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New Towns

Right town, wrong place?

Right town, wrong place?

Outline plans have been unveiled for Chalgrove Airfield, Oxfordshire’s most controversial housing development. Can the merits of a “21st century sustainable market town” outweigh the problems of its location? Chalgrove New Town would be located on one of Oxfordshire’s many historic airfields, ten miles south-east of Carfax. It

Oxford’s commuter future

Oxford’s commuter future

Could Oxford learn from Copenhagen and Cambridge? We ask if rail commuting could be an answer to the city’s housing woes. In 1947, Copenhagen’s Urban Planning Institute set out a “finger plan” for development of the city. To avoid uncontrolled sprawl, the finger plan proposed that new houses

Housing Week: Building Out – can Oxfordshire solve Oxford's housing crisis?

Housing Week: Building Out – can Oxfordshire solve Oxford's housing crisis?

This week we’ve examined the challenges in building within the Oxford Ring Road, building upwards, and building in the Green Belt. Where can you build? One answer remains: rural Oxfordshire. The scale of building planned for Oxfordshire is breathtaking. The big towns, like Banbury, Didcot and Witney, are getting

Oxfordshire’s biggest ever new town

Oxfordshire’s biggest ever new town

A plan for 6,000 new homes on a former airfield has been submitted in what would be Oxfordshire’s biggest ever single development. Upper Heyford air base – used by both the RAF and the US Air Force – closed in 1993. It was speculatively acquired by housebuilder Dorchester in 2009.

Culham Town: the future of housing in Oxfordshire?

Culham Town: the future of housing in Oxfordshire?

If there's anyone who thinks housing in Oxfordshire has been planned optimally and sensibly in recent years, we have yet to meet them. "Planned" at all might be generous. Houses have been ladled onto Wantage and Grove, Witney and Carterton, each one in a rail desert

Eynsham’s garden village can be net zero after all

Eynsham’s garden village can be net zero after all

West Oxfordshire District Council and local Liberal Democrat councillors are celebrating victory over the Government in the High Court this week. The dispute concerns Salt Cross, the new ‘garden village’ development near Eynsham, which WODC had specified needed to be built to net zero standards. WODC had planned a fossil