Oxford-Cambridge Arc blueprint leads to worries about top down planning

Last week, the Government announced its plans to create a ‘Spatial Framework’ plan for a region it calls the Oxford to Cambridge Arc.

This plan aims to boost the economic output of the five counties around the two university cities to £200bn a year by 2050.

The strategy is akin to the Northern Powerhouse or Midlands engine, and the Government has said it would need to take some form of control over plans to build homes and transport infrastructure, create jobs to make it a success, and protect the environment, to make it a success.

But campaign groups within Oxfordshire have doubts about the Government’s commitment to the environment, and have attacked its plans as undemocratic.

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The Oxfordshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England had concerns about plans for a ‘Growth Body’ the Government plans to create to oversee the project, which it said could be unaccountable and did not seem to have climate change as part of its brief.

Helen Marshall, director of CPRE Oxfordshire added: “We believe the proposals are out of touch, removing decision-making away from local people and our locally elected representatives.

"They are also out of place, looking to focus massive investment and development in the over-heated south-east, in contrast to the levelling up agenda.

“It will allow the Government to pursue a top-down imposition of growth, paying no heed to the rural nature of much of the area or the needs of local communities.”

And the No Expressway Group, which campaigned against building a new major road through Oxfordshire, had similar concerns, branding the plan as undemocratic.

In a statement, the group said: “Not a single public meeting has taken place in five years, while councillors have been gagged with Non-Disclosure Agreements.

"Now we have more vague promises of public consultation, compressed into a few months, for a plan with no spatial detail nor any indication of the target levels of growth and development across the Arc.”

The Oxford to Cambridge Arc mapped. Picture: OxCamArc

However, Susan Brown, the leader of Oxford City Council welcomed the plans.

Ms Brown said: “As a net contributor to the Exchequer our area of the country is vital to the UK’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The creation of a Spatial Framework should build confidence among communities across the Arc that development must deliver a net positive impact on the environment and that levelling up can be achieved for our more disadvantaged areas.”

The Government published an introduction to its Spatial Framework plans for the Arc on Thursday, February 18.

In this it said it the area between Oxford and Cambridge, covering the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Cambridgeshire was ripe for economic growth because of its universities, and science and technology businesses.

However, the report added the region was ‘constrained by inadequate infrastructure’ and needed better connectivity.

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At the same time, it added that the Government ‘values the natural environment’, and wants to grow the economy while seeing the Arc as a ‘significant opportunity for environmental improvement’.

To this end, it said there is an opportunity for ‘recovery of nature and biodiversity net gain, cleaner air, reduction of flood risk and improving resilience to floods’ but made no exact proposals.

The Government said supporting the Arc would be key to the UK’s continuing ability to compete with other countries economies on an international scale.

But it added this could only be done with a ‘strategic’ oversight, meaning that it cannot be left to local councils to plan out the future for their areas, but requires a joint approach led by Government.

The full spatial framework plan is due to be published in 2022, and will lay out the details of how the Oxford to Cambridge Arc’s aims will be achieved.

The introduction to the plans for the Arc can be found at the Government website, gov.uk