This petition is not connected to any political party.

Our beautiful town Moreton-in-Marsh, and our community, is facing a crisis. Cotswold District Council (CDC) intend to build a very large and unreasonable number of houses (running into the thousands) in and around our small town, without meaningful consultation or transparency. 

UPDATE MARCH 2025

• In February 2025, Cotswold District Council revealed that the Government had increased the mandatory housing target for the district to 15,000 homes.
• CDCs Local Plan update has Moreton pencilled in to take around 42% of the housing for the entire district, which could leave Moreton taking roughly an extra 6,300 homes up to 2046.
• This would more than double the town‘s size in just 19 years, when it has already nearly doubled in the last 20 years.
• Before February 2025, CDC had planned to place around 1,500 (of the 3,300 homes required in the district) in Moreton.
• Growth of this scale and speed is recklessly unsustainable. 

CDC say that these new houses will include some that are ‘affordable’, although two bedroom homes on a recent new development were priced at around £400,000. Even with a ‘local connection’ discount, the price was/is still wildly out of reach for many local people. 

Moreton Against Over Development is a resident-led non-political group campaigning against the Cotswold District Council and its disproportionate and unreasonable overdevelopment plans for Moreton in Marsh. Find us on Facebook and Instagram.

ORIGINAL PETITION

Our town is already grappling with serious issues due to a lack of investment in infrastructure. Flooding poses a real threat to us, and our sewage system is already often overwhelmed, regularly discharging sewage into our rivers and streams. Introducing thousands more homes without any plan for infrastructure will only make these problems worse. Our roads are congested, our facilities are full. CDC call these plans ‘green to the core’ while intending to concrete over farmland and destroy natural habitats.

On top of near 50% housing growth since 2010, CDC have recently approved (on top of other smaller developments), 67 houses under construction off Evenlode Road and 250 houses under construction on Dunstall Farm.

The proposed changes to the Local Plan reveal an intention to allow an 'indicative' 310 houses on the Fire College site (this 'indicative' figure will only climb higher, so the reality may well be 500-600 houses based on previous developments).

CDC also intend to update their development strategy which says: “Given that Moreton-in-Marsh is a transport hub, which has a railway station; good provision of services, facilities and employment; and has various sites outside the Cotswold National Landscape, the town would become a focus for strategic-scale growth of over 1,500 additional dwellings up to 2041. A longer-term vision, including additional development, may be required to deliver some infrastructure items such as a secondary school.”

This means that at a very minimum, with the houses under development and planned (as set out in CDCs own documents), Moreton almost certainly faces minimum growth of over 2,000 additional houses within the next 17 years, effectively doubling the size of the town.

CDC have also introduced the phrase ‘garden village’ during public meetings. While their intentions are not made clear in terms of garden villages in any published documents on which the consultation is based, a garden village is potentially development of 1,500-10,000 houses.

We are not all against development; many of us understand the need for housing. However, it should not come at the expense of existing residents' quality of life or the environment we cherish. We demand that CDC be honest about their plans and hold meaningful discussions with us before making decisions that will impact all aspects of life in Moreton-in-Marsh. The claims that some of these homes are to be ‘affordable’ is not backed up with any real evidence as to what this might mean. 

We urge CDC to consider sustainable development options that take into account both housing needs and infrastructure capacity. The people of Moreton deserve respect and have every right to be heard on matters affecting their lives directly.

Please sign this petition if you believe in fair decision-making processes, transparency from local authorities, and preserving the quality of life in Moreton-in-Marsh.