PLANNING experts have attacked Oxford City Council’s plan to push housing into rural areas, saying the authority has hugely exaggerated the number of new homes needed.
The council insists 1,322 new homes need to be built each year to keep pace with Oxford’s growing population and booming local economy.
But it says these homes cannot all be built within the city because there is limited space left for new development.
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It has instead asked South Oxfordshire, West Oxfordshire, Cherwell, and Vale of White Horse district councils to take on thousands of new homes up to 2040.
The move has faced a fierce backlash from councillors and MPs in neighbouring districts, with Ian Middleton – who represents Kidlington on Cherwell District Council – warning of years of “development hell”.
Now a group of planning professionals and academics have also attacked the plans, accusing the city council of getting its figures wrong.
The group, known as POETS (Planning Oxfordshire’s Environment and Transport Sustainably), claims the council has overinflated its housing need so it can “develop housing elsewhere and force people to travel to work in the city”.
It follows the council’s decision to disregard the Government’s so-called ‘standard method’, a formula used to calculate how many new homes a council should plan for, which estimates Oxford’s housing need at only 762 homes each year.
The council, which claims the method is outdated, has made its own calculations, arriving at a figure almost double that recommended by the Government.
The 1,322-annual figure is included in the draft Oxford Local Plan 2040, a crucial document that sets out where new housing will be built.
POETS member Katie Barrett said the legal document should be “withdrawn and reconsidered” by the council.
“The council has not looked seriously at brownfield sites within its urban area, preferring to concentrate yet more jobs in the city, which simply makes the problem worse,” she said.
“It is clear that its vision for Oxfordshire is to concentrate employment growth in Oxford, develop housing elsewhere and force people to travel to work in the city.”
Fellow member Julie Martin added: “It would perpetuate the failed approach of the last few years which has seen large swathes of green belt land, often in university and college ownership, turned into car-dependent private housing estates.
“This increases commuting of all kinds and does not get anywhere near securing truly affordable and sustainably built dwellings.
“It raises huge questions about whether the new plan can be considered properly justified and effective.”
POETS also accused the council of failing to listen to concerns raised by district councillors in South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse.
David Rouane, leader of South Oxfordshire District Council, has refused to accept the housing numbers proposed by the city council.
He said: “Building houses outside the city while retaining sites in the city for commercial development merely adds to congestion.
“People have to commute further to work, and this does nothing to address the affordability of housing within the city.”
Vale leader Bethia Thomas believes that what the city council was asking was “simply unsustainable”.
The city council’s local plan has now finished consultation and could be passed into law this year.
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Councillor Louise Upton, cabinet member for planning and healthier communities, claimed the council had searched for “every available piece of land” within the city that could be used for new housing.
She said: “The city council is trying to plan for the housing needs of the future. “We must plan for population growth, greater life expectancy and smaller household sizes.
“When housing needs are not met it leads to unaffordable and unsuitable homes, overcrowding, and adults needing to live with their parents for longer.
“We have robust evidence on how many more homes Oxford will need before 2040, which shows that the Government’s standard method is a poor approximation of housing need that does not take account of changing demographics.
“The city council has searched for every available piece of land for housing within its area, and designated them for housing in our new Local Plan 2040.
“However, Oxford has a very limited capacity, and it is clear that we do not have enough space within our boundaries to accommodate our needs.
"Surrounding districts have provided for the unmet need from the last Local Plan (2036), including on previous green belt land.
“The new assessment of need is only an extra 126 homes a year across the whole county.
"Many of these could be delivered on sites already allocated for development but not yet delivered in the current local plans.”
The plan has not allocated any new sites for employment.
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