Homes drainage scheme rejected

RESIDENTS have welcomed a decision by the planning authority to refuse ground stabilisation works and drainage plans for a housing scheme near Shiplake.

The plans were refused by South Oxfordshire District Council during a meeting of its planning committee due to the potential impact on the water supply.

Developer Taylor Wimpey was granted outline planning permission for 95 homes at the site of the former Thames Farm off Reading Road in 2017 on appeal.

It has since reduced this to 84 to provide adequate drainage because the land is unstable and vulnerable to sinkholes.

The site sits on top of an aquifer that supplies drinking water to Henley, Harpsden and Shiplake.

The developer initially submitted three applications to South Oxfordshire District Council in August for associated works on the site and to modify parts of the scheme.

This included plans for engineering operations associated with ground stabilisation works, a drainage strategy and changes to the site plans for landscaping and layout.

The developer wanted to stabilise the site through compaction grouting, where a substance would be injected into the ground to reduce the void space and improve ground strength.

This grouting would make the site impermeable, requiring a new off-site surface water drainage system, which would include a basin on the western part of the site.

In its decision notice for the groundwork plans, Adrian Duffield, the council’s head of planning, said: “The application site is underlain by a principal aquifer and is within a groundwater source protection zone and there is water abstraction for public water supply at a water treatment works near the site.

“The application fails to demonstrate that the proposed engineering operations and the ground stabilisation works would not pose an unacceptable risk to the aquifer and public water abstraction.”

The council said the scheme violated polices of the South Oxfordshire Local Plan and Joint Henley and Harpsden Neighbourhood Plan and the landscaping and layout plans were also rejected.

The application had also been recommended for refusal by Henley, Shiplake and Harpsden parish councils as well as the Thames Farms Action Group.

However, there were no outstanding objections from the Environment Agency, Thames Water, Oxfordshire County Council, or the district council’s drainage officer.

At the meeting on Wednesday last week, Councillor David Pheasant, of Shiplake Parish Council, said: “There is a lack of scientific evidence provided by Taylor Wimpey to support the proposal, which results in uncertainty and a massive risk — one that may destroy the sole source of drinking water for circa 50,000 with no other alternative.”

The committee also heard from Henley MP Freddie van Mierlo, who said: “There appears to be no contingency plan should the fears over drinking water be realised. We don’t know how water would be distributed to those settlements in the case water becomes contaminated.”

Robin Shepherd, director at Stantec, agent for Taylor Wimpey, spoke in support of the application. He said the proposed grouting method was well known and “tried and tested across the UK and overseas.” He said: “[The] experts are satisfied with the proposed works and the conditions before you.”

The council’s own planning officer Emma Bowerman, told the meeting: “I do appreciate that this is a very controversial scheme and that a significant number of objections have been raised in respect of the potential impact on the water supply.

“This is a highly technical and complicated matter and the specialist officers that the council rely on for advice on such matters have not objected to the proposal.

“So on this basis I considered that the proposed ground stabilisation works comply with the development plan and would enable the delivery of a housing development that has previously been consented.”

The committee’s decision to refuse the application was proposed by Woodcote and Rotherfield councillor Jo Robb, seconded by Henley councillor Ken Arlett. Seven councillors voted in favour, one against, and there was one abstention.

Speaking after the meeting, Peter Boros, of the Thames Farm Action Group described the result as “a victory for common sense.”

He said: “The councillors were very clearly not convinced by a developer that had not even developed any contingency plan for when things might go wrong.

“The risks were massive and could affect up to 50,000 people — young, old and infirm, who would need to survive for a lengthy period with bottled water.

“The absence of any hard evidence of sites over aquifers, where these methods had already been successfully deployed on sites with major dissolution features, was very telling and clearly exposed the weaknesses in Taylor Wimpy’s suggested methodology.”

Taylor Wimpey said it was “disappointed” by the council’s decision.

A spokesman said: “We worked closely with stakeholders and undertook extensive assessments in preparing these new planning applications for Thames Farm, which we believe provide robust responses to all concerns. There was officer support and no objections from statutory consultees.

“We will now consider our next steps.”