Always on
This project successfully funded on 11th March 2021, you can still support them with a donation.
This project successfully funded on 11th March 2021, you can still support them with a donation.
Aim: Planners said no to 133 luxury flats in our countryside. Speculators want this overturned. Funds are needed to ensure a local voice is heard
Picture: The site we want to protect is at the top of the hill overlooking our village.
Sonning Common is a thriving village nestled in the Chiltern foothills a few miles north of Reading. The countryside around our community is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
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The battle is being fought over a large field off Blounts Court Road, opposite the Johnson Matthey complex.
A speculative land development company – originally Inspired Villages, now calling itself Senior Living (Sonning Common) Ltd – applied for permission to build more than 130 apartments to make up what it calls a ‘retirement village’.
Picture: The site is to the top right, the ancient woodland is in the middle and Sonning Common to the left.
The field was considered as a potential development site by the working party given the job of revising our Neighbourhood Plan. It was surveyed by residents. It was assessed by a landscape expert. It was rejected absolutely because:
Picture: the proposed luxury flats would overlook Widmore Pond, one of the most tranquil spots in the village.
The proposal went to South Oxfordshire District Council which turned it down.
Now the developers have appealed against that refusal of planning permission.
A public inquiry, led by a planning inspector, is due to start on April 27th. The planning inspector will decide whether or not to allow this development.
These apartments will cost anything from £600,000 to £1 million each. The developers claim they are needed to provide dedicated accommodation and services to local people aged over 65. The developers say it is worth losing an irreplaceable piece of countryside to get their retirement village and the huge profits that will result from it.
They will spend a fortune on a legal team, whose job at the inquiry will be to try to overturn the will of the people of Sonning Common and the decision made by the local council.
Picture: A proposed apartment block would blot the horizon line of this field.
We are determined to fight them every step of the way. We are raising funds to help Sonning Common Parish Council to put up its own planning consultant and barrister at the inquiry to argue our community's case. We will focus on issues of crucial importance to the village and support the South Oxfordshire District Council decision to say no to the development.
The inquiry will be held remotely and is scheduled to last up to eight days – which will make it extremely expensive. The costs are likely to be more than £30,000 – which is why we are reaching out to the people of Sonning Common to ask for your help.
If we lose: