Watlington Relief Road planning application R3.0010/24

Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance (ORAA) (1) has objected to Oxfordshire County Council’s revised planning application to build a new road at Watlington.

Responses to the public consultation, including from consultee Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance opposing the application, are yet to be published on the County Council’s planning portal, despite having been acknowledged as received by OCC Planning (21st December 2024). ORAA has provided its response here.
Public consultation concerns
Earlier this year, OCC Planning said it was “currently putting together a summary of comments people have made, but as soon as this is ready, this will go online.” This was in response to the first public consultation on the planning application, which OCC Planning completed in May 2024.
This report has still not been published. Representations from the public from the second round of consultation, which ended on 21st December, are not published on the planning portal, but compiled as a redacted report.
Although two public consultations have taken place on the planning application, the level of public support remains unknown, as none of the responses from the public have been published.

ORAA believes there is no justification to build this road and is particularly concerned that the road will lead to:

•             An increase in HGV traffic in the area with roundabout junctions built to accommodate them – part of a policy of making this an HGV through route by stealth

•             Watlington’s school site being separated from new playing fields. (The school was gifted land adjoining the site to accommodate more children from Redrow’s Hampden Meadows housing development but this would become separated if the county builds a road)

•             Harm to the Chilterns National Landscape (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and listed Shirburn Park and Garden both dark skies environments

•             An environmentally damaging new crossing of the Chalgrove Brook chalk stream

•             Sub-standard walking and cycling facilities that fail to separate the two

•             No investment in public transport, which will be undermined by extra car traffic the road is designed for

The county has low-cost traffic management options that would reduce delay in Watlington to 2018 levels and deliver further significant and quantifiable improvements in air quality (2). However, the council has refused to progress these as they would undermine its case for a £19.1m (2024 estimate) new road.

1.            Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance (ORAA) is a community alliance and campaign group to prevent unsuitable road development in Oxfordshire.

2.            The countywide air quality website Oxonair is provided by Ricardo, engineering and environment consultants. Ricardo has identified better traffic management based on the existing road in Watlington remaining open. Smoothing the flow by some parking removal, and enforcement to remove HGVs that should not be there, reduces emissions by a quantifiable 35%. No actions on air quality are required as no exceedances of NO2 are recorded in Watlington. The county council could choose to go further by implementing Ricardo’s low cost measures and not building a road. This will also reduce delay to 2018 levels,  with a saving of 149 and 89 seconds in the AM and PM peaks respectively, allowing for all planned development. (Appeal Ref: APP/Q3115/W/19/3222822). Any post Covid gains on peak hour traffic from increased work from home would be on top.