In Phillip Hammond’s Budget Report last week, he said that the Government has agreed an outline Housing and Growth Agreement with the Oxfordshire Growth Board.

This deal would provide councils with £215m over 5 years, with £60m for affordable housing and £150m (£30m pa for 5 yrs) for infrastructure.   It also includes £5m for capacity funding, including progressing the Joint Spatial Plan for the county.

Rather a drop in the ocean compared to the £8.5billion funding gap outlined in their own recent Infrastructure Strategy!

In return, our local authorities have committed to providing the 100,000 houses by 2031, as outlined in the Oxfordshire SHMA 2014.   This is despite the new proposed OAN methodology showing that the current figures grossly over-exaggerate local need.

We haven’t seen anything of this deal until now – we certainly didn’t vote for it – and yet it seems, in true Growth Board fashion, to have been already agreed (subject to the councils individually signing it off).

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CPRE Oxfordshire is calling for a public inquiry into the Ox-Cam growth corridor and Expressway, so that decisions are open and transparent.

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The Coalition has written to the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) objecting to the concept of the proposed Expressway between Oxford and Cambridge and raising concerns about the lack of accountability / transparency around the whole corridor development process.

The NIC is currently looking at proposals to build an Oxford to Cambridge Expressway and is due to issue a report ahead of the Autumn Budget on 22 November. It will set out the case for the Expressway, but it is unlikely to specify an actual route – our understanding is that this will won’t be announced until July 2018.

See the Oxford to Cambridge expressway strategic study: stage 3 report by the Department of Transport (November 2016), which outlines the high level case for a strategic link to connect the cities of ‘the brain belt’ together.

The intention is to support the new road by building one million houses along the route – which works out at an average of 10,000 houses per mile.

As far as NNGO is concerned, it is no more than a ribbon developer’s charter!

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Need not Greed Oxfordshire has submitted its response to the Government consultation on the new methodology for working out housing numbers (or OAN – Objectively Assessed Need).

The consultation closes tomorrow (9 November).

The Oxfordshire 2014 SHMA set a target of approx. 5,000 houses per annum (100,000 new houses over the SHMA period of 2011-2031) equivalent to a 37% increase in housing stock.  This figure bore no relation to any previous delivery rates and was generated by an aggressive growth strategy promoted by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and our local authorities, although never subject to any public consultation or environmental evaluation.

NNGO has consistently argued that these figures were vastly over-exaggerated and not based on local need, but over-blown calculations of demand.

Theoretically, Oxfordshire could benefit from the new methodology.

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Need not Greed Oxfordshire has for some time now been promoting the idea of a joint planning framework for Oxfordshire.

We believe a joined-up approach to planning on an Oxfordshire-wide basis could resolve many of the planning issues which we are currently facing in the county and allow the overall environmental and social impacts of development to be taken into account.

We therefore welcome the recent announcement by all our Oxfordshire local authorities that they will work together to create a ‘Joint Spatial Plan’ for the county as a whole.  

On 30 October, the Oxfordshire Growth Board tabled its Business Case for a Joint Spatial Plan. According to the report ‘Having full development plan coverage for Oxfordshire would provide a strong foundation for development to happen in a planned and sustainable way, aligned with infrastructure provision’.

NNGO attended the Board meeting and took the opportunity of tabling a question – we were keen to know more about the Board’s plans for public engagement at the relevant stages of the emerging document.

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In a letter sent this week to the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid MP, NNGO has raised its concerns about the lack of adequate public consultation on the Better Oxfordshire Unitary bid and to the growth strategy on which it is based.

The Better Oxfordshire Unitary Bid was submitted to the Secretary of State from Oxfordshire County Council, South Oxfordshire District Council and the Vale of White Horse District Council, on 3 March 2017.

See: NNGO Letter to Sec State – Better Oxfordshire Unitary Bid – 5 Oct 17.

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The Raynsford Review of Planning has been set up to identify how the Government can reform the English planning system to make it ‘fairer, better resourced and capable of producing quality outcomes, while still encouraging the production of new homes’.

It will be informed by a task force chaired by former planning minister Nick Raynsford and will include politicians, housing providers, developers, consultants, academics and the public.

Evidence is being collected over an 18-month period and a report formally presented at all major party conferences in autumn 2018.

The deadline for comments is 31 October.

Need not Greed Oxfordshire has long been concerned about the adverse impacts of the deregulated planning system on Oxfordshire’s communities and landscape. We have therefore welcomed the opportunity to respond to this consultation.

See: NNGO Response – Raynsford Review of Planning.

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The Oxfordshire Infrastructure Strategy (OxIS) is an independent report commissioned by the Oxfordshire Growth Board.

The aim of the strategy is to set out the investment in transport, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure needed to support the predicted growth in population, jobs and homes up to 2040.

A technical Stage 1 report was published in April 2017 and work has been progressing on Stage 2 of the work.

The public were asked for their views on the work to date were invited to participate in an online engagement exercise.

The consultation closes on 10 September 2017.

NNGO has responded to the consultation saying OxIS is over optimistic and massively under-funded.

See: NNGO response – OxIS Consultation – 7 September 2017 – FINAL (3)Read more …→

The outline planning application for a large urban extension to the North of Abingdon was approved last week (26 July).

A development of 950 homes, plus a care home for 80 residents was approved on land that was originally in the Green Belt (it was recommended for removal in the Vale’s Local Plan Part One).

Representatives of the North Abingdon Local Planning Group (NALPG) – a member of the NNGO coalition, were present at the planning meeting where they raised concerns about the increase in traffic, air pollution and the fact that the number of homes permitted on the site in the Vale Local Plan was originally for 800.

The proposal was approved unanimously.

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