate receiving a copy of your reply.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

David Boyd, Chairman