POSITION PAPER – Housing requirement assumptions driving the

delivery the proposed Carterton West Development

We believe the Carterton West Option is undeliverable because of a

number of technical, planning and political issues. This document
highlights the housing requirement driving the proposal for the site
identified as “Carterton West”. We oppose the Carterton West Option, as
it will have a catastrophic impact on Carterton, the local environment and
surrounding villages.

• The WODC LDF Draft Core Strategy cites the need for 4,300 new homes over
the next 15 years. The primary justification for this figure is the Greater London
Authority (GLA) report entitled West Oxfordshire Demographic Projections.
This report has been misinterpreted, with the result that the housing need
stated in the Draft Core Strategy is 430% greater than it should be.
• Natural population growth over the next 15 years in West Oxfordshire can be
accommodated by the provision of 1,000 new homes - 23% of the target stated
in the Draft Core Strategy.
• The target of 4,300 new homes has been taken from the GLA Report, which
assumes that the 1,500 homes currently planned to 2016 are filled and beyond
then, that past trends are projected forward. Past trends include inward
migration.
• In adopting this assumption, the Draft Core Strategy therefore seeks to fulfil all
possible demands that derive from internal and external sources. This is a policy
choice and not a requirement. It is a strategy that takes no account of
immigration assumptions made in strategic housing assessments in neighbouring
districts, no account of the wider regional or indeed national picture on
migration and would have the effect of actively encouraging migration into the
district and will lead to an upward spiral of artificially generated housing need in
the district. This need for housing will keep spilling over into future planning
periods and will accelerate well in excess of even the highest anticipated growth
rates for the employment centres served by that housing within the district. This
strategy would therefore encourage commuting, contradicting fundamental
Central Government policies on sustainable development, including PPS4, PPS7
and PPG13 as well as the existing local policies and indeed the proposed local
policies that form part of the Core Strategy itself.
• London does not seek to balance unlimited demand fuelled by migration with
supply and nor should any other region. If all districts in the South did so, there

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 would be far higher net migration from the North and West and if those
authorities took the same approach, then national immigration would be actively
encouraged, counter to the national immigration policy set out by Damien Green
as recently as April 2011.
• Not withstanding the picture on the District housing need, no assessment has
been made regarding the demand for inward migration to Carterton. The
assumptions take no account of growth predictions for Bicester, Oxford or
Swindon. If there is no market for newly created houses in Carterton, large
numbers of homes will stand empty or land allocated for housing will remain
undeveloped for years, leading to uncertainty for all key stakeholders.
• No analysis has been carried out to assess whether development leads to net
planning gain or whether it just necessitates construction of additional expensive
infrastructure projects and also adds more pressure to surrounding existing
infrastructure, such that it needs upgrading too.
• No analysis has been carried out to assess whether increased population and
associated additional council taxes lead to net financial gain to the Council purse,
or whether more people just means more service provision. Past trends needs to
be looked at to assess whether past growth has yielded more spending on
services and facilities per head.
• Net benefit needs to be objectively proven by detailed calculation, before taking
such a key decision, which will have such a major impact on the district.
• The housing target makes no allowance for the number of existing empty homes.
• As there is no need for 4,300 new homes, there is no need for 1,600 homes in
Carterton and no need for a strategic site of 1,000 houses. The recommendation
of a strategic site is a policy choice, not a requirement.
• The relocation of RAF Lyneham is believed by some to justify a strategic site at
Carterton, but the MoD has confirmed that it has no requirement for additional
homes above and beyond those it will provide for itself. Moreover, there is
evidence that MoD sites in Carterton could yield significant surplus housing for
the private sector. This appears not to have been considered in the Draft Core
Strategy.
• The need for affordable housing has also been used to justify a strategic site in
Carterton. Up to 50% of the homes planned for Carterton will be affordable
houses (up to 800). However, there are only 161 people on the Carterton
Housing Need waiting list who qualify (as at April 2011), a figure typically
regarded as proportionate to the population..
In summary, it is surprising that WODC has relied so heavily on the GLA’s report without
taking proper account of the assumptions and limitations of the GLA’s projections. We
also find the need for a strategic site at Carterton to have no basis.

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