Eventually the County Council’s Highways Liaison Officer responded to my questions about the proposed development at Upperfield Farm.

As far as he is concerned the lane is a public highway and so vehicles, however large, have a right of access. He thinks it would be difficult to prove without significant monitoring resources that any damage was caused by construction traffic. He is not prepared to recommend planning conditions with regard to the lane because he does not consider they are necessary, relevant to planning, relevant to the development to be permitted, enforceable, precise and reasonable.

I had told him about the damage to the lane caused by previous developments, but he has ignored this.
 
I also asked the more general question about how we can express our views to him before he makes his highways recommendations to the Planning Department. He told me he is not prepared to receive such concerns from us. The Planning Department is not prepared to consider highway concerns without a recommendation from the Highways Liaison Office, so this means we have no say in how the highway is affected by a planning application.

This situation is most unsatisfactory.

The County Council have written to say they are nearing completion of their upgrade to high speed broadband in the county. The broadband speed in Denton is still too slow and Chris Luke has written asking if there is going to be an upgrade there. He has received no reply.

Following the recent flooding at Cuddesdon Mill when some vehicles got stuck at the bridges, Colin Hessey now puts a flood sign out at the top of the road in Cuddesdon when the road at the mill is impassable.

The Post office is considering closing the sorting office at Wheatley. At the time of writing no decision has been made on this, but we would not be affected anyway because our mail comes from the East Oxford sorting office. Wheatley’s postmaster is confident that the post office will not be affected if the sorting office closes.

The Parish Council is considering whether there should be a grit bin at the bottom of Church Road because cars have difficulties there when it is icy.

Mike Mount
Parish Clerk

 

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