The Facts about Bertie Park No2

Are the City Council’s proposals in the local plan?

Bertie Park first appeared on Oxford City Council’s local plans because somebody thought it would be possible to move the recreation ground. In 2019 the council proposed that Bertie Park should become “a smaller but more modern play area”. The latest proposal is to squeeze the playground and the multi-use games area into the new development.

2019 proposal
2021 proposal

The local plan clearly states that planning permission should not be granted for either of these proposals:

It does not say that only the playground and the MUGA should be re-provided, it says the recreation ground should be reprovided. The green space around the amenities in a recreation ground is called a buffer zone. It is part of the recreation ground.

The council wants to build around 30 dwellings. This would mean using ALL of the green space for building. Bertie Park would have a playground and a MUGA, but not a blade of grass.

The Facts about Bertie Park No1

As the consultation approaches, we think that it is important for people to know the facts. Alex Hollingsworth is Cabinet Member for Planning and Housing Delivery. He says:

Image taken from Labour Party website.

This IS true but … ALL of the local plans say: 

Please click on panel for link to the local plan. You will find this on p 181.

Plot B is the wasteland behind Wytham St, previously called “the Back Fields” or “Cold Harbour Nature Reserve”. Council policy says this:

Click the box for the Council’s Green Spaces Strategy. You will find this on p16

The recreation ground can’t be re-provided on the Cold Harbour Nature Reserve because it has no thoroughfare and it is not overlooked. The police say it is not suitable for unaccompanied children.

Looking towards Bertie Park from the nature reserve

Other reasons that plot B is not suitable:

  • the site is geologically unstable
  • the park would no longer be in walking distance* for families living in flats on Gordon Woodward Way.

* defined by Oxford City Council as 400m. Please click here the council’s Green Spaces Strategy and look for p.43 to see where this figure comes from.

Are we telling the truth?

It is great to see recent interest in the Save Bertie Park campaign from the Oxford Mail and That’s.tv.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19626906.fight-save-bertie-park-city-councils-housing-development-continues/

interview aired on That’s.tv on 8th October.

Both pieces say why the park is important to us. The fact that the current proposals are not in the plan, and that we were not consulted, is edited out. Both pieces end with the statement always made by Alex Hollingsworth (OCC cabinet member for planning and housing delivery):

Alex’s statement from That’s.tv news

Are the current proposals for Bertie Park in the Local Plan?

Bertie Park has been on local plans since 2001 because somebody thought that the recreation ground could simply be moved. All of the local plans say:

Taken from the adopted Oxford Local Plan 2036 p 181

Plot B is the land behind Wytham St previously called “the Back Fields” or “Cold Harbour Nature Reserve”. It has no thoroughfare, it is not overlooked and can seem quite a scary place. Council policy says that it is not suitable for a play space:

Taken from OCC Green Spaces Strategy 2013 – 2027

The police agree.

So OCC are planning to squeeze the new development into our recreation ground.

Is this in the local plan?

When they carried out their extensive consultation for the local plan, who did they consult, and which questions did they ask?

Did they ask the police whether plot B was appropriate for a recreation ground?

Did they ask us if we wanted a new housing development squeezed into our recreation ground? How could they, if this was not what the Local Plan intended?

Not in the plan, not consulted, not our choice.

If you support us, please follow this blog or facebook page or contact savebertie@gmail.com to join our campaign.

Weather or not …

No matter what the weather, we are set to go ahead with our Stand to Save Bertie Park outside the Town Hall on Saturday 2nd October 12.00 – 13.00. Bring your umbrella – even if you can only stay for a short while. If you really can’t make it, send us a picture of yourself/your family on the day. You could you even use the image below to show yourselves standing in front of the town hall. Send to savebertie@gmail.com. All photos will be published on the website.

Join us on Saturday 2nd 12 til 1!

It wasn’t that warm on Monday, but members of the group worked hard to prepare posters for when we make a stand on Saturday. We will be meeting at 12.00 outside the Town Hall on St Aldate’s. If the town hall is open, Annie hopes to deliver her under 12s petition. We will then move on to Queen St for a picnic.

With consultation due soon and planning application in January, it could be bulldozers as soon as March!

Please Stand with Us

The consultation for the Bertie Park development is only weeks away in October/November. The planning application will be heard in January. The council want to deviate from the local plan and squeeze our playground and Multi Use Games Area into a new housing development. This means complaints about noisy football games 10 meters away from kitchen windows. What would happen to the open green space is anyone’s guess.

Join us to make stand against the proposed development. Not in the plan. Not consulted. And not our choice. Meet outside the Town Hall at 12.00 on 2nd October, then move to Queen Street for a quick picnic. Picnics are just one of the activities that you can do on an open green space. Our Facebook page (Save Bertie Park, Oxford) shows others that would never happen again if they built on Bertie.

Park not Profit!

How does Bertie Park differ from threatened parks in London? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/30/protests-grow-against-new-council-homes-on-green-spaces-in-london

London is chronically short of land for building. There is so much land in Oxford that the City Council would like to transform the city by creating more employment, attracting an extra 100,000 residents. On a national podcast this morning new houses in Wolvercote were being advertised for sale. When I checked, prices range from £634,950 to £925,000.

https://www.cala.co.uk/homes-for-sale/south-east-england/oxford/wolvercote-mill/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8d_Kss7s8gIVpO_tCh1BkwFyEAAYASAAEgJAQPD_BwE

It is obvious that land for building is not in short supply. What is in short supply is council land that the council doesn’t have to pay for. The problem is that most of our council land is already home to amenities like Bertie Park. Many people wonder why OCC is trying to significantly downgrade a Park in an area like Cold Harbour while encouraging the building of unaffordable housing elsewhere in the city. People in our area should not be forced to choose between social housing and amenities. Please sign or share the link to our petition: https://www.change.org/SaveBertie

3 Questions for Oxford City Council

Here are questions recently sent to Alex Hollingsworth who is OCC cabinet member for planning and housing delivery

When were residents consulted?

You say that Bertie Park was first allocated for development in 2013 after going through multiple stages of public consultation. The accepted plans stated that planning permission would only be given if the recreation ground was re-provided on the land behind Wytham street. Your consultation never asked us whether we wanted our playground and Multi Use Games Area squeezed in alongside new housing, as you are now proposing.

Who protects Oxford’s recreational facilities?

You make it clear that Oxford City Homes Limited (OCHL) are responsible for designing the development. You say they have to make an independent decision about the scheme it will submit. You are one of the OCHL shareholder panel members. Your whole focus is the provision of housing. So, whose responsibility is it to make sure that we have an equivalent recreation ground that complies with current OCC policies?  

Which policies will be taken into account?

You say that the Planning Committee members must weigh up the application against national and local planning policies, and decide whether or not to approve the application. What do you mean by “local planning policies”? The proposed changes to Bertie Park go against a number of Oxford City Council policies. Which of OCC’s policies have to be taken into account? Which can you choose to ignore? 

What is an open green space?

Oxford City Council currently intends to build on all of the open green space on Bertie Park. They would like to compensate by upgrading a nature trail on the adjoining wasteland. I had a conversation with Oxford City Council in which they said that this was not problematic as they didn’t see a difference between “open” green space and “green space”. For the council, there is no difference between a recreation ground and a nature trail, after all, they are both green.

I know that the council plays games with words. See previous blog:  Oxford City Council’s Use of language: https://wordpress.com/post/savebertie.com/187 This spurred me on to do a little research. In their Green Spaces Strategy, Oxford City Council acknowledges that there are “many types of green space”, with different uses and qualities, attracting different sections of the community. This certainly rings true. We have a Facebook series on things that you can do on an open green space, but not on a nature trail.

The Green Spaces strategy also states that every playground should be surrounded by a buffer zone. The size depends on the type of play area. A Neighbourhood Equipped Area for Play (NEAP) is mainly for older children but with play opportunities for younger children too. According to some sources, the recommended buffer zone for a NEAP is 30m from the boundary of the nearest property.

So, it looks very much like our open green space is really a buffer zone, and that Oxford City Council would like to re-provide the WHOLE of the buffer zone around the play areas on Bertie Park as a family nature trail on a separate site, which will be unsuitable for unaccompanied children.