Campaigners fighting an Oxfordshire retail development have hired lawyers to investigate alleged links between a local council and the site’s developers. Residents of Botley fear that members of the Vale of White Horse District Council have become too close to London-based developers Doric which recently submitted plans to revamp the village’s West Way shopping area.
Campaign group West Way Community Concern supports the improvement of the area but is opposed to the loss of existing businesses. If the scheme is passed they say they will almost certainly take legal action against the local authority and demand a judicial review, “because there is the whole issue of the Vale’s conflict of interest between them making money out of this and their responsibilities towards the community” explained John Clements, a member of the group.
“We want to understand the process by which we seem to have gone from the Vale council selling a small site to ending up with this huge development,” he added. “But we are finding it extremely difficult to get any details or explanations. Information about this has been drip fed and we are being stopped from getting to the root of the problem.”
In January, 2013, the district council signed a deal with Doric to redevelop the 1960s shopping centre. Since then, the residents claim, the area included in the redevelopment has “mysteriously expanded” to take in Field House sheltered housing accommodation and the vicarage to St Peter and St Paul’s church.
Doric has since unveiled plans to demolish the centre, as well as an adjoining parade of shops, and replace it with a supermarket, cinema, hotel, restaurants and cafes, 525 student bedrooms, community spaces and a Baptist church. A planning decision is expected by the end of August.
The Botley scheme is featured on Doric’s web site which claims: “The £100m regeneration project is expected to create up to 1,000 jobs and will allow the Botley community to do their weekly shop locally, while also enjoying vastly improved community and leisure facilities.”
Among the features it says are included in the regeneration project are a new piazza-style square suitable for community events such as farmers’ markets, a variety of local retail units, specifically aimed at smaller traders, a new supermarket to serve the 70 per cent of shoppers who leave town for their weekly shop, and a wide choice of restaurants. There would also be a new library, more than twice the size of the current library, and a community car park with space for 525 vehicles.
Since it was established in 2001, Doric Properties has specialised in the development of retail and leisure properties across the UK and Europe. Commenting on the prospect of its Botley scheme ending up in court, its founding director, Simon Hillcox, said: “We are confident that the Vale has followed all the correct procedures during the sale process and that there has been no conflict of interest.”
A spokesman for Vale of White Horse District Council would only say: “This application will be determined by the planning committee, which is governed by strict rules and case law relating to how it goes about its business.”
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