The Oxfordshire Plan will set the development framework for the county for the next generation. It will affect all Oxfordshire residents.

Take a look at the NNGO flyer above or download here and read our concerns about the Oxfordshire Plan 2050.

Want to have your say in the future of Oxfordshire?

Here’s a template email which you can cut and paste, feel free to change it to make it your own and to cover your specific concerns eg Green Belt, infrastructure, water quality.

SEND TO:  info@oxfordshireplan.org

DEADLINE: 8 October

If you have a further minute, please share your email with your Councillors and MP and let them know that you do not agree with the options presented in the Oxfordshire 2050 Plan. You can find out who to contact here: www.writetothem.com

Dear Oxfordshire 2050 Team,

Preferred Policy Option 28 on Homes states:  ‘Through this consultation on the Regulation 18 Part 2 stage of the Oxfordshire Plan, the scenarios for the total housing requirement figure 2020-2050 (the OGNA) need to be considered and views are sought’.  My views are as follows:

I would like to see the total housing requirement set at the lowest possible figure, preferably lower than the Option 1 Standard Method, which is still substantially above that needed to cater for the existing population.

I am deeply concerned at the current and proposed levels of development in Oxfordshire and the plans to supercharge the growth of the county as traditionally measured.  This will result in many more people moving into the area requiring ever more houses, roads and traffic. This scale and pace of development, replacing countryside with concrete, is completely inconsistent with our declared climate and nature emergencies.

The housing growth option in the 2050 Plan described as ‘business as usual’ is actually continuing an exceptionally high growth plan which is set to transform much of our landscape over the coming years and will enable house builders and land owners to profit at the expense of the quality of life of existing residents.

There should be an option for Oxfordshire to grow organically, based on up to date natural population growth numbers produced by the Office for National Statistics, with the focus on making housing in the area more affordable. Policies on restricting buy to let and introducing a land value uplift tax would be good. Policies enabling housing association and council houses on brownfield sites would also be enormously helpful.

I also want our Council Leaders to resist any attempts by central Government to impose an increase on the number of houses to be built in Oxfordshire as part of the OxCam Arc proposals. 

Local and by-election results over the last couple of years suggest that a great many members of the public share these concerns and I would ask that you and our elected representatives robustly engage government to rethink its strategy for Oxfordshire and focus instead on their election promise of levelling up the UK – creating jobs where people already live.

[Add name & address]

In late July the Government launched the first of three consultations on its Ox-Cam Spatial Framework plans. A number of campaigning groups were concerned that the official consultation fails to address the difficult choices ahead. They have produced an alternative 5-minute questionnaire that allows people to more freely express their opinions on the level of development that is being suggested for the Arc and to choose between what are often conflicting aims of the official plans.

The alternative consultation can be found here.
The results will be published in early October.

Ahead of the Oxfordshire 2050 Plan consultation due this summer, NNGO has researched the data. The statistics in the presentation below demonstrate why Oxfordshire should not commit to unsustainable, unattainable and undesirable levels of growth across the county.

Need Not Greed – Oxfordshire 2050 Plan presentation June 2021

During the local elections, help us make sure that successful candidates are those that put local people and the environment at the heart of their decision-making.

Ask your candidate where they stand on these issues: housing, climate and the environment, local democracy and the Oxfordshire Plan 2050.

NNGO has produced a quick guide with facts and suggested questions: Local Elections – What to ask your candidate NNGO May 2021

Please share with your local community.

The Government is currently consulting on major changes to the planning system:
Changes to the Current Planning System – this paper sets out proposed changes to the way local housing need will be calculated.
Consultation runs until 1 October 2020.
Planning White Paper – this paper describes the introduction of zoning of land (for growth, renewal or protection) and the ‘streamlining’ of local input, as well as proposals around design, infrastructure funding and digitisation of the planning system.
Consultation runs until 29 October 2020.
NNGO has concerns that local democracy will be lost, the zonal system will not protect our green spaces and that imposed housing numbers will not fulfill local need.
Read the NNGO response here.

Need not Greed Oxfordshire (NNGO) believes a new regional transport strategy, that would heavily impact Oxfordshire, is fundamentally flawed in failing to be honest about the level of economic growth it is looking to support.

England’s Economic Heartland, a group of local authority and business leaders, has produced a Draft Transport Strategy for an area covering Swindon to Cambridgeshire.   It is out for consultation until 6 October.

The strategy opens with lots of fine promises about creating a zero-carbon transport system.  But hidden in small print on page 29, it says:

‘the purpose of this strategy is to support the delivery of the region’s shared ambition with Government of: Enabling the region to realise its economic potential – with an ambition of a 70% increase in GVA by 2050’.

Whose ambition?  Who has been consulted on it?  Not the Oxfordshire public!

What does that objective translate into in terms of jobs and housing?  How will this impact on the ability to deliver the stated climate goals?

How will this influence, or dictate, the contents of the forthcoming Oxfordshire 2050 Spatial Plan?

And why is the intention to facilitate longer distance commuting?   The strategy promises to create a single housing & jobs market across the area which will ‘fundamentally change the socio-economic geography of the region’ – but this transformational change isn’t even mentioned in the consultation.

There has been no public debate on this level of growth and therefore there is no public mandate for this position.  We demand a much more honest conversation about the proposals and their impacts, so the public can decide whether they agree this vision for the area.  Without this, the consultation is worse than meaningless – it will be used to give credibility to a deeply flawed approach.

Read the NNGO consultation response here.

Need not Greed Oxfordshire is appalled that a small group of Local Authority leaders are now going to take the lead on discussions with Government about development proposals along the OxCam Arc.

This ‘uber-Growth Board’, an executive sub-group of the OxCam Arc Leaders Group, has not published its terms of reference and has no public accountability. Neither the sub-group or its parent body have ever met in public or published agendas or minutes.  NNGO understands that the sub-group will include representatives from lobby groups such as the Local Enterprise Partnerships and Universities, but not from environmental or community groups.

Despite this, the Oxfordshire Growth Board has already chosen three of our local authority leaders to sit on this sub-group, leaving the other three Oxfordshire local authority leaders out in the cold.

Need not Greed Oxfordshire condemns this entire process as lacking any public accountability or democratic process.  It has written to the Chair of the OxCam Arc Leaders group, Cllr Barry Wood (also Leader, Cherwell District Council) to express its concerns about this ‘behind closed doors’ approach.  It has also written to the Chair of the Oxfordshire Growth Board, Cllr Emily Smith (also Leader, Vale of White Horse District Council) to ask how the Board could have elected 3 Oxfordshire representatives to the sub-group, without discussing its terms of reference.

NNGO expects:

1. Each local authority to establish a clear, democratic mandate for its position on the Arc.
2. The terms of reference for the OxCam Arc Leaders Group and Executive Sub-Group to be subject to public debate and consultation
3. These terms of reference to be focussed on environment, wellbeing and the post Covid reality of the need to focus any growth on wholly sustainable lines. These terms of reference can then inform debate as to the correct representation on the group/s.
4. No further meetings of the OxCam Arc Leaders/Chief Executives/Executive Group to take place unless such meetings are held in public (virtually, if necessary), with published agendas and minutes, and with the opportunity for members of the public to ask questions and address the Groups.

NNGO believes that the Government is still wedded to its proposals for massive development along the Oxford-Cambridge Arc and is gearing up to push these through, regardless of public opinion or environmental imperatives, as part of a Covid-19 recovery package.

Need Not Greed Oxfordshire would like to see the Statement of Community Involvement as exactly that: an opportunity for the needs of communities and their residents in the Vale of White Horse to be prioritised and their feedback used to direct the future of the district.

Consultation on the Vale of White Horse Statement of Community Involvement closes this week, Thursday 9th April. It will plan how communities within the Vale will be able to influence planning policy, including the Local Plan. It will also set out how anyone interested will be able to comment on planning applications for development.

NNGO believes communities should be involved as early as possible to offer their views on key documents, such as the Housing Needs Assessment currently being prepared for the Oxfordshire 2050 Plan. It would not be acceptable for such a document to be prepared without being subject to public debate and subsequently presented as ‘evidence’ dictating Local Plan housing numbers.
We must at all costs avoid a repeat of the 2014 Oxfordshire Strategic Housing Market Assessment that was drawn up behind closed doors but contained aggressive and unrealistic growth targets that subsequently dictated the content of District Plans.

There should be an option to provide for the natural growth needs of the existing population. Any growth proposals over and above the need arising from natural growth should be clearly identified as such and open to public debate.

NNGO welcomes the intention to engage as wide a range of the local community as possible. We would like to see open engagement with all interested parties, including Vale residents, on targets before they are set, with action and feedback demonstrating how their views are considered and the plan modified accordingly.

Read the NNGO consultation response here.

With the General Election imminent, NNGO has written to all Parliamentary Candidates standing in Oxfordshire constituencies asking them to help restore public confidence in the planning system and pledge support for NNGO’s campaign priorities and communicate the concerns of thousands of residents in Oxfordshire.

Read the letter in full here: General Election 2019 – NNGO Letter to Oxfordshire Candidates – Dec 19

Questions to Candidates
NNGO has prepared a series of questions you may want to put to candidates.
Questions cover: local housing, OxCam Expressway, East-West Rail, ecology and the environment, local democracy, population/growth of Oxfordshire, the Oxfordshire Plan 2050, transport, climate change and employment.

If you’d like to know a candidate’s position on housing and the OxCam Arc but aren’t sure what to ask, this document can help! It offers suggested questions and the reasons we should be asking them. For example:

Local Housing

• What action will you take to ensure truly affordable housing for local people is actually delivered?
• Do you support the 6 district councils’ current intention to continue to plan build 100,000 houses by the mid 2030’s, when the latest government projections show we only need approximately 50,000?
• Where would you put the 300,000 houses that Oxfordshire is expected to produce as part of the 1 million houses imposed by the “Oxford-Cambridge growth Arc?”

Why are we asking?

• Housing should be plan-led not developer led (shouldn’t facilitate speculative development)
• Local authorities should be able to enforce affordable housing delivery to the levels specified in local plans and not give way to developers who say they are unprofitable.
• Local authorities should be able to review numbers using the latest 2016 Objectively Assessed Need figures not the (higher) out-dated 2014 figures
• Truly affordable housing is needed for rent as well as to buy
• “Affordable Housing” at 80% of market rate is still unaffordable for many local people.
• The proposed level of imposed house building will not improve affordability

Read all the suggested questions and why NNGO think they need to be asked  – General Election 2019 – NNGO Questions to Candidates Gen Dec 19

Or visit the Resources page on the NNGO website.

England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) is currently consulting on its Outline Transport Strategy, closes 31st October 2019

England’s Economic Heartland – who they?    Well might you ask!
Download the guide below for further information.
NNGO Guide to EEH & its Outline Transport Strategy

For more information and to download the Outline Transport Strategy visit the EEH website here.

Read NNGO’s response to the consultation here.