Your guide for your
Witney, Carterton and villages Thursday, April 12 - Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Fairytale Farm unveils dancing fountain Page 3
GROUP oxfordshireguardian.co.uk
Follow the Gruffalo in special concert Page 9
Weekly leisure guide for in and around Oxford
Out& About leisure time in &
around Oxfordsh
ire
Solve the clues and explore the city Fun days out with the family
Not tried Japanese food before? Shoryu is a good place to start
Free
One of 5 pairs of tickets Win!
Page 26
EPIC march to protest against plans for 3,200 village homes By Owen Hughes A CAMPAIGN group in Eynsham is holding a protest march against plans to develop 3,200 houses in the village. The Eynsham Planning Improvement Campaign (EPIC) will march along the A40 to the toll bridge on Saturday April 21 to protest against West Oxfordshire District Councilâs âdeeply flawedâ Local Plan. Campaigners from EPIC said the plan to bring 3,200 new houses would cause gridlock on the roads around the village. A spokesperson for EPIC said: âDespite hundreds of consultation responses from Eynsham residents, WODC persists with their deeply flawed plan. âSo EPIC has organised a demonstration for the people of Eynsham to shout loudly about what is wrong with the plan. âWe Eynsham residents are not NIMBYs. In our own Neighbourhood Plan, we have agreed to 750 new homes that local people can afford. âWe know that building on a scale of 3,200 homes and new roads will encircle our village, destroy our community spirit, pollute our air and turn us into a badly planned town.â More than 740 people signed EPICâs online petition that was presented to the council on Monday before the consultation period closed for âfurther
main modificationsâ to the Local Plan 2031. The petition calls on the council to develop housing âfor local needsâ that âdoesnât ruin our countrysideâ. Jolyon Cox, who signed the petition, said: âThis deeply cynical and mendacious Local Plan fl ies in the face of reason and entirely negates the much-vaunted but imaginary concept of âlocalismâ. âIt also utterly fails to take into account the catastrophic effect it would have on the hugely overloaded A40, congestion on which will not be alleviated in the slightest by the county councilâs half-baked plan for bus lanes.â Kathy Peltan added: âPeak time travel on the A40 is already a misery for anyone trying to get to and from work â and thatâs before any of the thousands of planned houses in Witney have been built.â She added that the roads will be completely gridlocked if the Garden Village, which will feature 2,200 of the proposed 3,200 homes, goes ahead. A WODC spokesperson said: âEveryone has a right to protest peacefully but we would strongly recommend that for safety reasons EPIC liaises with the police and Oxfordshire County Council if they are marching on the public highway.â Protestors will gather at 10am on the green at the top of Witney Road.
Karting around baton in celebration
BRIZE Norton Karting Clubâs Andy Bisset hands over the centenary baton at RAF Brize Norton as part of the RAFâs 100th anniversary celebrations. See page 10 for more
More printed copies than any other weekly newspaper in Oxfordshire (16,103 audited JICREG pending)
Is YOUR Garden Ready for Spring? B U I L D E R S
M E R C H A N T S
80-82 Station Road, Brize Norton, Carterton, Oxfordshire, OX18 3QB Tel: 01993 842172 www.aktimms.co.uk