Oxford2050: Introduction
We all have hopes and aspirations, even dreams, about what the future holds for ourselves and our families. Thinking about the future of our communities and our city in 30 years’ time is not something that we do very often, or even, at all.
For the City Council, and for all the councillors who will be elected to represent you between now and 2050, having a vision of the future to guide the Council’s policies will be a real asset. It will provide a sort of blueprint for the future.
The Vision that we set out here was the result of bringing together the many hundreds of responses to the public consultation exercise that we launched at the end of 2017. The public response amounted to thousands of pages of thoughts and ideas from residents, schools, businesses and the universities. We have summarised them here, in what we hope you will find to be a readable and thought-provoking Vision for Oxford 2050.
The Vision has five themes:
- Work and learning
- People and communities
- Built and natural environment
- Transport and connectivity
- Culture and leisure
In every one of these themes, there are huge unknowns: How quickly will technological or economic changes occur? What will happen to medical knowledge and patterns of health and lifestyle? How quickly will climate change require radical adaptations to our way of life? As the years roll on, we will review the Vision at regular intervals, always involving our residents so that it remains relevant and meaningful as a guide to our policies and services to the public.
Oxford is your city, and this Vision reflects your hope and aspirations for the future. We will keep them at the forefront of our work as councillors, and we hope that they will also guide other organisations and groups so that our successors can look back from 2050 and see the benefits of what was started in 2017.
