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July 2010

Speedwatch

Two volunteer Community Speedwatch sessions were held in May and June. Of the 183 vehicles monitored, eleven exceeded 30 mph of which four exceeded 33 mph. All registration details are held by the police for further monitoring and drivers exceeding 33 mph will be written to by the police.

Sustainability Seminar 7 October 2010

This event is open to all Cropredy residents and will be led by Tom McCulloch who is Oxfordshire Rural Community Council's “green” expert. Various options to achieve a more carbon neutral community will be presented and discussed.

Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG)

NAG is a joint group comprised of the Banbury Community Policing team and representatives from Banbury's rural communities. The annual survey to set priorities for neighbourhood policing will take place during July. Thirty questionnaires are available for Cropredy residents and will be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis. Call Val Goldsmith on 01295 758817 for further information.

Cherwell District Council (CDC) Core Strategy Development Plan
The Village Plan Steering Group's response to the Core Strategy consultation, as approved by the Parish Council, was as follows:

Q5: Do you support the villages identified to accommodate housing in rural areas (Section B.3)?

Cropredy's own development strategy is set out in its Village Plan which was drawn up following consultation. This consultation shows that support for new housing is fairly equally divided (46% yes, 43% no, 11% don't know). Therefore, the Village Plan Steering Group broadly supports the proposal that Cropredy could take some new housing. However, Cropredy has been identified in CRAITLUS as having ‘medium sustainability' so any growth needs to be managed accordingly.

Cropredy school is close to capacity and it is unable to expand because of the constraints of the site. The village's infrastructure (water and sewerage) have limited capacity to support development. Major work has fairly recently been carried out to the sewerage system to overcome the overloading and flooding problems but the scope of this work was only to meet current sewerage capacity. No provision was made for any additional development.

Cropredy's facilities and sustainability depend largely on external factors, visitor trade from the canal and income from the Fairport music festival, which cannot be guaranteed in the long term.

For the reasons above Cropredy should not be classed as a Category A village and development should be limited accordingly.

Q6: Do you support the housing numbers distributed to the groups of villages identified (Section B.3)?

Allocation of homes between the five villages (Cropredy, Hook Norton, Steeple Aston, Fritwell and Sibford Ferris/Gower) - should be in proportion to population size.

A reasonable number of new homes for Cropredy might, therefore, be 40/45 rather than 50 as proposed.

A particular feature of Cropredy is that, although it doesn't have a large population, it has a significant cluster of satellite villages which use its facilities and could take some allocation of homes, including affordable housing with specific allocation of exceptional rural housing. We ask that this is noted in the final Core Strategy and then built in to the Delivery Plan .

Village Plan Action Point Update 31 March 2010

Paper copies are available from Cropredy Post Office and there is a link to download a PDF of the Update at the end of the Village Plan website page.

Transport
Cherwell Dial a Ride can provide a low cost service to Banbury for those with mobility difficulties. Call 01295 273086 to register and 01295 263777 to book the day before you wish to travel.