Moreton Against Overdevelopment: Over 100 residents at event

It was standing room only at the event organised by Moreton Against Overdevelopment on August 21.

The unexpectedly high number of attendees lined the walls of the Redesdale Lower Hall and others listened to the amplified discussion in the foyer and even in the street, according to the organisers.

The meeting was chaired by Neil Backwith, a team member and resident of Moreton for 30 years.

In his introduction, he told the audience that the campaign was non-political and led by a small group of locals who want to stop the gross over-development of Moreton-in-Marsh before the beauty and history of the market town is completely destroyed.

He explained that the campaign strategy is to urge Cotswold District Council (CDC) to think again and to object to the proposals through the proper channels but to add a campaign for direct action.

Darren Curry, who moved to Moreton more recently, told the audience of the reasons he started the campaign early in the year, when the update proposals to the local plan, the district’s blueprint for development, were first revealed by CDC.

He had calculated that a total of about 2,000 extra homes were proposed for the small town which could give rise to Moreton’s population approaching 10,000 from around 5,000 currently.

The population of Moreton grew by 43 per cent in just ten years from 2011-2021. Moreton has already received 183 per cent of the total housing built in the district, the campaigners say.

They say the targeted number of houses for the whole of the Cotswold District to 2041 is 3,300 and believe that CDC wants to put nearly half those in Moreton.

There are also fears the new government’s ambitious targets are for more than 900 social housing units to be created every year in the district. They believe half of those would come to Moreton unless CDC can be persuaded to reconsider.

While the campaign has never opposed the need for more social, affordable housing rather than the £1m executive homes currently being built on its outskirts, they say the unclear figures cause widespread concern and appear to be based on inadequate research and misperceptions.

Campaign member Sue Stapely, a member of the neighbourhood development plan working group, has lived in or near Moreton for twenty years.

She reminded the audience of the failing infrastructure and services in the town which are already struggling to provide for the existing population and will inevitably collapse completely if the proposed plans go ahead unaltered.

The River Evenlode is polluted, the sewage works is out of date, Thames Water says it cannot support any more housing until the treatment works are upgraded; toxic emissions from the static traffic are harmful to asthmatics; there is no NHS dentist in the town or in nearby Chipping Norton; the doctors’ surgeries are averaging a three week delay for appointments and five days for prescriptions.

There are concerns that Moreton-in-Marsh is a flood risk area and that more new developments will raise the threat of flooding as the areas for water to drain reduce.

The waste disposal service, outsourced by CDC, collapsed recently with many households going four weeks without their bins being emptied – she wondered how the service would cope with thousands more residents and their waste.

“I shall not be here to see what happens to Moreton in the future, but I think we owe it to those who walk in our shoes to try to do better,” she said.

Town Councillor Bob Eastoe, was the last team member to speak. He explained how much work the town councillors were responsible for and confirmed that its members were deeply concerned about CDC proposals and had submitted 11 pages of detailed questions as part of the consultation process.

He made clear that as the town council has no special role to play in the planning process other than as a statutory consultee on planning applications, it was not the appropriate organisation to conduct a campaign.

He emphasised that the audience should remember that the proposed update to the local plan is not the new plan; it has not been submitted to a planning inspector; it has not been agreed or adopted and no decisions have yet been made.

“The campaign, supported by the residents, has to make sure that significant changes are made before any plan is finalised and that we are able to save our North Cotswold market town from damaging overdevelopment,” he said.

District Councillor Daryl Corps (C, Moreton West), who has supported the campaign from its start, read a statement from North Cotswold MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown who had been briefed by the campaign team and apologised for not being able to attend the meeting.

He said ‘I am absolutely behind this campaign, and I fully endorse the sentiments of the residents.

“I will work alongside them and any other parties to persuade the [District] Council to draw up more reasonable and proportionate plans for the town.

“I am committed to supporting residents in whatever capacity I can and will vigorously advocate for their views with the District Council, through the local press and in Parliament.”

The meeting then heard from some of the many residents, who had many suggestions, comments and questions, all of which were carefully noted by the campaign team.

After it had been explained that to date the campaign team had funded all the printing, events and activities, and to instruct expert legal planning counsel for advice would be an expensive but valuable step, a resident suggested the campaign team to establish a fighting fund for such purposes.

This was greeted with enthusiasm by the residents and a campaign fund will now be established.

Cotswold District Council leaders have previously said it is understandable that residents are concerned about the prospect of a big expansion of their town given the experience of unplanned development in Moreton over the last ten years.

They said the choice about housing development is whether it is properly planned by local councils through a local plan or whether we get speculative developments granted on appeal by planning inspectors.

And a lack of a sound local plan “would put the future of the district in the hands of developers”.

Deputy Leader of CDC Mike Evemy (LD, Siddington and Cerney Rural) said: “Given the experience of unplanned development in Moreton over the last ten years, it’s understandable why local residents are concerned about the prospect of a big expansion of their town.

“But it’s the role of public representatives to understand the situation and explain to residents that the choice about housing development is whether it is properly planned by local councils through a local plan or whether we get speculative developments granted on appeal by Planning Inspectors.

“By their actions, the Conservatives appear to want the council to put the future of the district in the hands of developers again as it was when they ran the council.”

Planning and regulatory services cabinet member Juliet Layton (LD, South Cerney Village) previously said the District Council is in the process of reviewing its local plan to 2041.

“As required, we have called for potential housing development sites across the district and have run all day public consultations in both Cirencester and Moreton-in-Marsh along with an evening meeting at Moreton,” she said.

“We have also run an online consultation on the draft local plan. The results of these consultations are being reviewed now, and we are planning to publish them by the end of August.

“As a District Council, we have 7.8 years of housing land in our current local plan, more than the five years required to avoid speculative developments overriding our plan as happened between 2011 and 2018 when the Conservatives were running CDC.

“That period saw thousands of homes given permission by Planning Inspectors in towns across the district, often with little infrastructure benefit for those communities.

“We must stop that from happening again. To keep up with Government housing requirements, we must ensure that we continue to show that we can deliver housing to meet their targets. So, it’s essential that we look at strategic sites across the District.”