Oxley Woods Living

Life in an Oxley Woods eco house

 
 

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RSH+P back Oxley Woods residents

January 12, 2012

Oxley Woods residents had a busy time over the Christmas break, scrutinising the new Taylor Wimpey proposals and spotting many inaccuracies and omissions.We also met with planning officials to ask questions about the planning process.

In the course of our discussions, we picked up that it had been suggested to planning officials that the original architects Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners (RSHP) didn’t want to be involved in completing the site.

Now that just didn’t chime with what we knew from our positive engagement with RSHP over the past year. We’ve worked with them to host visits to Oxley Woods from interested architects, BBC Radio 4, a TV company, and the mayor and councillors of Tower Hamlets council. We knew first hand the passion and commitment that RSHP have for their Oxley Woods scheme.

And now we have that confirmed in writing from RSHP themselves. Ivan Harbour has once again taken the trouble to write to Oxley Woods residents to share RSHP’s views on the designs put forward by Taylor Wimpey. He also reconfirms their continued willingness to develop alternative designs for the site based on the original concept.

All Taylor Wimpey has to do is ask… how about it?

Attached are Ivan Harbour’s letters to Oxley Woods residents from March 2011 and January 2012.

110309_Ivan_Harbour_Oxley_residents_letter

120109_Ivan_Harbour_Oxley_residents_letter

{Guest post by Chris}

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Residents respond to Taylor Wimpey

March 31, 2011

Following Taylor Wimpey’s first direct communication regarding their plans to scrap the multi-award winning eco homes development at Oxley Woods, a number of residents held an impromptu meeting to discuss our response. A number of us already making it clear we wish to see the development completed as proposed by Wimpey, as awarded and as highly acclaimed by others.

The letter gained around more than 35 signatories in a number of days, and was emailed to Taylor Wimpey. The following is a word-for-word copy of the combined response to Taylor Wimpey.

Dear Ms Moffat,

RE: Oxley Woods

I write on behalf of the residents named below to provide a formal and collective response to your letter dated 23rd March.

We welcome the fact that your letter provides the first direct communication on the part of Taylor Wimpey regarding the future of the Oxley Woods site, albeit to a limited number of recipients. Please be assured that, as residents of this ‘truly innovative and outstanding development of sustainable homes’, we are keen to be involved in ensuring the successful completion of the site.

Following discussions amongst ourselves, we have however concluded that we cannot agree to your proposal for a two person committee to meet with you to identify a preferred alternative design to be pursued on the remaining undeveloped areas.

Given that the Oxley Woods development is of national significance, and that all of its residents have therefore been pioneers, we must underline that any consultation on the future of the site should be open to all residents. Any proposed changes in the design of the homes still to be built must be carefully considered within the context of the original aims of the project, the existing design and layout, and the overarching concept which residents bought into when they made the decision to live here.

It would therefore be inappropriate on our part for any of us to circumvent a full and proper consideration of the available options, either via an open public consultation or via a formal planning process. As such we will not be nominating representatives, nor seeking to view the revised alternative designs as per your proposal.

While we appreciate that the housing market has been difficult over recent years (indeed it has been a personally painful experience for a number of us), it is our belief that there would be sufficient demand for the remaining houses if they were to be completed as per the original design. Our own anecdotal experience is that, over the last couple of years, inquiries to the Oxley Woods sales office into the likely availability of homes in the undeveloped areas have been rebuffed rather than actively pursued as an indication of customer demand. More positively, we infer from the recent closure of the sales office that the remaining homes on Holden Avenue have now been sold, and understand that this is already the case for the three further homes that will soon be built by Wood Newton.

We must therefore reiterate our previous individual responses in support of the completion of the site as per the original RSH+P proposals, and respectively ask for this option to be reconsidered. If the site were to be completed in line with our original expectations we are confident that residents would be able to play an active role in promoting the site to potential homeowners. We would be pleased to discuss this possibility further.

Yours sincerely,

The undersigned

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The future of Oxley Woods? Part Two.

January 12, 2011

This article is a follow up to the recent post: The future of Oxley Woods?

What’s prompted this?

On Monday, some residents of Oxley Woods received a letter from CMYK (Design and Planning) Limited, proposing dramatic changes to the remaining 16% of the original Oxley Woods development, famously designed by world renowned architecture firm RSH+P.

Letter? Proposed changes? What?

If you were not among the select few to receive this information, you can download PDFs of their proposals here: Proposal PDF and their questionnaire here: Questionnaire PDF.

Confusion, and trying to clear things up.

There has been some confusion and a certain lack of clarity in some fields as to what is being proposed. I just wanted to try and clarify a little in this post, especially for those who have not had the documents, or who struggle to get their heads around the very idea that RSH+P have been replaced by CMYK.

If there are any errors or omissions, or if you can add further to the detail of this post/documentation, then please get in touch or post on the forum and I’ll try to update the data ASAP.

For those who need some clarification, Oxley Woods is a multi-award winning site of 145 homes, designed by RSH+P, and built and sold by Taylor Wimpey (originally George Wimpey). The main sub-contractor building the RSH+P homes is Wood Newton.

What was proposed originally, what’s changed?

Originally Oxley Woods was sold, awarded, shown and promoted as a development of 145 RSH+P designed eco-homes. At the time of writing, it is still being sold as such on the official OxleyWoods.com website.

So far, 119 of those properties have been built. According to word of mouth, three more of those are still to be built as per the original plans and RSH+P design.

That makes 122. 23 to go.

The letter from CMYK (Planning and design) Limited shows proposals to replace those 23 award winning RSH+P designed homes, with 26 brick built homes, very much like those we can see being built by Taylor Wimpey on the other side of the Oxley Park estate.

Let’s illustrate that

Let’s put up some pictures to show what we have, what is planned, and where it is planned. It is being proposed that 16% of the original RSH+P homes proposed for Oxley Woods be replaced with 26 brick built houses. Here’s some illustrations, sourced from a combination of CMYK (Design and Planning) Limited, RSH+P and Taylor Wimpey.

Some of the current housing, on Milland Way, which will be directly opposite the area where the RSH+P homes scrapping is being proposed. Source, RSH+P.

On the other side of the road, on the Oxley Woods site, replacing more RSH+P housing, CMYK are suggesting the following properties.

We’ll let your own eyes decide if they go together gracefully and will help form a cohesive community of eco-housing.

Here are a couple of pictures cobbled together from the official Oxley Woods site, and the letter from CMYK (Design and Planning Limited) to show where the changes are being proposed to take place:

Of the original plans (and those still being shown on the Oxley Woods website) you can see how CMYK are suggesting replacing 23 RSH+P eco-homes, with 26 of their designed properties. The original plots 123 through to 145 being scrapped.

Where things appear to be.

The Parish Council apparently have had no plans submitted yet, rumour suggests that RSHP left the project last summer, and CMYK appear to be going full steam ahead with their plans (on behalf of Taylor Wimpey) to build their brick homes in place of the remainder of the original Oxley Woods plan we bought in to. IF they can get permission to do so.

While the letter they have sent to residents implies this is a formality, I quote “As Outline consent already exists on this land, we are not seeking comments on the principles of development but would appreciate feedback on the appearance of the dwellings” such a dramatic change to the proposed Oxley Woods development, which has been highlighted and promoted so heavily as a wonderful, groundbreaking project, must surely at the very least come under the most severe scrutiny possible?

For now, suggestions and debates are going on in the residents’ forum. Some people have asked for contact details for planning and parish council. The following may be of some use if you wish to find out more about the plans, or raise any concerns or objections. Please contact me if you can help or would like have any details amended or added to this list.

Possibly useful links and contacts.

Residents, please use the forum, or knock on each others doors if you wish to discuss this. If you agree or not with the plans to change the shape of the Oxley Woods development, you cannot deny the change is dramatic and will have an impact on the community.

For planning this appears to be the correct contact:
South Area Development Control Team Leader: Andrew Horner andrew.horner@milton-keynes.gov.uk

Assistant Director of Planning: Nick Fenwick nick.fenwick@milton-keynes.gov.uk

For the Parish Council, there is a contact page on their website:
http://www.shenleychurchend-pc.co.uk/contact.html

Our local MP is Iain Stewart: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/iain_stewart/milton_keynes_south http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/iain-stewart/31728

CMYK (Planning and Design) Limited: http://cmykuk.net/

Homes and Communities agency: http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ContactUs.aspx

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Trespa panelling, a really bright idea

April 29, 2010

The one thing that really separates the houses here in the Oxley Woods developments from all those around, and most of those in the UK, is the exterior design.

Love it or loath it (and it does divide opinions) the exterior finish on the properties is like pretty  much nothing else available to the average house buyer.

Oxley Woods Housing

Personally, I think it’s really good stuff.  The way it looks impressed me from the off, but there’s some hidden bonuses too.  The biggest plus for me is how bright it makes the whole development .  In the morning, sunshine beams through our high level bedroom window, flooding the room with light.  Our window faces west.  The house opposite is cream in colour, and very reflective, so we still get the benefit of the light!

In fact, with brightly clad properties all around, the light bounces all over the place, making what would be dark, shady places on a brick built development much brighter and cheerier.

There are some downsides, it can chip, scratch, and suffer noticeable damage more than a brick clad property, but overall I think Trespa is a really brilliant choice for cladding properties.  Perhaps in a few years people may get creative and re-clad their properties, there’s plenty of choice, Trespa comes in a wide range of colours and they’ve been quite conservative at Oxley Woods, perhaps in sympathy with our neighbours in the rest of Oxley Park.

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Posted in Architecture, Good stuff | 1 Comment »

Big meeting scheduled tomorrow

November 4, 2008

So it seems things are being taken ever more seriously by those involved in the design and construction of our Oxley Woods eco house, and finally the meetings that never happened are due, again, to happen tomorrow.

Confirmed today, just to be sure, tomorrow we can expect to be visited by management and staff from Taylor Wimpey, Wood Newton, and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, due at around 10:30am to discuss the situation with the property.

We’re not sure exactly what discussions will be going on between them, and then between them and us, or even how many of them will want to talk to us, following the previous no show and no wait, but I personally would love to talk to them all about what the state of play is.

I’m not entirely sure what can come of this meeting, as it stands we’ve had one side of the house completely stripped, patched, taped, sealed and refinished externally, with two more due to be worked on. First impressions of this meeting were that it would be Wimpey management making sure they were happy with the solution to the rain penetration put forward (and into action) by Wood Newton. God knows what will happen if they’re not?!

As mentioned in our big post on this before, one of our concerns is that our seriously leaky eco house is, according to the people on site, built to spec. Therefore it would appear to be not a faulty house build, but an inadequate house design and/or build. Which is why I feel getting all the team together is an important thing to do, not only for our sake, but for current and future residents elsewhere on the Oxley Woods development.

I’m concerned slightly by the fact that when researching the Tyvek tape that appears to be the only thing between us and rain water running into the home is tape that appears to only have a ten year guaranteed. What then?!

As an aside, Nuaire are also due to check out our temperamental eco hat. The dry liner person didn’t appear to day either, maybe he’ll be around tomorrow too? Could be a busy day in terms of the future of our home.

Anyway, fingers crossed for tomorrow, I think we have to ask some serious questions, should the opportunity arise, so we know exactly where we stand with our sub-standard house, and where we go from here.

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Posted in Architecture, Problems | No Comments »

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