SODC produces a revised Local Plan to meet SHMA housing target
19th June 2014
South Oxfordshire District Council has produced a revised Local Plan to meet the SHMA housing target outlining possible options for the allocation of new housing, including a new town between Walllingford and Thame, and building in the Oxford Green Belt.
SEE CPRE’s RESPONSE TO THE CONSULTATION here (pdf).
South Oxfordshire District Council is consulting on its revised Local Plan 2031, in order to meet the revised housing target set out in the SHMA – the Strategic Housing and Market Assessment (April 2014). The SHMA found that far more houses than previously envisaged in the Local Plan (adopted in December 2012) would have to be built in South Oxfordshire to meet demand.
South Oxfordshire had only planned to build 10,600 homes between 2011 and 2027, but the SHMA proposes that between 14,500 and 16,500 are needed by 2031.
The consultation document lists a number of ‘options’ where SODC could distribute the additional housing. The options include a 5,900 home new town between Walllingford and Thame, and building in the Oxford Green Belt.
CPRE is concerned that the ‘options’ identified in the new Plan are not ‘options’ at all. We believe that all of the options identified – and more, will be required if SODC are to meet the unrealistic and unsustainable housing targets outlined in the SHMA.
This would be intensely damaging to the environment and to the amenity of everyone who lives in the District.
This is why CPRE is urging councils and councillors to reject the current flawed SHMA figures and not use them as the basis for any decision-making.
Make sure you respond to the consultation and urge SODC to revoke the SHMA!
Please respond to the consultation by 23 July.
CPRE Oxfordshire, 19 June 2014
Further information:
South Oxfordshire Local Plan 2031, Issues and Scope, Stage One of the process, June 2014.
Unsound & Unsustainable: Why the SHMA will increase greenfield use but not meet housing needs – A critique of GL Hearn’s April 2014 Oxfordshire Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA), Urban & Regional Policy, May 2014.
For a full copy of the report, please contact: pro@cpreoxon.org.uk
See: Executive Summary of the report.
CPRE_response_to_SODC_Issues__Options_consultation_July_14.pdf