A 30-year battle over the future of a former Oxford boatyard looks set to continue after plans to redevelop the site were refused yesterday. 

The Cornerstone Land Development plan for the former Jericho boatyard site was turned down unanimously by the city planning committee on Wednesday.

The scheme included a new working boatyard, a community centre and café, and 18 new homes with a piazza in front of the Grade I listed St Barnabas Church.

Cornerstone Land Development submitted a planning application to Oxford City Council in June 2020.

Campaigners from the community-led Jericho Wharf Trust (JWT), formed to develop community facilities on the waterfront, raised concerns over the proposals.

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Jericho resident John Mair said: "I worry that the Jericho Wharf Trust is utopian, entirely negative and seemingly determined on kiboshing any plans put forward. They exist purely to prevent. They look to the past not to any community future."

Oliver Holland, of Cornerstone Land, said: "I am disappointed by the Planning Committee's perverse decision to reject this application despite council officers' clear recommendation for approval.

"It is a missed opportunity to breathe new life and open up the Jericho canal side for the community." 

Councillors were opposed to the lack of social housing in the plan.

And they sought further clarity on who would audit any surplus profits made by the developer that under a legal agreement would go back to the city council to build social housing elsewhere in Oxford.

Oxford City Council’s consultant who trades as Evolution estimated how much the developer could get from selling the houses which would affect what they could offer the city council.

Councillors decided that the viability study was not robust enough and did not take account of the ‘Jericho premium’ and the desirability of living there.

Allison Blakeway, Evolution consultant, said she used comparisons with other new build developments in Barton, Headington and Wolvercote.

Cllr James Fry said: “If  you live in Oxford there is a Jericho premium. You can’t buy a house in Jericho for the price of a house in Barton or Headington."

Ms Blakeway said there was little else to compare the proposed development to as "Jericho generates its own market and this was a new product in that market."

She said the developer has put forward a review mechanism that would recognise if prices go up.

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In a letter to city council planners, Jericho Wharf Trust said an independent analysis it commissioned concluded that “while Evolution valued the sales at £22.9 million, current Jericho market evidence indicate that the real value is £28.5 million. 

“Remarkably, the City Council planning officers have fallen in line with this assertion.”

JWT Chair Phyllis Starkey told the meeting there was "overwhelming opposition to the plans on both sides of the canal.

“This application is shortchanging the community by about £6million.”

Councillors raised other issues including the size of the piazza which was made smaller by the increased size of the boatyard/community centre.

They also saw the Jericho Wharf Trust and Jericho Community Association having difficulty raising more than £1million to complete the community centre and boatyard which would be built to shell by the developer. 

The boatyard was first closed in 1992, with the first plan to renovate the site being approved in 1994 and then again in 2016 but neither plan came to fruition.

Mr Mair said: “So it is back to square one and the mud."

He suggested an independent arbitrator now be brought in “that says, this is the value of those houses”.

“That was the rock on which it fell – the property values.”