Oundle Gets Trampled

What's just happened?

On Monday 20th January, East Northants Council Planning Policy Committee gave the go ahead to add three housing sites in Oundle to its Local Plan.

Whilst this doesn't sound very exciting, the ramifications for Oundle are enormous.

It means that, with the stalling of the Neighbourhood Plan at Examination (see report), ENC's Local Plan will now in effect supersede the Neighbourhood Plan, meaning Oundle has lost the chance to decide where housing goes in the town.

Three sites were approved

• 130 houses at Cotterstock/St Peters Road – right by the sewage works and with likely access on the blind corner near the primary school
• 100 houses at St Christopher's Drive – on the A605 in effect but with no access to it
• 70 houses at Stoke Doyle Road – with a possible cemetery extension

5 members of the Oundle community were allowed to speak for only 3 minutes each at the start of the meeting (their speeches can be seen below and are pretty self-explanatory), but no Oundle residents, Councillors or representatives were able to take part in the meeting, and those ENC Councillors who voted were all representatives of the southern part of the District.

• Speech 1
• Speech 2
• Speech 3
• Speech 4
• Speech 5 - Mayor's Speech

What now?

1. Whilst there might seem little point in continuing with the Neighbourhood Plan, there are important sections on green spaces, plans for cycleways etc that could survive – and one idea is the OTC works with ENC in getting these adopted into the ENC Local Plan. However, there is no guarantee that the Local Plan will get through its examination later in the year, so there may be a need to keep the Neighbourhood Plan on the back burner.
2. OTC is meeting with Tom Pursglove on Friday 7th February to raise concerns about ENC's handling of the whole Neighbourhood Plan and the recent planning applications from developers on Cotterstock/St Peters Road and St Christopher's Drive – and will continue to fight these applications, possibly at a meeting at ENC on Feb 26th and March 23rd. If these two developments get the go ahead, the Neighbourhood AND Local Plan will both be superseded.
3. Oundle also needs to decide what priorities it wants to set for any "Section 106" funds (funds developers have to pay to ENC to "mitigate" any problems new developments cause – and these may be required from ANY housing site in Oundle).

To hear more about the present state of play AND have a say on drawing up a list of Section 106 priorities, please do come (and bring friends, family and neighbours) to an Extraordinary Town meeting – Thursday 13th February, in the Queen Victoria Hall at 7.30pm – or go online to OTC

If you have any ideas where you think we could improve facilities in Oundle with S106 funds please let us know by filling in our online survey

We're petitioning East Northamptonshire Council about the planning applications at St Christopher's Drive and Cotterstock/St Peter's Road.

Sign the petitions;

• CLOSED ON FRIDAY 20 MARCH 2020: Object to 100+ houses at St Christopher's Drive, Oundle
• CLOSED & HANDED TO EAST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE COUNCIL ON TUESDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2020: Object to plans for 130 houses at Cotterstock/St Peters Road, Oundle