It is sad to see a house being allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair on the Oxford Road in Abingdon. This house is on land that has enough space for two houses and since it will need so much work doing to put it right, building two houses makes sense from a developers point of view – as an investment. But to me it still looks at interesting house. which made a good home, and could have done so still.
There was a planning application last year to replace this by a house and two flats. This was turned down for various reasons including car it being cramped, over dominant and out of character for the area.
There is a new application in to build two houses – which look a bit more in keeping.
It is sad though.
Yes, I walked past this house yesterday and, as the photo shows, it is in a sorry state. However, the front is a mess with the ubiquitous ivy smothering the front walls and, to some extent, blocking the pavement. The sooner this site is sorted out the better.
Oh for the good old days when houses had gardens and space. The new builds in Abingdon look like barrack blocks with no gardens. I feel claustrophobic walking around them. Perhaps I am old fashioned and the younger generation are not interested in having gardens to sit in. Are these the new slums of tomorrow?
It’s sad that nice houses like this are allowed to fall into this state and be replaced with smaller and uglier units. With the price of property it makes sense financially to build as many houses as you can in the place of a once nice decent sized house.
Although financially it makes sesne, in every other way it doesn’t. It will no doubt look worse, be smaller and more people will be living in the space. With the traffic problems and other overcrowding at schools, hospitals ect it shouldn’t be allowed to happen really. I thought David Cameron was saying he’d cut down on this in fill kind of construction, but I might be wrong.
Nice house ? I’m not so sure…
Everytime I’ve looked, the house appears to have pretty bad subsidance, you can even see it in that picture.. look at the angle of the right hand lower window frames, compared to say the door… ‘In person’ it looks even worse..
I’m sure we’d all like houses with bigger gardens and more space, I would !
Just a shame most people cant afford them.
I wonder what the population of the UK, ( and Abingdon), was in ‘the good old days’ compared to now… somewhat smaller..
People have to live somewhere..
Green field development is barely allowed, converting old pubs to houses is barely allowed ( would have been a better use of the Ox, than a Tesco..), so putting 2 houses where there was only 1 is surely not a bad idea.. if there is really room.
Come off it, Anon, looks to me just 3 window panes need replacing 😉
Great home once, no doubt, and location. Who owns it?
Small time developers will sit on properties for years. For 8 years every time I turned out of my old road I had to pass a similarly solid “family” house that was boarded up and overgrown. The excuse was apparently “cashflow”…the numpty managed to miss a housing boom completely !! This one is perfectly restorable but they’ll be far more profit in a couple of over priced rabbit hutches.
It does have subsidence issues (anon coward is correct) and there are worse signs when you look up close in person.
It will have to be demolished and something re-built. The cost is too prohibitive to build a single property, so whatever happens it will be flats or 2 smaller houses.
Have just realised that This Charming Man was making a joke – sorry – didn’t notice the winking icon!!!!
The planning application can be seen on the Vale of White Horse website – the reference is 12/00263/FUL. The previous application referred to by Helen P is also there – I agree with her that this is more in keeping and the properties do seem to have reasonable-sized gardens.
Local residents however are concerned about the traffic and parking implications.
The Friends of Abingdon (the town’s Civic Society) monitors appliations of this kind and makes submissions if appropriate – see our website http://www.friendsofabingdon.org.uk/
Where along the Oxford Road was that ‘controversial’ modern ‘house’ going to be built?.
Very Cubist in design……
there’s a modern square house built recently on norman avenue off oxford road – personally i think it looks fantastic – wish it was mine!
Colin – The plans approved for 65 Oxford Road in late 2010 were for two cube-shaped houses – is that what you are thinking of? No sign of any work starting – but the developers were Cranbourne Homes so guess they are busy elsewhere!
I think that the house Hester refers to is now being let.
Rudi: that square carbuncle!? Zounds.