As part of the ongoing saga concerning this property, you may remember that the owner put in an application to demolish his property and to build a terrace of five new town houses. When it was refused by officers, the owner appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, as is his legal right. That appeal was held yesterday and David attended to represent local concerns. Here is a brief report:

At the appeal, Council officers put up a strong defence of their refusal. The owner argued that as the courts had declared 29 Old High Street to be ‘an eyesore’ then it was best demolished. I pointed out that the very fact that the courts had required improvements to be made suggested that they thought the property was not a lost cause but was worth improving and restoring to its previous state. A property that has been left to neglect is not one that loses its right to exist.

The merits of the proposed development within the Conservation Area were discussed. I made it clear that opposition to this application did not necessarily equate to opposition to any development on the site. The problem with the application was that it would transform the nature of the site in a way which would not protect or enhance the Conservation Area. The owner suggested the boundaries of the Conservation Area should not include his property.

There was also debate about details of the application. It included a garage for each of the properties that were insufficient for modern cars. The owner accepted this and suggested that, instead, the development could be car-free but that, of course, was not the application submitted. He also suggested that the standards for cycle parking were unnecessary for this site as buses were frequent and preferable to cycling in the rain. The application also provided gardens for each property which were less than half the minimum expected by the City Council as set out in the Local Plan. The owner suggested it was not fair to expect those minimum standards to apply to his property.

At several points, the owner made it clear that the 2011 application, for which the drawings were made 18 years ago, had been submitted in response to a separate move by Oxford City Council to require remedial work to be done on the property to halt its delapidation. That remedial work which a court order has enforced is still pending.

At the hearing, the Council asked the Inspector to consider awarding costs against the appellant on the basis that the owner had not provided a robust argument for why the application should not have been refused and so the appeal had been a waste of taxpayers’ money. The owner commented that the Council’s request for costs was ‘vindictive’.

It is usual in these situations for the Inspector’s report to be issued in about eight weeks.