Oxford Local Plan – see CPRE’s consultation response
23rd August 2017
CPRE has today submitted its response to the consultation on Oxford’s draft Local Plan – find out more.
Read CPRE’s consultation response to the City’s draft Local Plan – see below.
CPRE’s key recommendations:
The City’s own housing need is clearly best addressed in the City itself as to do otherwise is to create commuting and make for a less vibrant City.
Despite that, and despite their acknowledging that housing need is the number one priority, particularly for more affordable homes, the City intends to address only a third of it within its boundaries, pleading lack of capacity to accommodate it. The rest is off-loaded on to surrounding authorities under the Duty to Cooperate, not just creating commuting, but also exacerbating the land supply problems of those neighbouring authorities.
It is CPRE’s view that all, or at least the greater part of, the City’s housing need could and should be accommodated within the City, on non-Green Belt land, through:
1. Using land ring-fenced for employment to meet the greater housing priority instead.
2. The use of brownfield sites.
3. A step increase in density targets.
It is not too late to respond to the consultation – the deadline is Friday 25 August.
If you wish to respond, please visit the City Council website.
CPRE Oxfordshire, 23 August