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More than 1,300 new homes are proposed for Fairford
Under the emerging Local Plan, Fairford is expected to accommodate a significant share of future housing growth. The largest proposal is a strategic development north-east of Fairford comprising more than 1,100 homes, alongside further housing allocations elsewhere around the town. Development on this scale would represent one of the biggest changes to Fairford in generations.
The planning process is happening now, which means this is the point at which residents have the greatest opportunity to understand the proposals and influence what happens next.
Every square is one household
“More than 1,300 homes” is an abstraction until you put it next to the town that has to absorb it. Fairford recorded 1,811 households at the 2021 Census.8
+63%
more households in Fairford from the strategic allocation alone. At the council’s own 1,400-home estimate for the site, +77%.
Three numbers, three documents
The following three figures help put the scale of the proposals for Fairford, and the wider district, into perspective.
| Figure | What it refers to | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 1,374 | Homes allocated across Fairford in the Regulation 19 Local Plan, including 1,141 on the strategic site north-east of the town | Cotswold District Local Plan 2026 to 2043, Regulation 1993 |
| 18,911 | Total housing supply identified across Cotswold District between 2026 and 2043 | Cotswold District Local Plan 2026 to 2043, Table 4.19 |
| 1,811 | Households in Fairford civil parish at the 2021 Census | ONS Census 2021 parish profiles, via Nomis8 |
Put another way: 1,374 new homes is equivalent to around 76% of the number of households currently in Fairford.
That does not mean Fairford’s population or physical size would increase by exactly 76%, because the measures are different. But it provides a useful indication of the extraordinary scale of development being proposed for a town of Fairford’s size.
The question is whether growth on this scale can be supported by the infrastructure our town will need, and whether that infrastructure is properly funded, deliverable and in place when it is needed.
The upgrade adds 50%. The allocation adds 63%
Fairford’s sewage treatment works already discharges into the River Coln for weeks at a time. Thames Water has committed to an upgrade. The plan would consume it before it is finished.
A 50% increase in capacity cannot absorb a 63% increase in demand. The upgrade is not headroom for growth. It is a repair to a works that is already failing.
Fairford Town Council reports that the works has passed 1,000 hours of continuous storm discharging into the Coln, for the second time, and identifies high groundwater and leaking sewers as ongoing causes of flooding and pollution.5 Sewage capacity was raised as the central objection to a 98-home scheme at Hatherop Road in 2025.6 That application was for fewer than a tenth of the homes now proposed.
89.8%
voted for the Fairford Neighbourhood Development Plan at referendum on 4 May 2023.7
The town has already done this work
The Fairford Neighbourhood Development Plan took ten years to produce. It was written by the town council, Fairford Community Voice and residents, it was examined, it went to a public referendum, and it passed with the support of nearly nine in ten of those who voted. Cotswold District Council made it part of the statutory development plan on 5 June 2023.7
Three years later, the Local Plan proposes a strategic allocation several times larger than anything that plan contemplated. Neighbourhood plans are supposed to carry weight in exactly this situation. How the Local Plan has had regard to Fairford’s made plan is a legitimate and important question for this consultation.
Every figure on this page, and where it came from
If you find something here that is wrong, tell us and we will correct it and say that we have. A campaign that gets its numbers wrong deserves to be ignored.
- Cotswold District Council, Briefing for Town and Parish Councils: Local Plan Consultation, Strategic Site Figures and Next Steps (PDF, October 2025). Gives 780 homes to 2043 and 1,400 in total for the strategic extension north-east of Fairford.
- Cotswold District Council, Have your say on the future of the Cotswolds as Local Plan consultation opens. Confirms the Regulation 19 consultation opened on 24 August 2026 and that representations should address legal compliance and soundness. It gives the original closing date of 5 October, which was later extended: see source 10.
- Cotswold District Council, More time to have your say on the Cotswold District Local Plan (22 September 2026). Extends the consultation by four weeks to 3 November 2026, after the Regulation 18 responses and three further evidence documents were published later than the Council had committed to.
- Gloucester News Centre, Cotswold areas where 18,900 homes could be built. Site-by-site breakdown of the Regulation 19 allocations, giving Fairford 1,141 homes.
- Cotswold Journal, Controversial Cotswold local plan a step closer to reality. The 17 to 11 council vote, the £420m infrastructure figure and the “huge vagueries” quotation.
- Fairford Town Council, Statement regarding sewer and flooding issues. The 1,000 hours of continuous storm discharging, the causes of flooding, and Thames Water’s approximate 50% capacity uprating due April to June 2027.
- SoGlos, New homes in the Cotswolds as plans approved by council. The 98-home Hatherop Road approval and the sewage capacity objection raised against it.
- Cotswold District Council, Fairford Neighbourhood Plan. The referendum of 4 May 2023, the 89.8% result and the making of the plan on 5 June 2023.
- ONS Census 2021 parish profiles, via Nomis. 1,811 households in Fairford civil parish.
- Cotswold District Council Local Plan consultation portal. The plan documents, the evidence base and the form for submitting a representation.