A SOD Saga

Several years ago, the then Coalition government came up with the Localism Act, which led to the introduction of something called neighbourhood planning. The idea was that neighbourhoods, i.e. parish or town councils, could, with active community involvement, devise a neighbourhood plan (NP), which for the period concerned, define the ways in which the village or town wd develop. In particular, it wd enable the community to say where new housing developments could be located.  All fine and dandy. However, the NP wd be subject to national and district planning constraints, so it wasn't quite the community based planning opportunity that at first glance it seemed to be.

One of the constraints on community planning immediately became apparent when it was announced that, according to the county and district planning strategies for Oxfordshire and South Oxfordshire, Henley (pop. 11,000) wd be required to make room for 450 new houses up to 2027.  There was an immediate convulsion of Nimbyism among the citizens of Henley and neighbouring Harpsden. Henley town Council (HTC) set up a NP process.  This has dragged on for two years, has involved consultation with the community, and two versions of the NP have been put forward for comment.

HTC commissioned a consultancy to prepare the plan, with input from working groups made up of community members. Unfortunately, the result has been a series of documents which look as if they have come from the key board of Dave Brent (of 'The Office' fame, who worked in a fictitious enterprise in a business park somewhere in non fictitious Slough).

The Henley in Transition (HIT) group, of which I am a member, felt the need to make a submission on the latest version of the Henley and Harpsden NP to South Oxfordshire District Council  (SOD) Planning, and I took on the role of editing the copy which, at least in theory, wd be produced by my colleagues.  Fortunately, long experience of working on multi-writer documents had prepared me for this thankless task, and at more or less the 11th hour, and after much rewriting, the final text was ready. Unfortunately, SOD Planning Department had devised a scheme for making submissions which was not exactly citizen friendly, and we had to get our submission to their office by 16.30 on Friday.

Now, this wd have been easy had it not been for a dramatic incident last year.  An Oxfordshire citizen with a shoulder well loaded with chips devised a scheme to get even with the various individuals and organizations against which he had a grudge. Chief of these was SOD Planning.   So, one night, he drove a car loaded with containers of gas right into the foyer of the SOD building in Crowmash and lit the fuse.  Result: total destruction of the extensive SOD premises.  (The mad man concerned is now a guest of HMQ in a secure psychiatric establishment.)

So, the scene is set for yesterday's little saga when, confident that our satnavs wd lead us to SOD Planning at Milton, Malcolm (HIT chairman) and I climbed into the faithful Accord and I keyed the postal code into my vintage Garmin sat nav. No luck. We tried with Malcolm's newer TomTom sat nav. Still no luck.  We tried every permutation we could think of with both satnavs. Nada. OK, so I decided to go via the ruined SOD site at Crowmarsh on the assumption that some some locational information wd be posted there. Arrived. No luck. SOD haven't thought to post notices on the firmly closed gates to direct hapless visitors to their new locations.

Light bulb moment: Google maps. Keyed in info. Site identified.  Near Didcot. Just off the A4130 & near A34. Thus informed, we headed off for nearby Didcot, guided by Google maps. When we reached the A4130/A34 interchange, took the wrong exit, and ended up on A34, Oxford bound. Miles later managed to retrieve that error, and eventually arrived at the Milton business park, which turns out to be exactly the kind of location in which Dave Brent would have been at home. Found helpful map at entrance. Identified target. Reached target. Delivered our submissions. Obtained proof of delivery. Then headed off home, helped by directions from one of the staff who told us how easily to escape from Dave Brent village without hazarding the A34 exchange.   Trip back took 30 mins.

Lessons learned: don't rely on sat navs. Put faith in Google maps. Continue to be sceptical about SOD's location information (and much else).  Oh, and ask a neighbour. "Yes,of course", said my neighbour when I returned, "it's just off the A34/A4130 interchange!"

Back home, I poured -- and consumed -- a generous G&T.   End of saga.