Village arms itself for battle to keep floodgates closed

A GROUP of residents in Ettington are readying themselves for a second battle against housing in the same week that a similar fight elsewhere in the village was lost.

Earlier this month, a planning inspector overturned a decision by Stratford District Council in October last year to reject plans for 32 homes on land off Avon Close.

Residents living near to the site and the district council’s planning department had expressed concerns over road safety and claimed Spitfire Developments for 32 houses amounted to an unnecessary expansion of the village boundary.

A spokesman for RAEE (Residents Against Extending Ettington) said: "Ettington residents, who were opposed to this large development, are disappointed with the decision after appeal, to build 32 houses.

"We are still of the opinion that the road is going to be very dangerous, and houses along the edge of this site will be flooded in future as water laps at the back doors now with a down pour.

"May we take this opportunity to thank Ettington Parish Council, Ettington Neighbourhood Plan, Cllr Philip Seccombe, all of our speakers at the appeal, those 279 people who wrote letters opposing this estate and the few residents who contributed financially to try to halt this blot on our lovely village.

"Maybe now that Ettington is up to its limit with new housing until 2031 there will be no more building until then….somehow we very much doubt it.”

The decision came in the same week that the residents on the opposite side of Banbury Road, which runs through the village, began their fights against new proposals to build on land in Rogers Lane.

Beau Homes has applied for planning permission to build eight, two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom houses on land and orchard between Rogers Lane and Manor Lane, known as Molly’s Field.

But although it is only a small number of homes, residents next to the site fear that, if approved, it could open the gates for another attempt to build ten times more houses on land opposite.

Last year, a planning inspector cited the potential effect on the local landscape around Rogers Lane, including the nearby historic and Grade II-Listed Ryepiece Barn, as one of the reasons why he dismissed an appeal by Charles Church over Stratford District Council’s refusal of planning permission for 80 homes on land next to the village’s community centre.

A letter distributed around the village by a group of residents who live next to Molly’s Field reads: “The new scheme would see homes built even closer to the barn.

"If that happened it would be much harder to argue that a housing estate across the road would be harmful to the barn: the damage would already have been done.

"The inspector also spoke of the importance of the Charles Church field to the rural character of Ettington. The same could be said about the orchard field."

They also point to proposals for housing on the orchard from 1995 that were refused by the district council, because ‘housing would be detrimental’.

The parish council will discuss the application next Wednesday, 27th July.

Elsewhere in Ettington, plans have been approved for eight self-build homes off Old Warwick Road and Kents Lane, and the parish council has given its support to the proposal to move the award-winning village shop to the site of a bungalow on the opposite side of the Banbury Road, where, if approved, it would also have a tearoom.