Oswestry hillfort fears unfounded says council

Earlier this month campaigners from Hands off Old Oswestry Hillfort (HOOOH) voiced concerns about plans from the council to look at "further town growth northwards into the hillfort's setting".

The comments came as the council considers a planning application from Galliers Homes for 120 houses on land which HOOOH claims is a significant area of the 3,000-year-old hillfort’s south-eastern setting.

However Adrian Cooper, Shropshire Council’s planning policy and strategy manager, has dismissed the concerns about northward growth, saying they are based on "misinterpretation".

He said: "We acknowledge campaigners’ concerns about the current Galliers application for the development of a site which is already allocated in the SAMDev Plan. These views are consistent with the position they adopted during the preparation of SAMDev, and will doubtless be expressed as objections to the planning application.

“However, their concerns about further northward expansion in the setting of the hillfort seem to be based on a misinterpretation of the background evidence which has been published in support of the current local plan review.

“No additional development sites are proposed near the hillfort. Indeed, the recent consultation document explicitly recognised that: 'Additional development opportunities adjacent to the existing Development Boundary for Oswestry are now extremely restricted by the presence of physical, heritage and environmental constraints such as the setting of the Old Oswestry Hillfort; sensitive landscapes to the north and west; the Oswestry bypass to the east; and flood risk and accessibility issues to the south.’

“Campaigners seem to have confused the land which we were asked to consider by landowners with the preferred sites which we are actually proposing to allocate – one small site on the west of Oswestry, plus land at Park Hall.”