A public consultation is asking residents views on proposals for up to 600 new homes on the outskirts of Witney.

Land promoter Hallam Land Management is  preparing an outline planning application for a new housing estate on land west of Downs Road.

The application is due to be submitted later this autumn.

The proposed site is currently 95 acres of farmland bordered by the Witney Golf Club at Witney Lakes Resort, which will be retained, to the north and the A40 running along the south.

Existing cottages and a farm which lie within the proposed site area will stay.

The company, which contributes money and expertise to optimise the chances of obtaining planning permission for development, states that the West Oxfordshire Local Plan which was created in 2018 "steers a significant proportion of future development to the three main towns of Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton".

The new Local Plan is currently being prepared and this will decide the pattern of growth until 2041.

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However, Hallam Land Management suggests land west of Downs Road will support planned future growth as there has already been expansion to the west of Witney.

Some 1,000 homes have been built on the Windrush Place estate which was granted planning permission in 2016.

60 homes have been built by Crest Nicholson at Colwell Green and Tungsten Park is a 24-acre business park also off Downs Road.

This has meant there has also been investment made in infrastructure such as roads, schools and community uses, said Hallam.

It states that the site will create a new neighbourhood with "extensive landscaping and parkland", providing a range of homes including affordable housing  constructed "to high standards of resource efficiency" with "a good digital infrastructure" for home working.

As well as allotments and wildflower meadows, it says it will incorporate "a permanent green separation from Minster Lovell" through extensive woodland planting.

It is proposed to build the primary access route off the existing roundabout at Downs Road with a secondary road built further north off Downs Road.

There will be pedestrian routes to Windrush Primary School, links to cycle routes into town and to schools and it is proposed that bus services along Witney Road and Main Road will be extended to serve the new estate so that most of the development "will be within 400 metres of a bus stop".

A virtual exhibition and online feedback facility is at www.downsroadwitney.co.uk or southwest@hallamland.co.uk or www.hallamland.co.uk