Threat of legal action over homes consent

A GROUP campaigning against the development of land above an aquifer which supplies drinking water to Henley has taken the first step towards a judicial review of the plans.

A “pre-action protocol letter” has been sent to South Oxfordshire District Council, the planning authority, over the proposed new homes at the former Wyevale nursery in Reading Road, Lower Shiplake.

It was sent by the Thames Farm Action Group, which was originally set up to oppose the development of a neighbouring site, as well as Henley Town Council and Shiplake and Harpsden parish councils.

Action group chairman Peter Boros, who lives in Shiplake, said he and representatives of the councils had met to discuss their unhappiness with the way the district council and the Environment Agency had dealt with the discharge of conditions applications for the site.

The council granted outline planning permission for 40 dwellings and a new commercial unit in November 2019.

Beechcroft Developments bought the land in 2021 and in March this year submitted planning applications to discharge the conditions, including for the use of piled foundations.

The action group employed engineering hydrology firm JBA Consulting to analyse the information submitted by the developer.

It is concerned that driving pilings into the ground would physically disturb the chalk aquifer under the site. This supplies potable water to the Harpsden borehole, which is operated by Thames Water and is the source of drinking water for Henley, Harpsden and Shiplake.

The site is in an area designated by the Environment Agency as having the highest level of risk to the water source from contamination.

The letter challenges the decisions made by the council on the discharge of conditions regarding a source protection strategy, a piling method statement and surface water drainage work.

Mr Boros said: “Little notice was taken of four technical notes JBA had provided to various iterations of information supplied by the developer. We concluded that the matter could not be allowed to stand and the decisions made were unsafe or there was not enough information about how they had been arrived at, so we moved towards a judicial review by submitting a pre-action protocol.”

Kester George, chairman of Harpsden Parish Council, said: “We all felt that the district council hadn’t shown due responsibility for the drinking water supply.

“The aquifer, we are told, is the only available source locally and it would require very expensive transfers from far away if it were to get polluted. We didn’t feel an adequate risk assessment had taken place.”

The action group previously submitted a complaint to the Office for Environmental Protection, arguing that the Environment Agency was not carrying out its regulatory role in considering the potential damage to the aquifer.

The agency, which was not consulted on the outline application or the reserved matters application, said it would not comment on the discharge of the conditions because it had not put them in place.

Councillor George said: “It’s astonishing that because the Environment Agency hadn’t given a view on it, the council thought, ‘Well, to hell with it, we’ll go ahead’. It’s extraordinarily irresponsible. Maybe they have better grounds than we think but if that’s the case then why haven’t they made it public?”

Mr Boros said: “Ultimately you can’t play fast and loose with the drinking water supply to 25,000 people.”

In a statement, Beechcroft managing director Chris Thompson said the company had complied with all requests for information from the council, Thames Water and the Environment Agency.

He said: “All consultees are satisfied that there is no threat to groundwater contamination because of the work we have been permitted to undertake.

“The issues at Thames Farm are very different. Beechcroft has permission for on-site surface water drainage and does not need to grout any voids. The permitted development at Wyevale demonstrates that an on-site drainage solution is achievable, which is exactly what the action group has been trying to persuade the stakeholders at Thames Farm.”

The district council declined to comment.