At the Culham Fete last Saturday, the Save Culham Green Belt group had a stall.

South Oxfordshire District Council are looking where to put some more houses in their local plan, and are considering the new option of putting 3,500 on the Green Belt near Culham. It might even finance a bridge over the River Thames.

The red areas on their map shows areas of new housing. If the scheme did make it into the local plan then the development would dwarf those in North Abingdon. They told me that 3500 houses would mean 8,000 to 10,000 people and 2000+ cars. The Culham population was 453 in the 2011 Census.

The green circle bottom left is a small part of the new reservoir being proposed again. Thames Water did a presentation on the reservoir proposal at Trinity Church two weeks ago. Not a lot of people knew that or they would have gone. I was told there were as many people doing the presentation as in the audience.

For many years Sandles was a private house, and Thrupp Lake formed part of the grounds – used for recreation and water sports.

The lake and house were brought by nPower who applied for permission to fill Thrupp Lake with fly ash from Didcot Power Station. Locals then started up the Save Radley Lakes campaign.

In January 2007 Sandles was occupied by about 15 protesters, who stayed for about a month before being evicted, and then Sandles became a barracks for security men who patrolled the lake. A lot of trees were cut down at that time, preparing the lake for infilling.

In December 2008, when this picture was taken, an agreement was reached between nPower and the Save Radley Lakes campaign that the Northmoor Trust would look after the lake as a nature reserve. Initial ideas were to improve access and viewing areas and possibly turn Sandles into an educational resource with outdoor learning space.

9 years have passed during which better access has been provided, and viewing places. The Northmoor Trust has become the Earth Trust; Save Radley Lakes has become the Friends of Radley Lakes. Meanwhile Sandles has been been left bricked up, and visited by every graffiti artist in the area, until now…

A week ago demolition began, and Sandles is now a pile of rubble.

This evening, I walked round the dog walking field between Masefield Crescent and the Drayton Road. Looking down from the top of the field, the remaining cooling towers of Didcot ‘A’ Power Station are visible through a clearing in the trees – made for the entrance of the new Morland Gardens estate.

On the west side, the wind blows across a field of barley – wave after wave.

The south facing field has a crop of rape seed, and not far beyond, next to the village of Drayton, another new housing estate is being built.

The new Morland Gardens estate is now the home for quite a few people, and houses are going up, out of sight, at the far end of this ex-horse-grazing field.

The new estate is separated by a wall from Virginia Way and Lucca Drive so the older and new estates are kept separate. New residents cannot just cut through on foot.

I gather from the Vale planning portal that a historic stone wall has been demolished off Bath Street and will be rebuilt in a set back position.

Vehicles will no longer need to drive through Abingdon School to get to Lacies Court, a property that is part of the school. Instead there will be access from Bath Street with a double garage.

Before the wall is rebuilt, the access from Bath street will also allow construction traffic to work on a new three story educational building that is planned.