Shropshire Star

Call for Oswestry plans to be thrown out

All controversial plans for housing around Oswestry's ancient hillfort should be scrapped, town councillors have said.

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Oswestry Town Council had previously given conditional support to plans for housing off Whittington Road and at Oldport Farm in Gobowen Road.

But councillors reviewed their stance after Shropshire Council's cabinet last week agreed to remove the Oldport Farm plans from its SAMdev strategic development document while keeping the Whittington Road proposal for 117 homes in place. Town councillors voted at a meeting on Tuesday that all the housing plans, including the Whittington Road proposal, should be taken out of the SAMDev process.

Members of the Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort (HOOOH) campaign group today welcomed the town council's new position. And they said they hoped the town council's view would persuade Shropshire Council's full council meeting, which is due to be held today, to throw out the Whittington Road plans too.

Kate Clarke, from HOOOH, said members of the group would be at Shirehall today to press their case.

She said: "We are delighted the town council has stood up and represented the views of local people. We are very proud of the town council and about the conclusion it has come to over the hillfort." Mrs Clarke said she thought a seminar in Oswestry on Saturday about the hillfort and information from archaeology experts given at Tuesday evening's meeting had helped town councillors come to a different view to one they had held previously.

The town council had agreed to give conditional support to the Whittington Road plans but only if a review of the existing historical assessment of the site was carried out.

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