Categories:  Residential, Education, Retail
Client:   Lioncourt Strategic Land
Project Date:  2016 - 2024
Contact:  Sean McIntyre
Location:  Kingston Bagpuize, Oxfordshire

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The City of Oxford has grown to the limits of its administrative borders, so its unmet need for housing land is being met in the neighbouring, more rural local authorities. Vale of White Horse District Council has been working through the process of updating its Local Plan since 2015. In 2017 it turned its attention to finding sites to meet its share of Oxford’s unmet need and Local Plan 2031 Part 2, which includes the Land at Kingston Bagpuize site, was adopted.

Lioncourt Strategic Land entered into a development partnership with landowner St John’s College, Oxford in 2016 to promote a site for up to 650 dwellings and various supporting developments on land to the east of the village of Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor. Benefits of the site include its location just outside the Oxford Green Belt, and between the A420 Swindon to Oxford and the A415 Witney to Abingdon roads, meaning that all these destinations can be reached by public transport.

The site provides the opportunity to build a new road linking the A420 and A415, which can be signed as the A415 to draw through traffic away from the centre of the village. Public consultation revealed that this idea had been contemplated some 50 years earlier, when Kingston Bagpuize was in Berkshire.

Key Transport’s role has included liaison with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) to seek agreement of the transport strategy that underpins the emerging masterplan. This includes design of the link road and its roundabout junctions on the A420 and A415, and the intermediate development accesses. Planning of the pedestrian and cycle network includes amendment of off-site routes and the introduction of new, safe crossings of the A class roads. Traffic capacity has been assessed at a range of offsite locations, most of them junctions but also including Paramics modelling of a merge from two lanes to one on the A420.

Liaison with the main bus operator, Stagecoach, involved planning alterations to the route of the S6 Swindon to Oxford express bus service, to better serve the development. The S6 service is both regular and efficient and, in peak periods, provides a quicker option for travel to the centre of Oxford than the car. Service S6 is proposed to be diverted via the proposed link road, bringing the proposed residential development within easy walking distance of the bus service.

The proposal also raises an unusual transport issue. The new A420 roundabout would be located very close to two existing lay-bys which, according to Department for Transport guidance, would have to be closed. After careful consideration of the availability of lay-bys on the A420 and various replacement lay-by options, Oxfordshire County Council decided that the lay-bys need not be replaced.

A planning application submitted in 2018 was refused permission. The allocation relied on improvements to the A415/A338 ‘Frilford Lights’ junction to be delivered by OCC with funding by developers. While a study had been commenced by OCC it was not sufficiently advanced to determine appropriate contributions.

In 2022 a hybrid planning application was submitted that included up to 660 homes, an extra care development of up to 70 units, a local centre, a one form entry primary school (in grounds allowing for later expansion to a two form entry school) and the link road with roundabout junctions on the A420 and A415.  The application was supported by a Transport Assessment and Travel Plan prepared by Key Transport Consultants(KTC).

A separate planning application was submitted for improvement works to Frilford Lights with outline design and Transport Assessment prepared by KTC.

Planning Permission for the development was granted in April 2024.