UFFINGTON WOOLSTONE & BAULKING Community Led Plan 2015 1 CONTENTS 1. Introduction EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2. Background This community led plan covers the majority, respondents felt that the three 3. Community parishes of Uffington, Woolstone and best things about living in Uffington, Baulking. It was compiled under the Woolstone or Baulking are the community, 4. Environment and Leisure direction of the three parish councils or the leisure and environment and the 5. Housing and character parish meetings and was led by a steering housing and character of the villages. group of local volunteers. Work on the Conversely, by far the most significant 6. Roads and traffic, transport plan started in 2013 with a village meeting, disadvantages to living in our villages 7. Education followed by many months of engagement appear to be the roads and transport with locals and visitors to understand network with communication, including 8. Pubs, shop and post office what are the important issues for our both internal village communications and 9. Village hall, museum and Church communities. In late 2014 this formed the communications infrastructure, such as basis for a focussed questionnaire, which mobile phone and broadband services, 10. Communications was issued in early 2015 to all residents also being obvious problems. 11. Employment of the 3 villages, some 430 households, and had a decent 51% response rate. 12. Health and Crime The questionnaire, and indeed this plan, A QUESTIONAIRE OF 430 Appendix 1a: Action plan Table was structured into the 12 key themes HOUSEHOLDS, WITH A 51% of Community, Environment and leisure, Appendix 1b: Action timeline Housing and character, Roads and traffic, RESPONSE RATE Appendix 2: CLP group & contributors transport, Education, Shop, post office and pubs, Village hall, museum and Maps: Village conservation areas Focussing on the community, local events Church, Communications, Employment appear to be popular, with a large majority and Health and Crime and each member of respondents attending one within the of the steering group took responsibility for last 12 months. The White Horse Show designing a section of the questionnaire is especially important to the villages, and its subsequent write up after the both as a very long standing source of results were collated. The detailed charitable support and as a rewarding questionnaire analysis is available from the collective enterprise involving many local Uffington Parish Council onequest. r individuals. Concern was raised about The main purpose of the plan is to bringing new villagers into the fold and a provide the three parish councils or parish ‘Welcome Pack’ for new residents was meetings with clear direction on what it seen as an important next step. In addition is that we, the villagers, see as important a large proportion felt that the needs of the for the future of our villages. By a clear elderly are not met by current facilities or 3 1 services and would like to see more done for a given number of houses. A large and where they want. Buses to Didcot to support this section of the community. majority made the point that no further station for commuting and improving the In terms of leisure and environment, the development towards White Horse frequency of the present two local bus three villages are set in an agricultural Hill should be accepted because this services and widening their destinations landscape with the distinctive White landscape is highly valued as it connects to Faringdon and Swindon more regularly Horse Hill being a major visual feature. the villages of Uffington and Woolstone, were mentioned as being useful. People Questionnaire responses show that (and to a lesser extent, Baulking which also said they would support the reopening villagers value this historic landscape and is set a little further to the north) to the of Uffington Station for access to the rail indeed, the most common reason for White Horse escarpment and the AONB. network. coming to live here was quoted as the Weight was given to ensuring the design Finally, communication was cited as a country way of life. Within the villages of any future housing was done using key concern – village websites were seen themselves, it is the street-scape and local materials similar to those used on as needing improvement and a majority conservation areas and trees that people other older houses in the village. People want better email links throughout the value with a majority supporting more felt that any development should come villages. Nearly 25% of people struggle to planting of trees. Most people felt no with improved facilities for young people, use their broadband for daily requirements need for any increase in the relatively low more managed green space and better but the future plans for fibre broadband current levels of street lighting. However, leisure and sports facilities. While nearly will help mitigate this. Villagers find mobile flooding is a major concern with over all felt that maintaining a residential feel to phone coverage very poor throughout the 75% of respondents having encountered the villages was vital, there was significant parishes. recognition of a need to provide industrial floods across roads and nearly 20% In summary the community led plan has or work spaces for people who live here. having experienced some flooding of their been a well supported endeavour which Nearly all respondents wanted the parish property. Most respondents highly value captures key strengths and weaknesses councils and parish meetings to draw our footpath networks around the villages of our community, as viewed through on these responses in the formation of a but do not want more pavements in the the eyes of the residents. It provides Neighbourhood Plan, i.e. to create a formal villages. A large majority want better loop clear indications to the Parish Councils land-use document that would form part of walks around the parishes, including giving and Meetings of how to take the villages the Statutory Plan. consideration to reopening the old canal forward and should serve as a record to towpath. help future decision making, particularly The final area that people are particularly CONCERNS INclUDE should development and investment in keen on is the housing and character of DEVELOPMENT, ROADS the villages become available. The Parish the 3 villages. Of the 169 comments made AND TRANSPORT LINKS, Council and Meetings need to focus on in response to the question about what bringing new villagers into the fold and are the main issues facing your village, PROTECTING THE AONB AND caring for the elderly, they need to protect over 80% relate to future development. RELIabILITY OF SERVICES our historic landscape and trees and Concerns centre around increased traffic better manage flooding. They need to and parking, strain on existing facilities, Our community is very concerned about carefully manage the future development flooding and drainage, the potential to roads and transport links with the state of the villages through completion of a spoil the character of the villages and the of the roads in relation to pot holes being Neighbourhood Plan and should give impact on the environment and landscape. a common theme. Speeding and volume consideration to the footpath networks Responses to the survey suggest that of traffic is also a significant concern with to improve access to the environment in the preferred types of new housing are a 20mph speed limit along with traffic which we live. They should focus on traffic sheltered housing for the elderly and calming, particularly near the school and management and should engage with local affordable housing, plus houses with museum, and a one way route around bus services to make them more appealing a range of sizes. Most prefer to see a Uffington being particularly mentioned. to residents. Finally they should look at lower density for future housing than is 99% of respondents use a car as their communications access through both the norm today, and therefore accept main transport with most people unable internet and mobile phone provision. that more sites may need to be identified to rely on buses as they do not go when 2 3 1. INTRODUCTION Community led planning has always been Occupations cover a wide spectrum from at the heart of rural communities. From the self-employed, employed, unemployed, informal versions in bygone generations retired, student etc. The community has to the Parish and Community Plans of a complete mix of people from those recent decades, Community Led Plans set who have recently moved to the village to out a vision of how a community wants to those who have lived here for many years. develop and progress and identifies the This broad mix of respondents suggests actions needed to achieve it. that the sample of 51% who completed In 2013, Uffington, Woolstone and Baulking the questionnaire is likely to be a good agreed to work together to generate this representation of the total population. plan, the last village-wide plan having It is the country way of life that has been formulated in 1974. The CLP incentivised over half of respondents to live Steering Group canvassed views from here, the next biggest driver being work or locals, visitors, tourists, parents, church employment. attendees, pub goers, shop users, walkers By a clear majority, respondents felt and cyclists to name but some of the that the three best things about living groups engaged with. in Uffington, Woolstone or Baulking Their responses informed a questionnaire are the community, the housing and distributed in March 2015 to all 428 character of the villages and the leisure households in the three villages. 51% of and environment. Conversely, by far the villagers responded. 74% of respondents most significant disadvantage to living in were from Uffington, 11% fromoolstone W our villages appears to be the roads and and 15% from Baulking, which broadly transport network with communication, reflects the differing sizes of the 3 villages.