Foothold (fo͝ot′hōld′) noun: A firm or secure position that provides a base for further advancement.
What has that to do with Oswestry? Well, here’s the land all the fuss is about, as seen from the top of the hillfort. Pretty bad, yes?
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But in fact it’s only a foothold. Here it is, shown in blue.
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You can be absolutely certain that if OSWOO4 squeezes through then in a very short time the developers will push hard to develop the other areas, shown in red. Why can we all be so certain? Because they’ve already tried immensely hard to do so and at no point have they said they won’t do so again. The HOOOH website has just published compelling evidence that the developers’ agents have already started that process.
Mendacious moneymen, conniving councils and gutless guardians all use precedents as crutches to support what is otherwise unsupportable. OSWOO4 is most certainly a precedent in waiting. A foothold. If there’s anyone left in Oswestry or anywhere else who thinks building on OSWOO4 is no big deal let them look at the above image.
The Heritage Journal 
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26/02/2016 at 13:17
georgenash
At the end of the day readers, the blame for this absolute mess goes to…….The Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Historic England (no names mentioned here). At every stage of the planning process (under the auspices of Keith Barrow of course), the opposition have always referred back to English Heritage (Historic England) and their approval to OWS004 being developed. However, it is a thin end of a wedge because probably in my lifetime, I will witness OSW004 and land to the north being fully developed. During this time the Historic England Inspector concerned would have retired, Historic England would have moved on to their next catastrophe (hmmmmm, let me think – Stonehenge maybe?), Shropshire Council will be patting themselves on the back, banking the ill-gotten gains from the Section 106, J10 Planning will move to the next contentious project (Probably OSW005, OSW006 and OSW007 – who knows) and the landowner will retire to a nice house away from any development (of course). The loser in this fiasco is the inherited landscape. To think of it, the poor old hillfort has suffered more battles now than when it was in use 3000 years ago. I am sorry to say but Historic England should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves – you don’t know better.
26/02/2016 at 21:53
Diana Baur
“Historic” (in the sense of belonging only to the past) is pretty well exactly what much of England is becoming under the auspices of “Historic England” who seem to have reneged on their brief to preserve our heritage in favour of jumping through the hoops of their current paymasters.
29/02/2016 at 08:08
sandyge
There is a common misunderstanding that Historic England are about protecting our heritage. This is not really their core function. They are actually mainly concerned with enabling development within the historic environment and this is a good example of them at work. You really can’t blame the individual officers for following the brief.