Protest planned against Oswestry hillfort home plans
Campaigners battling against plans to build in the shadow of an Iron Age hillfort in Oswestry will hold a demonstration outside Shirehall.
Members of the Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort group will greet councillors as they arrive to ratify Shropshire Council's planning blueprint SAMDev.
They have reiterated their desire to take the authority to a judicial review if plans to build 117 homes close to the hillfort are retained in the document.
They claim the proposed development, named on the document as OSW004 would breach a long-respected town boundary enclosing the scheduled hillfort.
The Site Allocations and Management of Development plan, which governs housing development in the county up until 2026, is expected to be approved at a meeting on December 17. The demonstration will take place at 9am ahead of the meeting.
Neil Phillips, a member of HOOOH, said: "Shropshire Council may be hoping to sign over our heritage to the bulldozer and escape the fallout during the Christmas break. But we have a prominent legal firm briefed and ready to launch a judicial review if the site remains in SAMDev.
"The Old Oswestry campaign has never been a 'nimby' or anti-housing protest. It has only ever been about the heritage.
"During consultation, stakeholders including Oswestry Town Council asked Shropshire Council planning officers to review housing sites in Oswestry and implement better protection for the hill fort setting, but they have refused."
Maggie Rowlands of HOOOH said: "While the hill fort site has attracted overwhelming opposition, Oswestry residents are still facing the prospect of development within one of their most valued neighbourhood spaces.
"Ratifying OSW004 on Shropshire's local plan is a golden ticket to build, for which each and every Shropshire councillor will shoulder responsibility. If this housing estate goes up, we will be reminded every day of their decision to ignore the overwhelming consensus of the public and the most qualified opinions of British archaeology. Every day, local electors will be hit in the face by their legacy – a growing wedge of bricks and concrete obliterating the ancient green landscape intrinsic to the hill fort's value and beauty.
"But it is not too late to say 'no'. Local stakeholders are keen to sit down right now to resolve housing delivery which doesn't jeopardise this national treasure of British heritage."
SAMDev has been draw up to secure Shropshire's housing needs for the next decade. The plans were signed off my planning inspector Claire Sherratt and now only need to be approved by Shropshire Council.
In her response Ms Sherratt said developing OSW004 would "lead to less than substantial harm to the significance of a designated asset."
