The Public Enquiry into the Compulsory Purchase Orders ( 1000) issued by the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme opens at 1000 on Tuesday November 14 at the Kings Centre Osney Mead.
We draw your attention to three things
1. Please listen to the Breakfast Show on Radio Oxford on Monday 13 when Patricia Murphy, one of our team from the Oxford Flood and Environment Group, is to be interviewed.
2, Please read our press release below- EMBARGOED till 0001 Thursday 9th morning.
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Issued by The Ferry Hinksey Trust
Press Release
PUBLIC INQUIRY TO HEAR RESIDENTS' £70-MILLION SAVING PROPOSAL TO OXFORD’S CONTROVERSIAL FLOOD ALLEVIATION SCHEME
OXFORDSHIRE residents affected by a controversial Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme have submitted alternative proposals to a Government Public Inquiry which, they say, will reduce costs by £70 million, save historic, natural environment, reduce the three-to-four-year scheme time frame and, help prevent business closures caused by the lack of vehicle access during construction.
The Public Inquiry, which starts on November 14 at the King’s Centre, Osney Mead, and runs till December 18, will focus on whether around 1,000 Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO) served on landowners to facilitate the proposed scheme are lawful. Campaigners say they are not, given there are viable alternatives which do not desecrate the local environment and are equally as efficient. The inquiry Inspector is expected to report to the Environment Secretary around March 2024.
The current proposed scheme, led by the Environment Agency (EA) and already approved by Oxford City Councillors, has seen projected costs soar to £170 million. Controversially, the plan - one of the biggest flood alleviation schemes in the UK - includes creating a 5km long ‘channel’ which would run from just north of Botley Road, to south of the A423 southern bypass near Kennington, where it would re-join the River Thames. Leading independent ecologists say the dug channel would destroy 13 acres of the rich, rare species of the irreplaceable plant community of Hinksey meadow. The one -thousand-year-old meadow has been owned and managed by the Oxford Preservation Trust since 2003 who are also objecting. An estimated 4,000 mature trees and miles of hedgerows would also be lost in the West Oxford wildlife corridor and green belt.
The Ferry Hinksey Trust, which owns a 10-acre field on which a CPO order has been served, and two Residents‘ Groups, the Hinksey and Osney Environment Group (HOEG) and the Oxford Flood and Environment Group (OFEG) backed by a Petition of nearly 5,000 local people, say the scheme costs too much taxpayers’ money, and causes irreparable damage to the local environment. Through lawyers, the Trust and the groups have tabled alternative proposals to the Inquiry. They have also erected 10 x 5-foot banners in the scheme’s affected areas to urge members of the public to write into the Inspector backing their alternative plans. Campaigners will also demonstrate outside the Inquiry on November 14.
Canon Dr Chris Sugden, who lives in North Hinksey, chairs the FHT, and convenes the HOEG, said: "We fully accept that a flood prevention scheme is needed, and we support 90% of what is proposed. However, the State cannot compulsorily take over land for a project if viable alternatives exist which produce the same result. We’ve put forward alternatives, supported by qualified, professional evidence. The EA scheme costs £170 million. Our alternatives cost less than £100-million, can be done much quicker and with much fewer CPOs.
"The current EA proposals would cause irreparable damage to the local area, including congestion on Botley Road and on the A34, with 100,000 vehicle movements expected over a three-year period. What is proposed will also devastate trade for Oxford’s hotels, restaurants and shops that depend on bus and other vehicular access. The EA scheme puts many local businesses at risk of closure, especially given our fragile economy post-Covid, and whilst two major wars are ongoing.
"Our plan saves 13 acres of rare grassland, around 4000 trees and prevents the drying up of other streams. It also prevents the loss of local amenities, including the closure of public footpaths through to Oxford City Centre - which contribute substantially to the mental health of Oxford residents, and at a time when Oxford Council is seeking to make the city centre ‘car free’ to improve the environment.
The objectors propose that ‘no channel’ alternatives can work just as well without the environmental damage. One proposal is to remove the channel altogether. Another is to run a pair of parallel two-metre underground pipes, from a pumping station on land north of Seacourt Park and Ride, under Botley Road, and then along the Hinksey Plain to the Old Abingdon Road. Campaigners say one of the advantages of that scheme is that buried pipes would leave the landscape “more or less unchanged from its original state”.
The pumping scheme has been devised by Jonathan Madden, an exploration geophysicist from Woodstock, an expert in marine engineering projects, and Kevin Larkin, also from the same town. Mr Larkin currently runs an architecture practice, and has design expertise for a wide variety of major complex projects over a broad spectrum of sectors, which included work on designing the Aircraft Control Tower at Heathrow Airport. The parallel pipe system is designed to control flood flow from a minimum of near zero, but with a rapid system response. Crucially, pumping can begin at the very early stages of a flood, thereby reducing peak water levels relative to the proposed Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme. The underground pipeline would also alleviate the controversial impact on Hinksey and Osney Meadows, their extensive wildlife, as well as public facilities.
Campaigners also hope to use the Inquiry to raise a serious safety concern regarding Network Rail. Canon Sugden said: “Network Rail’s Asset Protection Officer is refusing to answer local residents' legitimate concerns that the EA plan will threaten the safety of the railway embankment carrying the main line and supply lines to the Mini factory in Cowley. We’re deeply concerned that Network Rail is not proposing to submit any evidence to the enquiry. We hope the Inquiry Inspector will demand full details and satisfy herself that what is proposed will not cause safety risks to the rail line, to passengers and to railway staff in that area.”
● Further details of the submissions by the FHT and Environment Groups to the Public Inquiry can be accessed at www.hinkseyandosney.org and www.oxfordfloodandenvironmentgroup.com
ENDS