Over 600 people have attended public meetings at Winslow, Great Horwood and Little Horwood over the last two weeks and at each meeting residents sounded an emphatic NO! to the proposed Winslow Green development. These meetings have been followed by all three local Councils voting to oppose the development. The next stage of the process will be for the planning application to be heard by the AVDC Strategic Development Committee on 1st April where the local councils will have an opportunity to to present their case for opposing the scheme.

GROUP AGAINST GREENWAY MEETING

A further meeting will be held at 8.15pm in the Winslow Public Hall on Tuesday 10th February to organise on-going opposition to the proposed development. The meeting is being organised by the Group Against Greenway and supported by the Winslow Protection Society. This is a great opportuntity for those who have missed the earlier meetings to catch up on what is being said about the application and to hear what practical steps they can take to oppose it.

The Development Committee of Winslow Town Council have voted to recommend to the full town council that they formally oppose the application to build 3,300 houses on the site of the former Little Horwood Airfield. The full council will discuss this recommendation at a specially convened meeting in the St Laurence Room on Wednesday 4th February at 7.30pm when this will be the only item on the agenda.  This decision follows a packed public meeting at the Winslow Combined School attended by some 400 residents. It was standing room only when Cllr Llew Monger, Chairman of the Development Committee, addressed the meeting and explained the background to the proposal and indicated the general feelings of the Committee. Members of the committee joined Llew on stage to answer questions from residents after the presentation. ” I was impressed with the quality and range of the comments ” said Llew after the meeting. Residents could have been excused for takling a ‘nimby’ attitude but, in a vote at the end of the meeting, those present made it clear that while they were opposed to the Winslow Green development the vast majority accepted that Winslow should take some further growth in the future.

This development proposal will be discussed by the AVDC Strategic Development Committee at a meeting on either 11th March or 1st April with the latter date looking more likely. Watch this site for an update on this.

After several years of talking about it there has now been a  formal  application submitted to Aylesbury Vale District Council for the building of 3,300 houses plus retail and commercial development on land centered on Little Horwood Airfield but extending right down to Winslow itself. Indeed the application is billed as ‘a sustainable extension the Winslow’. This application will be considered by the Strategic Development Committee of AVDC rather than the normal Develooment Control Committee and they have sixteen weekd from 29th December to make a decision.

Winslow Town Council have just received copies of the plans and related documents and have asked for a second set to enable local residents to see them more easily. Details of the viewing arrangements will be distributed by Winslow Town Council to every houshold and all business premises in Winslow and Shipton  towards the end of week commencing 12th January. A public meeting will be held at Winslow Combined School , 7.30pm, Tuesday 27th January to enable local residents to ask questions and make comments. Members of the Development Committee of WTC will spend considerable time over the next three weeks studying more than thirty plans and documents which make up the application. They will meet on the 28th January to make a recommendation to Full Council which is expected to consider this at its meeting on 5th February. Winslow Town Council can only comment on this application and the decison will be made by Aylesbury Vale District Council.

WHY MORE HOUSES?

The South East Plan calls for Aylesbury Vale to provide 26,800 new homes in the period up to 2026. These are to be made up of 16,800 in Aylesbury, 5390 to the South West of Milton Keynes and 4700 in the rest of the District. Those for South West of Milton Keynes are to be built close to Newton Longville which will bring Milton Keynes ever closer to us in Winslow.

Aylesbury Vale are currently preparing their Local Development Framework (LDF) which will decide where the houses are to be built and there have been public consultations in Aylesbury about the prefered locations for the houses to be built there. At this stage AVDC have no plans for public consultaion about the locations for the 4700 to be built in the ‘Rest of District’ which would included Winslow. Llew has raised this with Liberal Democrats on  AVDC and they have tabled a motion criticising this decision.

The Core Strategy Document, which is the first part of the LDF, made it clear that AVDC did not see the need for a ‘new settlement’ in order to meet requirements for house numbers. Winslow Town Council endorsed this view in its response to the Core Strategy. On this basis it seems that the proposals for Winslow Green would fall outside the emerging LDF and would have to be refused. However, developers have the right to put applications forward which, in effect, challenge the LDF and if they are refused they would almost certainly appeal and the application would end up in a Public Enquiry. A spokesman for Winslow Green has already indicated that if the application is refused they will go to appeal.

What do you think about plans to increase the size of Winslow almost threefold? Let Llew know your views to help him comment on the application.