ORA Blog moves to a new website

Oakhurst Residents' Association have created a new website www.oakhurstresidents.org.uk!

The old blog will be kept on-line as an archive of our older posts, but all new posts and news can be found at our new web address www.oakhurstresidents.org.uk

So please bookmark this new home of the Oakhurst Residents' Association blog to keep in touch with what is happening.

Redhouse Cafe Culture Sold Out for Housing

The Swindon Advertiser posted a picture for the Tomlinson family album as mother and son posed together in the foreground of a promised land. 

Why they look so proud of their achievement is questionable.  The gang of four are at it again.  Bulldozers and building is all they understand and, though many promises were made to Priory Vale residents about the state of the art Village Centre, residents now find that a back door application has been processed to build 33 extra houses.   

Not one in the gang of four called it into planning committee for consideration thus sealing the fate forever of the cafe culture that residents were promised. 

It appears that the developer, Crest Nicholson, is being blamed for the fact that it was asking for a fair market price for its land holdings.  Surely, Conservative councillors would support free market, striving businesses? 

Therefore Crest Nicholson, as developer, has only done what is expected. Yet, Justin Tomlinson MP tells us that developers would not try to take advantage.  How can an MP say one thing about development in an article one day and then contradict himself the next day in an article in the same newspaper. 

People in Priory Vale have expressed dismay that there is a definite possibility of a maybe that at some point in the future there could well be a community building of sorts.   

What we do know, that is definitely happening, is that there is no doctor’s surgery, nursery provision, retail units or a pub being built on that site.

Now that’s outrageous and it’s scandalous that our local politicians have done it again so soon after Tadpole Farm and Mouldon Hill Country Park.

 

ORA Office Closed For Easter Break

Please be aware that the ORA office will be closed for the Easter break from Friday, 29th March 2013 until Monday, 8th April 2013.

The Puzzle of Redhouse Village Centre

Planning approval has been given for 33 more houses on land at Redhouse Village Centre where there should have been a doctor’s surgery, retail units and other community facilities.  Residents are asking some questions: 

Ø  Why was no planning committee held to make this decision?

Ø  Why did local councillors pay the developer £240k for some land at the Village Centre?

Ø  Why did a local councillor say, at two public meetings, that the land was going to be given to SBC for nothing?

Ø  Why did a local councillor admit to seeing Village Centre plans in 2011 but didn’t obtain a copy of that plan for local people?

Ø  Is this the end of the much heralded cafe culture promised by local politicians to the residents of Oakhurst and Redhouse?

Please Mr Bumble; Can We Have A School Where We Want It?

It is with a sardonic irony that the Adver reports that Tadpole Farm will become the preferred site for a four-form-entry primary school in Priory Vale.  The council has been aware of the demand for school places for several years and funding provision had been made to meet the known demand. However, it carried out the following incomprehensible actions: 

 

1. It was clear from the building programme that two-form-entry schools were needed, yet it continued to provide one-form-entry schools.
2. This was coincidental in so far as Cllr Renard sat on a schools task group which carved up safety valve money for North Swindon schools and set out to build schools in South Swindon when there was already sufficient capacity.  In doing this, schools in the North were starved of building funds and new school places.
3. Parents of children in Priory Vale have been treated in a cruel manner and now find their children shunted around the Northern part of Swindon for no other reason other than political incompetence and muddled thinking.

Mouldon Hill Country Park Saved From Development

Tonight SBC’s Cabinet made the decision to place two primary schools on Tadpole Farm. One will be built with access from the Oakhurst Way/Tadpole Lane roundabout and open in September 2014; the second site will be built later.

As we are aware, local councillors preferred the Country Park as the site for the new school. Residents in Oakhurst wanted to keep the Country Park and were quite clear, during the consultation, that no building of such kind should take place there.

Residents in Oakhurst also wanted a local site for a local school and asked for the planned Tadpole Farm school to be brought forward. Residents tell us that they are pleased that common sense has won the day and that the school will be built on Tadpole Farm.

ORA would like to thank everyone who worked with us to save the Country Park from development. Local people are pleased that a school will be built that does not involve a long hike over difficult terrain.

The new school at Tadpole Farm will benefit the people of Oakhurst and will be less distance to travel for all of the Oakhurst children when compared to the Mouldon Hill Country Park site.

Redhouse Pub Site: Suitable Falls at Becher's Brook

The report to cabinet on 20th March concerning the suitability of school sites in North Swindon states:

3.18 In addition to the site assessment further investigation with the developer in ownership of the Redhouse Pub Site option has identified;

3.18.1 The site is not under the control of the Council and the developer has indicated that they are working on bringing the site forward for local centre uses in the immediate short term,

3.18.2 The land is not big enough to accommodate a school and playing pitches,

3.18.3 There are complex contractual arrangements between the members of the North Swindon Development Consortium relating to the funding of infrastructure land which could affect the purchase price for the Council.