Following last year's "Cream Tea" controversy generated by Oxford's New College Fellows sharing amongst themselves the windfall profits from their £60 million Aylesbury development land sale (see Sunday Times, letters, Times Higher, Daily Telegraph, Oxford Student and Cherwell), more news is emerging that may further dampen the spirits of its lucky beneficiaries: the houses are being built perilously close to the River Thame flood plain, so close that the scheme has had to include large "balancing ponds" along its southern perimeter. Could it all prove to be New's New Orleans?
The 45.65 hectare Weedon Hill site on the northern outskirts of the County Town of Aylesbury, which is referred to in the New College newsletter as "a village", has been named by developers Taylor Woodrow as Buckingham Park and by Akme as Donwee Water. Planning consent was granted in 2004 by Aylesbury Vale District Council for 850 homes to be built on the land and the developer promises the inclusion of a school and community centre, although these are strangely absent from the published site plan (see below). The ambitious five-year building programme is already well under way and well under water.
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With the excavators sinking their shovels into the ancient midlands marl and New's Fellows sinking their hands into their freshly liquified assets, sceptics are belatedly beginning to ask how on earth the College could have obtained permission for such a scheme. "They must have gone through hell and high water to get it, no wonder it took them six centuries" commented one critic, while another suggested: "no bother, they have friends in low places, friends with deep back pockets". A Council official stated: "the Environment Department has not actually, er, approved the plans, but so far it has not raised any objection to them. The chances of a one-in-three-year event occurring are, um, one in three." New College Warden Alan Ryan and Bursar David Palfreyman were unavailable for comment.
Donwee Water is, furthermore, only Phase One of a much larger and even more controversial scheme in which New College also has an interest, and for which outline planning permission is expected soon to be granted, involving the nearby Berryfields Farm site, where a further 3,230 homes are planned. Between them the two developments, totalling over 4,000 houses, will create a huge arc of new housing - effectively a small town - between the Buckingham and Bicester Roads (A413 & A41) and all within a brick's throw of the river. What price a Newers'-Ark-style mini-disaster sometime in the next few years and the whole project going uninsurable belly-up? Perhaps someone is taking the piss, but one of the house designs being marketed has even been called The Weedon, while others (The Ashbourne, Delamere and Endmere) themselves seem to presage the estates' forthcoming watery dissolution.
Another disaster threatened by the twin schemes, say protestors, is the despoliation of the Quarrendon scheduled archaeological site, sandwiched by the two developments and said to include the buried ruins of a magnificent mediaeval palace built by King Frithuwold, whose realm once stretched from Surrey to Buckinghamshire. It is thought by some historians that Frithuwold may in turn have been related to Frideswide, Oxford's Abbess patron saint, whose memory is once again thus being heavily trampled into the Aegel's Burgh mud. Frideswide, however, was well acquainted with the ways of pigs so is probably unsurprised by their present unseemly foraging: so long as Pinky and Perky and their pals have their snouts above water and their cellars full of wine, she knows they will account her offending as small beer. Whether the future ex-residents of Donwee Water will prove to be as forgiving remains to be seen.
| Protecting the archaeology. The notice on the fence warns that all the plant and machinery on the site is under satellite surveillance by Orbital: King Frithuwold is watching you. |
Meanwhile, the parish councils of the nearby villages of Waddesdon and Watermead predict that the schemes will bring motoring gridlock to the area, with, as usual, no provision being made for the likely huge increases in traffic, especially on the already busy A41 Bicester road. Akme predicts a run on boats too. Regulars will remember that when the New College land sale bonanza was first announced last year, it provoked a flood of protests from provincial universities and even from other Oxford colleges, and was claimed by some to be a breach both of charity law (as charitable trustees the Fellows are barred from financial benefit) and of New College's own foundation and statutes. Stand by for another deluge.
| "It's all about YOU... Your home is about the special times and the little things. Those moments that live in your memory long after the moment has gone. The seashell from that beach holiday, the window you always sit by, and the gift from visiting friends..." Bryant Homes (Taylor Woodrow) brochure |
