|
2
|
Response below
received via email.
I am writing on behalf of South Hinksey Parish Council as part of
the current Community Governance Review consultation to take
further this Council’s request for a change to its boundary
with the parish of Kennington that would bring the site of the
former Westwood Hotel into this parish.
You will recall that this is the third Community Governance Review
at which this Council has made such a request and that this time
this Council has listened to the criticism that on the two previous
occasions the new boundary it proposed was simply a line on a map
that corresponded to no particular feature(s) visible on the
ground.
This Council’s first suggestion
At the Council meeting where this Council formulated its request
this time, councillors identified a possible new boundary using
features visible on the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map which resulted
in a new boundary that would have transferred a significant slice
of Bagley Wood from Kennington back into South Hinksey.
However, this Council had no particular wish to take over
responsibility for a large stretch of ancient woodland; it merely
had to address the fact that the Westwood Hotel site is surrounded
by Bagley Wood in the parish of Kennington on all four sides so
this Council had to create a connection between the site and the
existing parish of South Hinksey.
This Council was completely unaware this proposal would stir up
strong feelings in Kennington because, although this Council had
written to Kennington Parish Council several times about changing
the boundary, our neighbours had never had the courtesy to send an
acknowledgement, let alone a reply.
A modification
There is, however, no need to propose taking any more than a tiny
portion of the wood just across the road from the hotel site in
order to create the sort of connection needed.
A person has only to walk a few yards into the wood using the gate
just after the end of The Copse to encounter a wide track used by
vehicles moving timber that turns south to reach a watercourse that
runs west to the road.
Using these two features to define the new boundary would affect no
more than a few dozen trees while putting the land directly
opposite the former hotel site into this parish.
I am sending as an attachment Map 1 which was recently distributed
to our Hinksey Hill residents by St John’s College. This
detailed map of Bagley Wood shows the track perfectly, identifying
it as a permissive footpath – the purpose of the
College’s letter being to ask our residents to keep to the
paths marked on the map.
On the map, I have shaded the tiny area that could be moved into
this parish as well as the former hotel site on the opposite side
of the road.
I am sending separately in view of their size two photographs:
Photo 1 which shows the point at which this track turns away from
the existing boundary to head south; and Photo 2 which shows the
point where the track meets the watercourse which this Council has
suggested should be the southern limit of the small addition to
this parish.
These both represent features clearly visible on the ground.
Absurdity of present boundary
But this Council asks your authority to recognise that, regardless
of this addition, the existing southern boundary of this parish
with Kennington is absurd and should not be allowed to remain
unchanged.
I have attached Map 2 which shows how the boundary turns north from
the property line and wanders across the garden of the property
known as The Copse. I attach separately in view of its size a
photograph of the garden of The Copse (Photo 3). I would challenge
anyone looking at this photograph to spot where the parish boundary
meanders across the garden.
This Council has been told before that a boundary should match
features visible on the ground and we submit the current boundary
fails this test and that a boundary which wiggles across a property
makes no sense: what point is there in a boundary which means a
person’s garden shed might be in one parish or another or
even straddle an invisible boundary and fall into both?
At a previous Community Governance Review your authority corrected
just such an anomaly affecting houses on Hinksey Hill so that the
boundary with Kennington followed the property line instead of
running through their front gardens.
This Council asks your authority to make just such a common sense
adjustment to the boundary so that, regardless of the Westwood
Hotel site issue, the whole of the garden of The Copse will be in
South Hinksey, as shown on Map 2.
The case for the Westwood Hotel site
Some of the comments made at the previous stage of public
consultation suggested this Council wished to change the boundary
to enable development within the wood.
These remarks were as spurious as they were offensive.
Hard as it is to imagine St John’s College putting forward a
proposal to chop down a large area of Bagley Wood and build on it,
it is even harder to imagine your authority agreeing to such
obviously inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
The suggestion that this corner of Bagley Wood is better protected
by remaining in Kennington rather than being moved into South
Hinksey is curious.
One might as easily suggest it is the Hinksey Hill residents of
this parish that tend to walk in this part of the wood right behind
their homes and would wish it remain unspoilt
And anyone can see from the recent history of planning applications
for the Westwood Hotel site how much more energy this Council has
put into contesting inappropriate development in the Green Belt
there than Kennington Parish Council.
The truth is surely that there is no appetite in either parish
council to chop down part of Bagley Wood and build on it.
Rather the issue relates to the very purpose of Community
Governance Reviews. The question is to what community do the five
new homes on the former hotel site properly belong: the community
of Hinksey Hill that starts just a few yards away from their homes
or the village of Kennington far away on the other side of the
A34?
Even some of the objectors at the previous stage recognised the
logic of the change this Council has requested but instead argued
that keeping the whole of Bagley Wood in one parish was a matter of
principle.
This Council, on the other hand, would suggest that the overriding
purpose of a Community Governance Review is to ensure the cohesion
of communities and that it is what is in the best interests of the
residents of the five new houses which should guide your
authority’s decision even it means a few dozen trees have to
end up in this parish to make that possible.
|