The Oxford Local Plan 2040 was submitted to the Secretary of State at the end of March 2024, so that it could be examined in public by the Planning Inspectorate. We submitted what we considered to be a sound plan, which was based on an extensive evidence base and which had been developed through consultation and discussion.
The Oxford Local Plan 2040 sought to:
- Urgently address the acute housing crisis
- Take measures to make the strong economy more inclusive for everyone
- Innovate and taking a leading role in tackling the climate and biodiversity crises
We were pleased that the Planning Inspectorate seemed keen to move quickly, assigning two Inspectors and setting dates for an initial set of public hearings in June. These were to focus specifically on legal matters, the duty to co-operate and housing need and capacity. However, following the initial 3 days of hearings, and after a 3-month wait, the Planning Inspectorate sent a letter on 11th September recommending we withdraw the Oxford Local Plan 2040 from examination.
We are very disappointed to receive this letter recommending withdrawal of the Plan. This will lead to a later adoption of the Plan. Our objective has been to produce a plan that rises to the challenge of managing change and growth in Oxford to balance needs and ensure a city that works well for everyone. As outlined above, it also sought to address the urgent housing crisis the city is facing, balanced against the need to address the challenges arising from a thriving economy, making sure it benefits everyone, and it proposes policies to address the climate emergency.
The conclusions of the planning inspectors fail to grasp the importance of the City Council’s objective to deliver enough homes to help address the very obvious housing crisis that many of our residents are experiencing. It also fails to grasp the challenges of attempting to do this when some surrounding districts are failing to take seriously the need for homes to be delivered. The conclusions are particularly disappointing coming at a time when the Government is taking this need seriously and is consulting on changes to the planning system with the aim of building the homes the country desperately needs whilst supporting economic growth in a positive way.
Duty to co-operate
In the absence of any county or regional-level plans, the Government previously introduced the ‘duty to co-operate'. This requires us to keep up a dialogue with ‘duty to co- operate bodies’. This includes bodies such as Natural England, the Environment Agency and Historic England, and also neighbouring local councils and the county council. Importantly, it is a duty to co-operate rather than a duty to agree.
However, since its inception, it has raised expectations and led to the failure of many plans. There is no clear threshold for the level of involvement of other authorities. This seems to lead to it being possible to plant a seed of doubt about whether the duty is met, because if other parties state strongly enough they are dissatisfied with how they were involved, then that in itself can be taken as a sign of failure.
The alleged failure of the duty to co-operate relates specifically to development of the Housing and Economic Needs Assessment (HENA). This was a technical assessment intended to identify the housing needs of Oxford and Cherwell from 2020-2040 only. The assessment became necessary after work ceased on the Oxfordshire Plan, because it had been intended that would set the housing needs for the individual districts of Oxfordshire.
We jointly commissioned the HENA with Cherwell District Council. Both councils were keen to progress their local plans, taking seriously the need to deliver sufficient housing to meet needs. Other districts in Oxfordshire were offered the opportunity to join this commission, but ultimately decided not to do so.
Cherwell District Council and Oxford City Council managed the commission jointly, after informing the other districts what they were doing, and discussed the findings and implications with them. However, the Inspectors’ conclusion was that the duty to cooperate was failed because the other districts were not directly involved in the commission and its technical methodology.
Our firm view is that it is not normal practice for authorities to have involvement in the running of a technical study when they are not part of the commissioning of it or relying on that study themselves. This approach from the Inspectors gives rise to a number of questions in respect of other plans and how they plan for their districts where there are demonstrable cross-boundary implications.
Assessment of housing need
We are particularly alarmed and surprised by the Inspectors’ conclusion that there are no exceptional circumstances in Oxford for departing from use of the Standard Method. The Inspectors suggest the current national standard method would be an appropriate calculation of housing need. It is a discredited and outdated approach to calculating housing need nationally. It simply does not reflect national, regional or local levels of housing need.
The Inspector’s report into the Oxford Local Plan 2036, received in 2020, was very clear that exceptional circumstances for departing from the Standard Method exist, and nothing has changed in the intervening period. There is still a housing crisis and we are working to address this through the use of our own housing company, aiming to build over 2,000 homes over the coming decade, and through the Local Plan we proposed to allocate sites for other landowners to construct new homes in Oxford.
The arguments we put forward for the inadequacy of the Standard Method in Oxford were dismissed by the Inspectors who consider that the nationally derived “Standard Method” sufficiently accounts for issues such as affordable housing need, other housing need and new jobs being created, which it demonstrably does not. Deviating from the Standard Method in the Local Plan 2040 would have supported our objective of urgently addressing the housing issues in the city.
The housing crisis, identified nationally and locally, is not acknowledged by the Inspectors. Given that the new Labour Government has already identified significant issues with the current ‘Standard Method’ of calculating housing need, we are incredibly surprised by the Inspectors’ conclusion that use of it to assess housing need would be the right approach.
Unmet housing need
We are pleased that the Inspectors accept that our work and associated evidence on housing capacity is sound, and that our housing capacity is evidently below our housing need, resulting in a level of unmet housing need.
However, we are very surprised that the Inspectors also conclude that there is failure to demonstrate how the unmet housing need will be met outside the city. This is particularly surprising because current local plans for the surrounding districts already include an element of housing need sufficient to meet Oxford’s needs covering the majority of the proposed plan period, and all have been clear and were clear at the examination that they are committed to continuing to accommodate agreed levels of Oxford’s unmet need.
This is said by the Inspectors to be inadequate because the plans are from the previous rounds of local plans. However, we absolutely do not agree that our plan should wait for surrounding districts to bring forward new plans in order that it can go ahead. That would be contrary to the plan-led system required by national planning policy.
In our opinion, this is another completely unnecessary and highly unusual conclusion and is a punishment for trying to go ahead with a plan to manage development in Oxford for the people of Oxford. Again, the logical outcome of this is to make good planning almost impossible for authorities such as Oxford. When there is a housing emergency, we need to plan to help overcome it, and we need to plan for enough homes. Oxford is a constrained city that is part of a flourishing economy. To continue to be successful, some of our needs have to be met outside our boundaries. Pragmatism is essential in this situation to enable plans to progress so growth can be managed. To wait for a situation where all authorities have plans at the same stage and have agreed on cross-boundary matters, is not a realistic expectation or in anyone’s best interests.
