OXFORD's Green politicians have said a plan for 10,884 homes in the city is 'already out of date'.

The city's two Green Party city councillors, including its Lord Mayor, have said the Local Plan 2036, approved at a meeting on Monday, needs to be updated in light of the Climate Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The plan, says St Mary's councillor Dick Wolff, needs to take into account changes in public appetite for tackling climate change which had moved on since the plan was started several years ago.

Mr Wolff had tabled an amendment to be plan at Monday's meeting (June 8), calling for an early review into it, which would take into account the findings of the Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change held last summer, and plans to 'build back better' which have been sparked by the current pandemic.

But the amendment was voted down, with city council officers worried that any changes to the accepted plan might jeopardise its future.

The city council's cabinet member for planning and housing delivery also said that 'undermining' the plan might give housing developers the opportunity to disobey the rules it lays down.

Mr Wolff said: "This is a plan that is meant to set our policies to 2036 but was already out of date before the ink had dried. It was formulated before the Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change, before the Climate Emergency Review Group produced its recommendations and before the Covid crisis. It is a plan that looks backwards and not forwards."

He added that the plan should be reviewed to take into account the growing public appetite to see quicker changes to tackle the climate emergency.

The Green councillor praised the new high standard of green building regulations in the plan, but said the Greens wanted the council to go further, faster.

The new building regulations in the Local Plan mean that all homes built in the from 2030 need to be zero carbon.

Part of this will mean they will be fitted with new efficient insulation.

The city council and surrounding areas of Oxfordshire are all attempting to align their future planning rules by creating a document called the Oxfordshire Plan 2050.