Where have we got to?

We now have a draft plan based upon the views that many residents have expressed at public meetings along with what has emerged from the three working-groups.

How can we find out what’s in it?

All the discussions, outcomes and evidence are available for anyone to look at on the Bloxham Neighbourhood Plan website that you can easily find via Google.
Click on Documents from the Working Groups on the home page and everything’s there but still only draft and so will keep on ‘evolving!’

The Plan itself is quite small but the background evidence documents on things like traffic,flooding, style of housing, health services etc is quite substantial.

How many houses are we planning for?

Thanks to Mr Pickles we have had to take a huge number of extra houses on the Barford and Milton Roads and maybe on the Tadmarton Road. Because of this Cherwell District Council should allocate us a very small number of extra houses   – maybe a dozen or so over the 15 year period.
However, 15 years is a long time and as not everyone trusts politicians (!) not to change the rules we’re creating a plan that would still apply if the numbers suddenly got bigger!

So what’s the draft plan about?

It’s mostly about requiring new houses to fit in with both their immediate neighbours and with the village in general.  Put another way it’s about stopping developers plonking large off-the-peg urban-style estates into the village with no concern for where or what we want.

What next?  The Main Questionnaire

Developers will try and challenge our plan and it will only survive if we have evidence that the whole village supports it.  This evidence will be gathered through a questionnaire so it’s absolutely vital every household completes it.
Every house will receive a paper questionnaire probably around mid March.
They will be anonymous. We don’t need to know what you want as an individual. We just need statistics to either back up our proposals or prompt us to change them.
To make it quicker we are asking for one set of answers per household – not one per person.
The details of the distribution and collection are currently being sorted with the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council.

What about young people’s views?

Youngsters of secondary school age can have their say in a special online  ‘youth questionnaire’ at the Bloxham Neighbourhood Plan Website. If you have a child of secondary school age or if you run a youth organisation involving people of this age please encourage our young residents to go online and complete it. It’s already live!

There is also a simpler questionnaire aimed at 8-11 year olds and we’re about to produce an online version of this.  If there are any youth organisations willing to encourage members to take part – that would be great. We’ll put a link on the neighbourhood Plan site soon.

 Young members of the Boys Brigade making clear their views upon what Bloxham should be like when they leave school.

(Click to enlarge)

Will we get a say on the final Plan?

Yes.    There will be a “Yes or No”  referendum later in the year asking if  you agree with the Final  Plan – but don’t leave it until then to let us know if you’re unhappy with it.

Your Village  ||  Your Choice

 (Click to enlarge)