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This website was originally created by Tetsworth Parish Council as a means of distributing and sharing information about the Parish Council and its business. However, it clearly has the potential to be developed as a much richer information hub reflecting and supporting the whole of the Tetsworth community. While it may still have some way to go before it fully satisfies this aim, the site will try to bring together news of village organisations and act as a source of information on services available to the Tetsworth community.
The Parish Council meets once a month at 7.30pm on the second Monday of the month in Tetsworth Memorial Hall. Members of the public are welcome. The Parish Council does not meet in August. Please CLICK HERE to see the Agenda for the next meeting. Minutes of previous meetings are also posted on the site. |
Please contact The Clerk if you would like to find other useful information which is not yet included.
Events
Local PlanThe final draft of our Local Plan, setting out how the district should be shaped until 2033, was published on 11 October.
For more information and to view the documents, please click here. 
Report a road or street problem (such as potholes!) by clicking on the button above. You can upload photographs with the report and they will give progress feedback.
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NewsOxford Cambridge Expressway – Message from EAG Chair Peter Rutt Good afternoon everyone. Here’s a copy of a letter from Kit Malthouse MP, Minister of State for Housing, which we have just obtained… its contents are very worrying. The clear message from this letter is that the Expressway project and its associated 1,000,000 new homes appear to be going ahead, with Government support. Our local authorities have just been given 6 weeks until the 14th September to prepare and submit proposals for ‘new settlements’ along the OxCam Arc, to try and achieve the 1 million new homes target. Oxfordshire’s ‘pro-rata’ share of this total would be around 300,000 more homes, effectively doubling the County’s population in just 20 - 30 years (this is on top of the 100,000 new homes already planned for construction in the current Local Plan by 2031). These ‘new settlements’ would presumably also influence where the Expressway would go. We believe this is both unachievable and undemocratic, since there won’t be time to consult Councillors on any plan which Council officers might prepare. Any plans for a large or very large settlement should involve proper environmental, habitat, transport and services studies before a sensible decision on location and size could be made. Clearly they could not be carefully worked out in just 6 weeks - New Towns take years to plan, not weeks! There would certainly not be time to ask all Oxfordshire residents if they want a New Town (or towns) built here, nor for any public debate on where it might go. Many of our member parishes are in the South Oxfordshire District Council area, and we know that SODC full Council have voted and formally resolved that any Expressway route / corridor should run West of Oxford and via Bicester. SODC and its officers should therefore oppose any large new settlements / towns in lands to the South of Oxford - but I would suggest that as many of us as possible write to them asking them to respect and conform with that Council resolution, and not to propose any new settlements there to the Minister. For everyone: can I ask you to read the Minister’s letter, circulate it as widely as possible and write to your District and County Councillors, your MP and to the District and County Council leaders to express your surprise and great concern? I will let everyone know more information as it becomes available. With best regards Peter Rutt / Co-ordinator, Expressway Action Group PS There may be a piece on BBC Oxford TV tonight at 6:30 on all this …. ………… For information, here’s a Press release sent from EAG: "The Minister’s letter asks local authorities to reply by 14th September with ideas for ‘new settlements’ in their areas, in order to help plan for a million new homes along the Oxford to Cambridge Arc and the Expressway. We have asked our member communities to write to their local Councils expressing their deep concern. We strongly support Affordable housing - and the existing Local Plan already includes 100,000 new homes by 2031. However the Minister’s letter quotes an ambition for 1 million more homes by 2050 and that implies another 200- 300,000 homes in Oxfordshire. Surely Government can’t expect plans of this scale to emerge in 6 weeks? EAG believes Oxfordshire’s Councillors, voters and residents must have their say before any New Towns are imposed on them. Regarding the Ox-Cam Expressway, we know that better East- West rail and road links are needed to reduce congestion and pollution and we support this. To minimise environmental damage and unnecessary costs, the emphasis should be on using existing road links closely aligned with East-West Rail - and that means a Western & Northern route round Oxford towards Bicester. This would also avoid overloading the M40 with new London commuters which would happen if the Expressway and its housing are built South of Oxford". kit_malthouse_mp_min_housing_new_settlements_letter_to_leaders__26_july_2018___2_.pdf Oxford Cambridge Expressway Please support CPRE’s call for a Public Inquiry The new Expressway through rural Oxfordshire, intended to create more development, is to be announced as soon as July by Highways England who intend to decide its route behind closed doors without public consultation or a Public Inquiry. We ask you to write to your MP and Local Councillors to support us in saying this is wrong, and to demand the public consultation and Public Inquiry that is our right before our rural County is changed beyond recognition. The Government has endorsed the National Infrastructure Commissions proposal that there should be a new Expressway (a Motorway in all but name) connecting the M4 South of Oxford to the M11 near Cambridge. The road is linked to the proposal to build another million houses along the route by 2050, 300,000 of which could be inflicted on Oxfordshire, virtually doubling our existing population. That means that wherever you live in the County, the impacts will be transformational. From Milton Keynes to Cambridge, the Expressway would take the form of upgrading existing roads. From the M4 to Milton Keynes, Highways England is looking at two alternatives, although it is keeping details secret. One is to upgrade the existing A34/M40/A421 roads to expressway standard. The other is to build a completely new Expressway leaving the A34 and heading East, somewhere between Didcot and Kennington, before turning towards Thame and Aylesbury. This would be a totally new road through open countryside that is largely Green Belt. We shouldn’t tolerate that such important decisions are taken without full public consultation: we should be told what is in store for us and be seriously involved in the decision as to which land to build major roads across. If the road is imposed on us – and CPRE has ample evidence that new road building creates more traffic problems than it solves[1] – then in principle upgrading existing roads will inevitably be less harmful to the countryside than building an entirely new one across green fields. There is a tried and tested way to find out public opinion in the most open way and that is through a public inquiry. In this way, it is difficult to hide evidence and gives the public its full chance to let its opinion be known and examined. Given the intention to accelerate delivery of the East West railway, linking Oxford and Cambridge, we want to know whether an Expressway is needed and if so which route it should take and further, just what is the justification of such an aspirational idea as the whole Growth Corridor. We are pleased that Oxfordshire County Council has already backed CPRE Oxfordshire’s call for a Public Inquiry but we need to ensure the Secretary of State hears the message from as many people as possible. The dangers are clear: one of the most valued countrysides in England could become in great part a commuter suburb of London. We should not just stand by and watch Highways England ride roughshod over our pleasant land. We therefore ask you to support CPRE Oxfordshire’s call for a Public Inquiry into the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway and Growth Corridor by writing to your local councillors and MP, and directly to the Secretary of State for Transport. With thanks, Helen Marshall Director, CPRE Oxfordshire |