THE Oxford Green Belt Study process is public policy development without democracy.

Closed meetings are occurring over the summer, with a final report due at the end of August. Oxfordshire’s county and district councils are “involved”, but not the people who elected them.

All of our greenfield sites offer opportunities for sustainable employment.

But this will only happen if our local planning authorities protect such sites by ensuring that new development occurs only on brownfield sites.

Some examples of potential employment include food and forestry. As I visit Headington Farmers’ Market regularly, I expect to find fresh local produce.

But too few of the stallholders are from Oxfordshire, indicating that land for small-scale horticulture and agriculture is not generally available despite the existence of many small fields that cannot accommodate the huge machinery used in contemporary large-scale agriculture.

In the financial years 2009-2014, the numbers of people beginning careers in agriculture, animal care and horticulture rose 22 per cent.

This was better than sectors like construction, information and communications technology and retail-tourism which all showed drops in apprenticeships being taken up.

Will people wanting to work in food production and forestry find work in our county?

The UK has less forest cover than many other European countries.

We also import wood on a massive scale including 75 per cent of all US wood pellet production. Despite recycling of wood, all categories of wood that we import increased in 2014, according to Forestry Commission estimates.

At the same time, our exports of wood and wood products decreased.

In short, we are failing to provide forestry industry and related employment on a scale necessary to meet our needs.

Producing more food and more wood on Oxfordshire’s greenfield sites would increase sustainable employment in the county, if our local councils make it so.

STEVE DAWE
County Press Officer, Oxfordshire Green Party
Bulan Road
Oxford