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Free trams for eco-town
5:00pm Thursday 26th June 2008
Road tolls and a free tram service were among the proposals as a developer today revealed its draft masterplan for the proposed eco-town near Weston-on-the-Green.
After months of speculation and protest about the environmental impact of the 15,000-home settlement, the company behind the scheme has unveiled its masterplan for Weston Otmoor.
Parkridge, the developer, reveals there would be a single point of access into and out of the eco-town - and residents would be charged for leaving by car. The cost of this 'eco-town toll' would vary - rising at times when surrounding roads were congested.
Residents of Weston Otmoor are promised a free tram service around the 800-acre site, with every home within 300m of a tram stop. One proposal is to install real-time screens in every home and office, which would display the times of both the next tram and the current car toll charge.
A new rail station, servicing Oxford, Milton Keynes and London, would be built on the south side of the site, with ten trains per hour to Oxford and six to Bicester. A 6,000 space park-and-ride would be built next to it.
The developer says the eco-town would require the current A34/M40 junction to be entirely rebuilt.
The masterplan proposes that between 30 and 50 per cent of the 15,000 homes would be affordable.
Weston Otmoor would have a population of about 35,000, with 12,000 people working in the eco-town.
The scale of the project is reflected in the fact that the masterplan includes eight primary schools and two secondary schools.
A report on the masterplan by a Government-appointed panel of experts was published this week.
It calls on the developer to assess the implications for Bicester and the risk of Weston Otmoor becoming a commuter town. The panel also calls on the developer to address concerns about the tram system being downgraded to buses and to provide details on how road charging would be enforced.
The publication of the masterplan was quickly followed by the resignation of local councillor Neil Godwin, on whose farmland part of the eco-town would be built.
Mr Godwin has faced calls to stand down as the village representative on Cherwell District Council because of a conflict of interest.
It is understood Parkridge has an option to buy about 200 acres of his farmland on the south-western section of the site.
The new eco-town would be dominated by a high street running through its centre with shops, schools and leisure facilities.
A section of it would be built over the A34, as previously revealed in The Oxford Times.
In the face of bitter criticism from the wildlife trust BBOWT about the threat to the Woodsides Meadow Nature Reserve, the developer says that green spaces would make up about a fifth of the eco-town. A new marsh habitat is promised on the edge of the site.
People now have until Monday to respond to the Government consultation, and until early August to respond to the developers' consultatkion. The Government is expected to produce a list of up to ten preferred eco-town sites in October.
Your Say YourOxford
DR, WOTG says...
8:32pm Thu 26 Jun 08
It is naive in the extreme to expect all the residents and workers to only need to travel to places on the railway line. How could the railway and Oxford station be able to cope with a daily influx of tens of thousands? Nearly all will need buses from congested central Oxford to their places of work back out of town, adding to the Oxford gridlock. It is a ridiculous idea to force everyone who is commuting to places of work outside the eco town to go to Oxford city centre on the way, no matter how fast the train is.
Look at the map. All the yellowish green bits are super high density housing - flats - the sort of thing most maps would show as brown or grey to distinguish from the surrounding grass and trees. Could this be a deliberate blurring to make it seem more green than it is? It isn't even labeled as housing on the key to the map.
One thing is certain, housing there will certainly end up being affordable - people won't exactly be gazzumping each other to buy into this Stalinist experiment of eco - life. Ten years after it is built they will be lucky if they can give the flats away.
It will be left to the poorest and most desperate in our society to be forced to live in the "affordable" Weston Otmoor. Even if this were to be a truly "eco" way of life, these poor people will be living under the most draconian restrictions, (not just relating to transport), whilst the rest of us happily get on with our lives. Is this the way to treat the most vulnerable in our society? Why not bring in eco- housing, fuel regulations and travel restrictions for all of us instead of picking on these people?
True eco-towns are successful in Europe when they have been built as suburbs of large existing towns, with direct public transport to all the places people would need to go. They share their infrastructure with the existing town so that eco residents have access to schools that are already successful, cinemas, theatres, night clubs, shops and restaurants, and the existing town can benefit from the eco infrastructure, such as power and water schemes. Successful eco suburbs offer a way of life that middle class people who understand and want it choose to buy into, without breaking away completely from the life they know.
Weston Otmoor will fail because it is trying to be a suburb of Oxford, connected only by the tenuous thread of a railway to a single Oxford station, a thread shared with a 6,000 space park and ride. It will also fail because tens of thousands of the residents, probably the vast majority, will be people who would not, given the choice, want to live there. They will resent the intrusive and controlling regime, and rail against the loss of their rights and their enslavement to this ghetto. What happens then?
Rockabilly Dude, Half Way To Memphis says...
5:22pm Sat 28 Jun 08
jerry atrik, to close for comfort says...
7:40am Wed 2 Jul 08
ECO = Economical use of transport, utilities and land. 35000 television screens burning electricity 24hrs a day to show inmates the next 'cattlewagon' to Oxford or how much they will have to pay to escape this folly of political bulls**t.The destruction of a rare and valuable wildlife environment to build 'affordable' housing (when was £200,000 affordable)and a tram network running on what fuel?
kerrie, Bicester says...
1:00pm Thu 10 Jul 08
the idea of free tram service is rather impressive although as time goes on i am sure this diea will not last long!
why spend so much money rebuilding weston on the green when more money could be spent on improving Bicester on the whole!
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Kevan Barnhill, Weston On The Green says...
8:11pm Thu 26 Jun 08