Emphasis on Road Transport

1. Emphasis on Road Transport • West Oxon road system has stagnated. • A40 is saturated at peak times. • Proposed new links to A40 improve flows in Witney but add to problems on A40. • Carterton has no direct south access. What plans are there to cope with the increase of traffic resulting from the building of 5500 new houses in West Oxfordshire and prevent total gridlock on the A40?

2. Rail Transport • There are two dual track lines in WO. • The newly dualled Cotswold line handles 0.5m passengers pa through 3 stations. • Tackley on the Cherwell Valley line handles ~35000 pa. • Both are probably capable of much increased capacity. The best part of £100m was spent on the upgrade of the Cotswold Line, what proportion of the new build is proposed to be within easy reach of one of the key stations?

3. Job Prospects Indicator JPI is calculated for each town from No of enterprises & No of resident employees. All data is from 2011 census.

4. More Commuters? • Carterton has the worst job prospects of any of the major centres in the area. • New residents in Carterton will almost certainly have to commute to their employment. • Commuting will get increasingly more expensive and time consuming, and is bad for the environment. Why build more houses in the town with the poorest job prospects?

5. Carterton & Infrastructure • Witney has all the necessary infrastructure and is the local hub. • Currently people in Carterton travel to Witney to access many services. • There is no justification to duplicate key services only 6 miles from the hub.

6. Local Shopping The building of 1500 houses at Shilton Park has done nothing to improve Carterton’s position, 29% of the town’s residents do their convenience shopping at Sainsbury’s in Witney. Data is taken from recent GVA report.

7. Leisure Activities • Carterton has 2 pubs and 1 restaurant. • Witney has 11 pubs, 12 restaurants, a multiplex cinema, and 4 hotels. Given the choices shown above where do you think people go to spend an evening? In a recent telephone survey less than 10% of residents in Carterton said that they ate or drank in the town in the evening.

8. Carterton is a Poor Choice • It has poor job prospects • No congestion-free access to the south • Restricted shopping facilities • Very limited leisure offerings • In the previous public consultation 40% of those from Carterton said they wanted no further development • All the surrounding villages agree that its growth should be contained

9. Reallocation of Houses The reduction in the allocation to Carterton more or less matches the 700 houses earmarked for Carterton East, which would make the proposed development totally unnecessary. Witney North is a possible choice for relocation, this has the benefit of incorporating a second crossing and flood alleviation, and would take advantage of the upgrade of Long Hanborough station.

10. Benefits of Dispersal • All vibrant communities need new housing to accommodate the natural population growth. • This new housing needs to be affordable to young couples setting up home in the village they have grown up in. • Small developments usually mean small builders, boosting the local economy and supporting local employment.

11. The Effect on Brize However you do the arithmetic, it seems that a fair allocation for Brize is between 5 and 41 houses. By any standards 700 is excessive.

12. In Conclusion • The fate of Brize hangs in the balance. • Carterton East (CE) is a blighted site. • Carterton lacks amenities and its residents look elsewhere to shop and for leisure. • There are real alternatives to the CE site. • There are 713,945ha in the district, that’s 14,279 options for a 50ha site, so why choose the one right next to the UK’s biggest RAF base?