Plan for 3,000 homes at Chalgrove Airfield filed

Homes England owns Chalgrove Airfield but leases part of it to ejector seat manufacturer Martin-Baker

A plan for a new market town of 3,000 homes that would be built on an airfield has been submitted by a government agency.

Homes England owns Chalgrove Airfield in Oxfordshire but leases part of it to ejector seat manufacturer Martin-Baker.

It has said it will use a compulsory purchase order if it needs to get the company to leave half of the site but hopes both developments can co-exist.

The plan has proven unpopular with some residents.

The new town would include a town centre, two primary schools, a secondary school and a sixth form college. A bypass for access to nearby villages would also be built.

Ken Glendinning, project director at Homes England, said: "This development will support South Oxfordshire District Council to meet the unmet housing need of the area at the same time as protecting the green belt and safeguarding local jobs."

'Mythical Nirvana'

The majority of residents who replied to a consultation in 2018 were opposed to the development going ahead.

One resident said the plan was "frankly laughable" and told Homes England to stop work on its "blinkered view of a mythical Nirvana".

It is included in South Oxfordshire District Council's Local Plan, which will be assessed in July.

Worries over Chalgrove Airfield stopped the authority's Local Plan being assessed in 2018 but it was included in another by the council later that year after a review.

A new Liberal Democrat-Green coalition elected to lead the council in May 2019 had hoped to scrap that Local Plan, but Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has ordered the authority pass it by December.