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First published on Monday 18 September 2000:

Heyford homes to cover less land

by This is Oxfordshire

Homes to be built on the former Upper Heyford airfield are likely to take up less land than originally expected.

More than 750 new homes were due to be built by the North Oxfordshire Consortium at what is now called Heyford Park, and it was thought about 100 acres would be needed.

But the Government has introduced new guidelines calling for a higher density of housing per acre, so now only about 50 acres is likely to be used up. Under the county structure plan, 1,000 houses were earmarked for Heyford Park. This figure includes 300 already on the site which were built for RAF and American service families.

Keith Watson, general manager of the consortium, said: "We are probably keeping 250 of the existing homes and the rest will be newly built. We had hoped to complete our plans for the houses earlier but the new guidelines meant we had to do much more work. We also had to do another assessment on the environmental impact of the houses."

Banbury MP Tony Baldry is concerned that the consortium will eventually want to build more than 1,000 houses and has written to junior Environment Secretary Nick Raynsford expressing his concern.