General Notes

BACKGROUND – OXFORD TO CAMBRIDGE EXPRESSWAY

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The corridor for the Oxford to Cambridge Expressway was announced in September 2018, it will be “broadly aligned” with the proposed East-West rail route from Abingdon to south Milton Keynes via Winslow. It is yet to be decided whether the route will pass west or east of Oxford.

Within this corridor are 3 possible routes. Chilton Parish Council is working alongside the Expressway Action Group (EAG) to oppose the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway route B3, which could come right through Chilton Parish.

Chilton, and other Parish Councils within route B3, have been asked by EAG to set aside some money in case it is one day needed for a legal challenge.

Chilton’s own Expressway Group has formed independently from the Parish Council, to do whatever we can to show Chilton as an area that is too important to consider building a major dual carriageway through, which would not only ruin the appearance of the beautiful area we live in, designated an ‘Area of attractive landscape’ by Aylesbury Vale District Council, but would also pollute it with noise, light and exhaust emissions. Local house values could also be seriously affected.

We know Chilton is special and should not have a road built near it, but we need to have evidence to back this up.

We will need to present data on the historic landscape and archaeological features we have, some work is already being done on this but we are looking for more information and anyone who can help.

We have commissioned a freelance independent professional Ecologist, Tony Powell, to undertake a survey of the biodiversity present in the parish. His main speciality is farmland and woodland bird population ecology and has contributed his research to many scientific papers in this field, but he will of course record all the important wildlife he finds.

His plan is to split the parish into 3 sections and survey each section for a day each in March, April, May and June (the main breeding season) which will comprise 12 visits (travelling from near Newbury).

He is doing this for £125 per survey with a final report at £400 which means we have so far committed ourselves to spending £1900.

He will keep some dates free in July – September in case more funds become available to increase our species count and make a more comprehensive report.

He is very keen and capable and I think we are lucky to have got him involved.

Chilton Expressway group are happy to put in the time and some of the funding, but if there are any other Chilton residents that are able to contribute to this cause, it would be great to hear from you. Ideally we would raise sufficient funds to extend the study and make our case as strong as possible.