Development often affects badgers, their setts, safety and foraging areas. We review and respond to planning applications that affect badgers. Our core position is that main setts should ideally be left in situ with secure, continuing access to foraging grounds. If that is not possible then appropriate mitigation measures must be taken.
OBG works with planners, developers and ecologists in deciding the best options. It is considered best practice to involve the local badger group at the planning stage. We can offer to survey an area and provide a report. We can also provide sett records / badger sighting records to assist with desktop surveys.
Please contact OBG as soon as you learn of an application that impacts a badger sett or affects their foraging (feeding) areas. We will need to know the Council, planning application number and deadline to investigate.
Oxfordshire’s badgers, wildlife and countryside are under threat as never before. Oxford City Council and the four surrounding District Councils all have huge plans for building development, much of it on green field and Green Belt sites. More and more of the county’s fields and woods are disappearing under concrete and bricks, destroying badgers’ setts and vital feeding areas. More housing and commercial development means more traffic on our already busy roads, making it less likely that animals will survive crossing roads, even at night, and effectively slicing up our countryside into smaller and disconnected fragments. Small isolated populations of badgers are not sustainable, due to forced inbreeding, and lack of natural replacement if hit by disease or starvation.
S. Oxon & Vale White Horse:
Didcot “Garden Town” - 15,000 houses.
Much of Great Western Park already built, but more to come SW of Didcot. Also North Ladygrove, and NE of town.
Also in S Oxon. District
Berinsfield – 1,700 houses.
Chalgrove airfield – 3,000 houses
Culham 3,500 houses
Harrington – private proposal for 6,500 houses by M40 at Milton Common
Wheatley campus – 500 houses
Oxford City Council
If it isn't already built on then it is probably targetted for a shopping mall, warehousing, science park, car parking or even a few homes.
Cherwell District Council
Begbroke and Yarnton – 2,480 houses.
S of Water Eaton Park & Ride - 650 houses.
North Oxford Golf Course - 510 houses.
SE of Woodstock – 410 houses.
SE of Kidlington + Stratfield Farm - 330 houses
Vale of White Horse
Grove airfield 2,500 houses.
Crab Hill, Wantage – 1,500 houses.
Harwell campus – 1,000 houses
North Abingdon – 950 houses.
Fyfield – 700 houses.
Sutton Courtenay - 500+ houses
NW of Grove – 400 houses.