Nine months since the last consultation on the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 closed, there has been no
public progress on the Plan. This spatial plan for Oxfordshire is important because it will cover
development in the County for the next thirty years and will need to be approved by the City and
District authorities. NNGO is asking – what is going on?
Where is the project timetable?
A decision on the level of housing growth to be embedded in the Plan was initially due in December
last year. In January, it was said ‘officers are reviewing the work programme and timeline for the
Oxfordshire Plan … and we aim to conclude that review soon’.
There is still no published timetable.
What is the OP2050 team currently working on?
Where is the scrutiny? How much money is being spent on an OP2050 team that is working behind
closed doors?
How can they be developing a spatial strategy without agreeing the number of houses to be built?
Or, if they have decided on the level of housing growth already, why has this decision not been
made openly and transparently?
There have already been failings in the Councils’ Scrutiny process. Bringing the next version of the
Plan to councillors for sign off at the last minute, when the work has already been completed and
there is no realistic prospect of any amendments, is unlikely to be acceptable to Oxfordshire
residents.
How will criticisms of the growth options be addressed?
NNGO, together with other respected community groups, has criticised the figures being used to
dictate proposed housing levels and called for an independent Peer Review of last year’s housing
assessment, known as the Oxfordshire Growth Needs Assessment.
NNGO was told a decision on this would be taken after the summer 2021 consultation responses had
been reviewed. The response report was published in January but there is still no decision on a Peer
Review.
Meanwhile, an independent review by experienced housing market consultants, Opinion Research
Services (ORS), commissioned by Cherwell Development Watch Alliance, has reinforced fears the
methodology used does not stand up to scrutiny. It found:
“The unjustified use of adjustments made to official projections and the Standard Method together
with the lack of a conventional central economic forecast call into question the soundness of this
document as supporting evidence for the development of the Oxfordshire Plan”.
Planning for Real NEED not Speculator GREED in Oxfordshire
Coalition Secretariat, c/o CPRE Oxfordshire, First Floor, 20 High
Street, Watlington, Oxon OX49 5PY.
www.neednotgreedoxon.org.uk E: info@neednotgreedoxon.org.uk
Should there be a re-run of last year’s consultation?
NNGO would support a re-run of this consultation (known as a Regulation 18) with the public given clearer information and genuine choices about levels of housing growth.
What is the Future Oxfordshire Partnership (FOP) doing?
The FOP, made up of all our local authorities, is supposed to be in charge of this process through its Oxfordshire 2050 Advisory Group. However, questions to the FOP are deflected with meaningless statements. It has even failed to address the advice of its own Scrutiny Panel which said a project timetable, a peer review of the growth evidence and a new consultation were all needed.
The next FOP meeting is on 13 June. NNGO will once again be seeking answers to the above questions.
NOTES
The Oxfordshire 2050 Plan is the major long-term development Plan for the County. It will set the housing numbers and broad locations for growth and will be crucial in tackling our climate and biodiversity emergencies. It also needs to be in place so that District and City level plans can be agreed. NNGO supports the Plan in principle, providing it reflects the needs and wishes of local people, not an exaggerated growth agenda.

1. Comment by David Young of Planning Oxfordshire’s Environment and Transport Sustainability (POETS): “The Oxfordshire Plan process is stalling but FOP is not prepared to offer transparency or to explain what is happening and what is causing the delay. The Plan is crucial to the level of development up to 2050, how the county will deal with climate change and other major issues such as loss of biodiversity. Yet our elected representatives are not being open about the status of the Plan and this falls well below our expectations”.
2. At the last FOP meeting NNGO again repeated requests for more information on the timetable, Peer Review and practical decision making. Councillor Michele Meads (then Chair of FOP) replied that they were matters for the individual councils and not for FOP itself. NNGO is frustrated by this dismissive response. Helen Marshall, Director of CPRE Oxfordshire, commented “We fully understand that the final decisions on housing numbers etc will be taken by individual councils. But to suggest that each individual council is separately considering an OGNA Peer Review, the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 timetable and whether to undertake a third Regulation 18 Consultation is nonsense. The whole point of the FOP is that it co-ordinates the councils work on the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 via the Advisory Group. We are disappointed with the attitude being adopted which is seeking to deflect genuine community engagement with meaningless statements.”
3. Comment by Suzanne McIvor, Chair of Cherwell Development Watch Alliance: “The ORS report has suggested that the Oxfordshire Growth Needs Assessment (OGNA) is not good enough to form the basis of evidence for the housing levels to be included in the Oxfordshire Plan. The OGNA suggests that on top of 85,000 homes already committed to in Oxfordshire, there will be a further 16,000 to 67,000 depending on what the councils agree on. We believe that these housing levels are
   far too high and are based on data in the OGNA which has been manipulated to overstate housing requirements”.
   For further info:
   Suzanne McIvor, Cherwell Development Watch Alliance T: 01865 515573 M: 07736 776551
   David Young, POETS T: 01865 806524
   Helen Marshall, CPRE Oxfordshire M: 07791 376365
   www.neednotgreedoxon.org.uk E: info@neednotgreedoxon.org.uk

• NNGO QUESTION FOR FUTURE OXFORDSHIRE PARTNERSHIP SCRUTINY MEETING 7^TH JUNE 2022 

NNGO is grateful to you for your support in seeking clarity on important aspects of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 (OP2050).  NNGO feels that this Scrutiny Panel, like those of the City and Districts, has a crucial role to play in the OP2050 plan-making process. 

However, as has happened in the past with the City and District Scrutiny Panels, we feel that this panel’s role is being undermined.  A good example of this is provided by the response of the Future Oxfordshire Partnership (FOXP) to the Panel’s recommendation last month.

The recommendation was:   That the Future Oxfordshire Partnership be requested to:

a. undertake a further Oxfordshire Plan 2050 Regulation 18 consultation.

b. provide a detailed update on the timetable for the production of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050.

c. initiate a peer review of the Oxfordshire Growth Needs Assessment.

d. set out how decisions relating to future housing numbers within the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 will be taken in an open and transparent way.

The response given by FOXP was: 

As we have previously explained, these are matters for decision by the individual councils and not by the Future Oxfordshire Partnership itself.

The local planning authorities are currently reviewing the evidence base, the programme and the timetable of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 in light of consultation responses and comments received.

Formal decisions will be taken openly in meetings of the city and district councils.

The whole point of the FOXP is that it co-ordinates the councils’ work on the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 via the Advisory Group.  We already know that decisions will be made by individual councils, but the local planning authorities are working under the FOXP umbrella and we can reasonably expect FOXP to provide more transparent answers than this – particularly when the same questions have been asked repeatedly for months.  We feel this response is indicative of the general attitude to this Scrutiny Panel which is merely to deflect major concerns with meaningless statements.   We believe that this attitude undermines the value of the Scrutiny function that you perform.

It is obvious from the minutes of the OP2050 Advisory Group that a lot of work has been taking place including joint workshops between the Advisory Group and the Council Leaders, but little detail is provided.  For example, why are these joint workshops taking place and what does the “six stage, step by step process to securing consensus” that is mentioned in these minutes refer to?  And will the output of each of these meetings be published? 

The lack of transparency being offered to this Scrutiny Panel is disquieting.  We urge you to:

1. Make it clear that the responses given to the Panel’s Recommendation 1 from the last meeting are unsatisfactory
2. Ask for more detailed responses
3. Ask for more details regarding the nature and output of the joint workshops.