Warehouse application agreed but fears for villagers over scale of development
04/07/2025
“We can walk on the shed roofs from Aynho to Upper Heyford”
Planning committee councillors have raised concerns of the scale of development hitting our area with one saying the situation some villagers found themselves in “broke his heart”.
A marathon five-and-a-half hour planning meeting last night agreed to the building of logistics warehousing on both sides of the A43 between the Baynard’s Green roundabout and junction 10 of the M40. Councillors took officers advice and conceded there were no defendable planning reasons to refuse the application.
A third application to build between the A43 and Stoke Lyne was refused, based on the visual harm to the area.
Whilst advised to decide on the applications before them on their own merit, other potential developments close by concerned some committee members.
A proposal for a strategic rail freight infrastructure site on the opposite side of the M40 between Ardley and Upper Heyford is predicted to be submitted to the government next year. Councillor John Broad told the meeting: “So we can walk on the shed roofs from Aynho to Upper Heyford”.
Noting other plans for a theme park near Bucknell and the potential for Upper Heyford to become a town, Councillor David Rogers voiced his concerns over the scale of development he saw coming to the area: “It breaks my heart to see these villagers here today with real concerns over their future. It is a beautiful part of the world.
“However, it’s 4000 jobs on this application (or 3000 depending which part of the report we’re looking at) – it’s a huge amount of economic activity in this area. It is finely balanced.”
Officers advised that for the applications between Baynards Green and the M40 the visual harm didn’t outweigh the benefits of the jobs being created and the improvements the developer had agreed to fund for the Baynard’s Green roundabout. The committee were also warned that losing any appeal could put the council beyond a threshold whereby the council would lose its ability to make planning decisions locally.
Councillor Dr Isabel Creed had initially voted against supporting the application, but summed up the views of some others when she described the position in which the committee found itself: “My opinion of this is that the only reason that we’ve legitimately got to refuse is the visual harm. If we end up with that at appeal we’ll probably lose.
“So on that ground alone, although I hate this, I don’t like this application, because we don’t have a defendable planning policy to defend it if it goes to appeal and they will then win, we’ll have to pay huge amounts of money and we’ll lose our planning ability to make the decision. I’m going to support this application.”
A representative for the developer told the meeting the area would be used for a DHL distribution centre and permission was granted for initial works to start straight away.
Published: by the Banbury FM News Team
