North Abingdon Housing Exhibition

North Abingdon Housing Exhibition
Today there was an exhibition about the first phase of homes off the Dunmore Road in North Abingdon (425 from 900). The land includes part of the field to the right of the footpath to Sunningwell, and the field to on the left of the footpath – after the woodland round Tilsley Park.
North Abingdon Housing Exhibition
Dunmore Road is part of the route round Abingdon. There will be two new junctions to serve the first 425 homes, and so traffic flow will be impacted.

The development will help finance the south facing slip lanes at the Lodge Hill junction onto the A34. That should reduce the amount of traffic on the Dunmore Road. However those Lodge Hill plans are currently lodged with the Highways Agency and they could be biding their time. The Oxford to Cambridge Expressway is also under consideration this year. So they might delay a decision on Lodge Hill until the expressway route is decided.
North Abingdon Housing Exhibition
The exhibition was at the Northcourt Centre and was very similar to previous housing development exhibitions and comprised some stand up exhibition banners, maps scattered on tables, and representatives of the developers for people to talk to about the plans. You can view the same banners online and make comments at https://northabingdon.co.uk/.
North Abingdon Housing Exhibition
The banners show which parts will be built by Barratt Homes, and which by David Wilson Homes, and examples of houses they built recently. They also show the estate roads, and green spaces (one is called LEAP)

The banners do not address the main local worry that these houses will be built before any infrastructure – that is not just the A34 slipways, but also the new primary school. Doctor surgery capacity in Abingdon will also an issue. I heard one developer representative saying ‘I am not a traffic expert’, but as always that is what many of the questions were about.

16 thoughts on “North Abingdon Housing Exhibition

  1. ppjs

    The plan is generic in the sense that the developers have produced their drawings and proposals without any deeper understanding of the town as it is (warts and all). How I wish a company like Peter Barber were looking at this! We would get a properly considered plan with humane architecture based on community building…

    http://www.peterbarberarchitects.com/

    Reply
  2. Ste

    I went along too.

    Minor correction its for 950 houses not 900.

    Also don’t forget the 200 houses that are being planned between Wootton Road roundabout and Tilsley Park, so in that area it will eventually be 1150 houses in total.

    One of the reps told me that the houses are due to be start being built towards the end of this year and approx 100 a year will be built until the end of 2024.

    The full slip at Lodge Hill according to her is with the council so people need to get onto them to make sure it happens.

    Also there is no plan for widening Dunmore Road or Twelve Acre Drive, the only alteration is a left turn slip road from Dunmore Road going up Lodge hill and there will also be a bus stop on the hill coming down off the A34 which I’m sure will impact rush hour traffic.

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  3. Hester

    Re the final paragraph, there was a bit of clarification on this. We were told that plans for the “Local Centre” (including school, health centre, shop etc) will be made public this summer: a different developer is doing that, which is why it wasn’t covered by this exhibition. Also that David Wilson Homes plan to complete around 100 houses per year, so the full 400 are a long way off – giving at least the possibility that the infrastructure (including slip roads and Local Centre) will be ready before a lot of the people move in.
    Of course the proof is in the pudding……

    Reply
  4. Janet

    The Clinical Commissioning Group said that existing G P surgeries in Abingdon will not be able to cope with the extra people from this development that will want to sign on their lists. My surgery in Abingdon has the largest list in Oxforshire and I have to wait 3 to 4 weeks if I want to see my G P, already. Also we have the promise that the diamond interchange will be built but there is no enforcement to ensure that this actually happens. This has happened in South Abingdon. There was to be another road to link to the A34 but this never happened. Consultation is worthless as none of the comments by the public will be taken into account. We saw that with the Morland Garden Estate. Even though local councellors opposed it a planning inspector will be brought in to push the development through. Developers are the biggest contributor to the Conservative Party. I am told that Conservative Councilllors voted to allow the building of (it was 250 houses and now 400), before the diamond interchange was promised to be built. That remains to be seen. The Lib Dems however, said that no houses should be built before the interchange.

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  5. Sarah

    Without wishing to lower the tone, have they thought about the drains? I believe the sewage works is already over capacity.

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  6. Trevor

    Sarah,
    The official over capacity of the A34 is obviously not a problem so no need to worry about the sewage works (hang on I live quite close to the sewage works)
    Future developments should be allowed under the strict condition of on completion of 25% of houses not another brick is laid until ALL Infrastructure is built & working.
    Does anyone know if once a 5 year plan is in place can developers still apply to build anywhere & then have it pushed through on appeal?

    Reply
  7. Hester

    Trevor – I think the answer is “No” – that was why it was so important to get the plan through. If the Council can show they have plans which meet the assessed housing need, developers can still try for other sites, but there would be much less chance of it going through, even on appeal.

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  8. newcomer

    I was left aghast the other day (in an ‘it cannot be so’ kinda way) when someone slipped into a general conversation that trucks were already shipping effluent out of the Abingdon sewage works as the plant is already inadequate for the town’s needs. Two of the party than started a conversation on the matter which seemed to imply that this was common knowledge.

    Not to me.

    Does The Vale Planning Department know about this?

    Reply
  9. Daniel

    Newcomer; anyone who’s anyone knows that The Veil is, has and will continue to take the pi## until the end of days….

    I had considered about going to one of these exhibition s bit I pondered…. Should I go out and show my face and be treated with contempt as a mere resident; or stay at home with a whisky and my pipe and be treated with contempt?

    …it was a fine whisky.

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  10. Daniel

    I have written a strongly worded email to the council about the sewage.

    I considered using bold, but I will save this incase I need to write a really really strong email.

    I will reserve italics incase Layla ends up needing to contact them.

    Reply
  11. David

    “The development will help finance the south facing slip lanes at the Lodge Hill junction onto the A34. That should reduce the amount of traffic on the Dunmore Road.”

    It won’t. It will just shift some of it from one end of Dunmore Road to the other. While at the same time all the extra houses will add a whole load of extra cars, so there will actually be more traffic overall.

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  12. Spike S

    In view of their earlier successes elsewhere, once the Traffic Engineers have responded e by adding a few ‘Pillokan’ pedestrian crossings adjacent to the Lodge Hill roundabout, all the predicted problems will magic away – Not !

    Reply
  13. Daniel

    What’s important there, which I think we are all missing, is that it is very important for the developers to make as much money as possible.

    As we can use all our hands to count the number of times The Veil has let us all down on such matters it is inevitable that the developer stands to gain hugely in this and us barely; if at all. Have we not learned anything? It’s fruitless to even turn up to such things let alone ‘have a say’. I would really love to hear all the instances when such a development was ever altered or stopped due to its similar inainity to this.

    Out of interest, I thought that the property crash happens in about 26 days…so who’s gonna be buying houses anyway!?

    Reply
  14. Kennys_hat

    Is it just me that thinks these exhibitions are great for developers to find out how people may object to the development and be forearmed with reasons why we, the people with local knowledge, should not be listened to?

    Reply

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