Oswestry: not minding the gap.

Remember we said Oswestry Hillfort would have been safe in West Oxfordshire or West Sussex? Now  you can add East Sussex too: “the Secretary of State also agrees with the Inspector’s conclusion that the scale of development proposed would have a harmful effect by eroding the existing clear sense of separation”. “A clear sense of separation” – which monument doesn’t deserve that? The massive one at Oswestry, it seems, even though The Heritage Impact Assessment said otherwise: “the  most  important  physical  element of  the  setting  is  the  belt  of  agricultural  land  which  surrounds  the  hill  fort  and is  perceived  as  part  of  the  monument”. (Note: belt, not crescent.) But this is Shropshireland. A decent gap (or even a derisory one) is bloody inconvenient – for how can you build on it? 

So is that why the document then does a triple backward summersault? “Any  suggestion  that  development  per  se  is  harmful  –  that  the  view  would  be ‘spoiled’  –  is  untenable,  since  this  would  not  be  a  response  based  on  a rational  assessment  of  impact  on  significance” and “Development of  the  site  is  a  logical  extension  of  the  urban  fringe,  and  the  montage  shows that  it  would  create  a  positive  edge  to  the  land  which  surrounds  the  hill  fort.” See? Keeping a gap would be “untenable” whereas building on it would be “logical” and “positive”. Amazing eh?

Plus, (lest you doubt this is part of a deliberate Shropshireland act of monumenticide) see this from section  7.2.46: “At  night,  the  orange  glow  of  street  lights  is  the dominant  feature,  and  the  hill  fort  is  not  visible.”  Why mention the sun goes down? You can’t get more blatantly pro-development than by dragging up the fact the hillfort is invisible in the dark (and invisible monuments don’t need green gaps!)

The hillfort at night (or with your eyes closed).

The clues that there’s something rotten in the state of Shropshireland have long been there. It’s not just the inconsistencies with other authorities. It’s the fact there were also early signs. Below is the Oswestry Town Plan from back in 2013 – “an informed and influential guide to developers, setting out what matters most to local people”. See how tightly it is drawn and ask yourself why it is offset so it’s more generous to the North and miniscule on the town side…..

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Then take a look at this, the subsequent development proposal. Oswestry Town Council opposed it. What a shame they didn’t realise earlier that the circle was so small it left a crucial gap – not for the monument but for the developers …..

[Finally, you might think that having realised the 2013 green circle was too small and had left a crucial gap for developers which they regretted, Oswestry wouldn’t have included the identical plan in their Town Plan 2020. But you’d be wrong. The implied open armed invitation to developers to come in and wreck the setting of the hillfort for grubby financial profit at public heritage cost is still there. Who was behind that convenient lack of change? No prizes for guessing.]

The Dismal Repugnate of Shropshireland eh? What an amazing place, so different from West Oxfordshire and West & East Sussex. Maybe the Government should take direct control?