THE Oxford Mail (September 12) included two letters that got their facts in a bit of a muddle over the amount of affordable and social housing at Barton Park. The normally scrupulously accurate Nigel Hiscock claimed that there wasn’t any at all, while Chaka Artwell again confused the social housing and market housing. Both are very wrong, so I wanted to set the record straight.

Barton Park is a mixed development, with a total of 885 homes. There will be 354 new affordable homes, all of them social housing. This will be the largest single development of social housing in Oxford for more than 25 years. The council wanted these to be new council houses, but the Government’s threat to force councils to sell off their housing means that they will instead be run by the council’s new housing company at social housing rents.

To build Barton Park required the construction of new mains sewers, a relocated high voltage power line, new roads, a new junction on to the A40, a new primary school and new sports facilities for the Barton area. All of this, and the social housing, costs money. In order to pay for it, the rest of the development is being sold on the open market. That’s what was announced a few weeks ago.

At the end of the scheme, when everything has been built, the council and its partners will share out the residual funds left over, and the council will be able to reinvest in new schemes elsewhere.

There’s been a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, so I hope that this helps to put the record straight. Oxford desperately needs new homes of all sorts, and in particular new social housing, and that’s what Barton Park is delivering.

ALEX HOLLINGSWORTH
Executive Member for Planning, Oxford City Council