Hinksey and Osney Environment Group
Comment on OFAS Planning Application
Planning Application MW.0027/22
Thank you for consulting on the above.
I write as convenor of Hinksey and Osney Environment Group, which is concerned for a better flood scheme for Oxford, and which over five years has become hub for a range of gifted and articulate individuals with a shared concern for environmental conservation including flood alleviation. In another capacity I chair the Ferry Hinksey Trust which owns a ten acre field, a public amenity for a number of community groups which will be compromised by the scheme, and the Trust will be refusing the Compulsory Purchase order.
I am concerned at the scale of disturbance implied by the application, which creates tabula rasa on 38ha of presently productive agricultural and amenity land, and as a layman I question why flood alleviation cannot be achieved in any other way. A meeting called by members of the public on 19 November last was held at arm’s length by the developer and by the decision makers.
In mitigation, HOEG’s advisors are offering an alternative (See further https://hinkseyandosney.org/alternatives) that provides full hydrological continuity for the precious ecological resource of Hinksey Meadow upstream of Willow Walk, while drawing attention to the applicant’s own model results downstream of Willow Walk that show an alternative performing as well or better in 25 out of 29 locations at 20-year return period and 23 out of 29 locations at the 100-year return period, with significantly better averages in both.
The inference is that the applicant’s innovative `two-stage channel' delivers less flood alleviation than no channel at all.
HOEG is therefore on record as welcoming the applicant’s offer of a `separate run' of their numerical model, for which we are suggesting a conventional channel design based on goodwill advice from two distinguished flood engineers (Oxford Times Letter 21 April).
Professor Riki Therivel notes that: “The Environment Agency has not followed the mitigation hierarchy - avoid, minimise and only then compensate - either in choosing to stick with a channel option or in planning for biodiversity net gain”. Professor Therivel is a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University’s School of the Built Environment and director of Levett-Therivel sustainability consultants. She specialises in the environmental and social impact assessment of policies, plans and projects, and in resilience thinking.
HOEG’s comment at this stage is therefore that:
No planning decision should be made on the present application until the applicant has honoured transparently a commitment to a separate model run to the satisfaction of our engineering advisors.
Yours sincerely
Canon Dr Chris Sugden
Convenor Hinksey and Osney Environment Group www.hinkseyandosney.org