Thousands of homes plan laid out by chiefs

Aylesbury Vale District Council published the draft plan this week, setting out numbers of new housing and where they should go.

Aylesbury will take more than 14,000 new homes, Buckingham 2,600, Haddenham and Winslow 1,000 and Wendover 861.

In addition a new settlement of 4,500 homes, the first to be built since Milton Keynes, will be built either at Winslow or Haddenham.

Current railway provision is already in place in Haddenham, and this week a disputed application to build homes at The Glebe was approved by the Secretary of State.

Meanwhile in Winslow the town is set to benefit from East West Rail, although progress on this has been slow.

Planning chiefs this week refused to speculate on which site would be chosen, and urged everyone affected to take part in the forthcoming public consultation to have their views heard.

The plan, which is in its draft stages at the moment, read: “The primary focus of strategic levels of growth and investment will be at Aylesbury, and development at Buckingham, Winslow, Wendover and Haddenham supported by growth at other larger, medium and smaller villages, and where appropriate development will be supported by neighbourhood plans.

“The strategy also allocates growth at a new sites and on sites adjacent to Milton Keynes.”

The plan says that the new developments would make Aylesbury a ‘garden town’ and that Aylesbury would grow by 50% as a result.

Councillor Carole Paternoster, portfolio holder for growth strategy at Aylesbury Vale District Council, said: “We did try to bring in a local plan in 2014, but that had to be withdrawn because the inspector said that our numbers were far too low.

“Without a plan we are subject to opportunistic planning applications coming in from developers.

“This has led to planning applications being granted but without any infrastructure and this impacts on current and future residents and has a knock on effect.”