This is a common report to each of the Oxfordshire local planning authorities which provides an update on the preparation of the Oxfordshire Plan, including a summary of the comments received during the recent consultation.

Once adopted, the Oxfordshire Plan will provide a high-level spatial framework to shape the future planning of the county up to 2050 and will sit alongside Local Plans and Neighbourhood Plans.

The Committee is recommended to:

·       Note the summary results from the recent regulation 18 (part 2) consultation;

·       Note the revised scope of the Oxfordshire Plan, with clarification over its relationship to city and district Local Plans and supporting evidence base;

·       Note the next steps of the Oxfordshire Plan process; and

·       Recommend the adoption of the revised Statement of Community Involvement, subject to approval at the cabinets of the five Oxfordshire councils.

The Chair reconfirmed that the Committee was able to make recommendations to Cabinet related to the report.

Cllr Alex Hollingsworth, Cabinet Member for Planning and Housing Delivery explained that it was not his report but confirmed he was happy to comment as required. He added that he had made his view clear that the timetable for the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 needed to ensure opportunities for the Scrutiny Committees to have meaningful input before final drafts were put together. He suggested that the Committee should consider requesting sight of the Regulation 19 report before it was in the final stages of drafting.

Cllr Hollingsworth highlighted that he could only express personal views, not those of Cabinet Members from the other four planning authorities.

Rachel Williams, Planning Policy and Place Manager introduced the report. She highlighted that the process to deliver a development plan was lengthy, particularly on a large scale. She explained the process of developing the Oxfordshire Plan 2050:

·       Regulation 18 (Part 2) consultation document – outlined the range of policy options for the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 that had been identified. This was presented to the Committee in July 2021 but there was limited opportunity to make changes to the document at that point. The Committee was assured that its recommendations had been included as part of the Council’s response to the consultation.

·       Refining policy options – this was the next formal stage of the process. A series of different tasks would be involved in this stage, including listening to views from the last round of consultation, building the evidence base and testing what was practical, feasible and deliverable. Draft policies from the policy options outlined would then be selected and included in the next stage document.

·       Regulation 19 consultation document – the report would include draft policies and would be presented to the Committee for consideration and recommendations before Cabinet approved it to go out for consultation.

The Planning Policy and Place Manager confirmed that the Committee’s request for additional input into the process had been taken on board, which was partly why the report was being presented to the Committee. The report under consideration was a report of the last consultation so that the Committee could see its comments reflected back, hear what others said and look at what that meant for the policy options which were consulted on. The Planning Policy and Place Manager added that additional opportunities for the involvement of the Committee between the Regulation 18 and Regulation 19 stages would be explored so that the Committee could consider the draft policies ahead of Cabinet approval.

It was clarified that all of the five planning authorities were required to approve content at each stage of the process and the final draft.

The Committee raised a number of points, including:

·       Traction points – the Committee required clarity on where the traction points in the process that it could provide input and recommendations into were.

·       Sewage pollution and waste water – it was felt that the report was not very strong in this area and reassurance was requested around how Thames Water’s future investment plans aligned with plans for growth.

·       Leisure, recreation and open space – it was felt that the alternative policy option floated in the report to protect parks, play areas and sports areas should be supported as they were important spaces.

Cllr Tiago Corais joined the meeting.

·       Importance of efforts to reduce inequality and deprivation – this was floated as a policy option within the report, but it was requested that this was made a strong policy in its own right in the document.

·       Process – it was felt that the consultation report presented was not fit for purpose and the general public would not learn much from the report.

The Planning Policy and Place Manager confirmed that the consultation report contained at Appendix 1 was a summary of all the representations. It was intended to be a factual summary and there was no reflection or analysis as that would happen during an additional stage.

Adrian Arnold, Head of Planning Services provided assurance that all partners involved in the process were committed to building in time for the work of scrutiny. He added that the team would work with Thames Water in relation to future demand, but that the pollution side of things was the responsibility of Thames Water and the Environment Agency. The Committee was advised that the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 could bring in strategic policy that could be implemented in more detail at the Local Plan level.

Cllr Hollingsworth explained that the timescale for the process was tight and that Oxfordshire was a trailblazer for this type of plan. He advised that one of the challenges was understanding how the Planning Inspectorate would form a judgement on the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 based on tests contained in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) paragraph 35, which sought to consider whether the evidence base justified the policies contained within the Oxfordshire Plan 2050. Cllr Hollingsworth expressed his view that the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 should contain only high level strategic policies and leave the detail to Local Plans, as there was a risk that there would not be the evidence base to back-up very detailed policies in the Oxfordshire Plan 2050.

Cllr Hollingsworth said he thought it would be helpful to hear the Committee’s views on the housing numbers and suggested it might want to reflect on the discrepancies between the housing trajectories and the identified need for affordable housing which he was happy to provide numbers for later.

The Committee raised further points related to:

·       Consultation responses – a breakdown was requested of the 3,723 individual responses received from 422 individuals and organisations. It was confirmed that the 3,723 related to the total number of comments made across the different themes and the 422 related to the number of individuals/organisations that had submitted either one or a number of comments. The Committee was referred to Chart 1 in Appendix 1 which gave a breakdown of respondent type. The Planning Policy and Place Manager agreed to extract the information in Chart 1 into a table and circulate to the Committee after the meeting.

·       Text in Appendix 1 – the text frequently behaved as if the process was a referendum, which the Committee had been told was not the case. It was suggested that the language needed to be altered to reflect that.

·       Unknowns – a question was raised about how the public could comment on a consultation that had so many unknowns within it (e.g. Integrated Care System was not yet established) and how those unknown factors were managed in the process. It was explained that the best available information at the time was used and kept up to date to inform future policy development, but that a key factor was ensuring policies had the flexibility to account for the unknowns. It was also highlighted that the Council had a duty to cooperate with other organisations, stakeholders and service providers in future policy development and was committed to doing that.

·       Accountability – it was felt that the process was quite opaque and the Committee wanted to understand who was responsible for ensuring recommendations were included in the final Oxfordshire Plan 2050. It was confirmed that there were numerous routes for influencing the choice of policies for the Plan – including formal recommendations from Scrutiny and cross-county officer and Member groups which ensured that views and priorities were heard throughout the process. The Committee was advised that there were both formal stages and informal conversations. Cllr Hollingsworth advised that he would do his best to ensure any recommendations made by the Committee were included in the final Plan, provided Cabinet accepted them.

·       Accessibility – the Committee felt the report was difficult to read and language used was very opaque.

·       Evidence – it was felt there was not enough evidence base to refine the policy options and move from Regulation 18 to Regulation 19 stage. The Planning Policy and Place Manager advised that evidence was still required (e.g. flood risk and Green Belt) and that evidence got better, deeper and of better quality as the process went on and this would be published. The viability evidence was still required, which underpinned the other evidence to ensure proposed policy options were deliverable.

·       Consultation status – the Committee was unclear of the status of the consultation in the whole process and the status of the report itself.

The Planning Policy and Place Manager advised that the Committee might find it helpful to consider the report alongside the report presented to it in July 2021. She summarised that Appendix 1 of the report was the main item for consideration and that the covering report provided some information on scope, next steps and the Statement of Community Involvement, which Cabinet would be asked to approve. She advised that the Committee could add value by considering the policy options, reflecting on what respondents had said and making recommendations for refined policy options in the next stages.

The Committee made further comments in relation to:

·       Policy options – the ‘policy options’ included in the report were not actually options, but themes. It was also not clear to Members that the policy options included were high-level and would have further detail sitting beneath them. There were concerns that the report claimed to be further along in the process than in reality as no policy options were laid out. It was also raised that there was no recognition of how policy areas were interlinked (e.g. the impact that housing numbers would have on the Green Belt).

·       Consultation process – clarity was needed on the weighting given to the consultation process and responses in relation to the policy options at the next stage. It was also noted that the consultation response rate was poor and there was no specific information provided on the outcome of the focus group. In addition, it was felt that separation of the developers and some of the viability calculations was required, as developer interest/profit and public interest needed to be separated out in a much more coherent way.

·       Green Belt Review – there was a set process for this type of review set out by the Government and it did not necessarily mean any changes would be made. The process was an assessment which would be undertaken collectively by local authorities and look at the performance of different parcels of Green Belt via a qualitative review. The Committee was advised that an expert consultant would be commissioned to undertake the work on behalf of the local authorities.

·       Housing density targets – it would be too difficult to get a numerical target as it would not work for the different urban/rural areas of Oxfordshire. The best that could be hoped for was an aspiration for the highest densities, as other local authorities had made clear that they felt housing density was a Local Plan issue.

·       Representative opinion – it was a challenge to get good quality and quantity opinion on a plan project which gave a representative view.

·       Oxford-led growth – there was a risk that this could perpetuate inequalities between Oxford and other parts of the county, so it was felt that it was unhelpful to frame growth in that way. Cllr Hollingsworth advised that Oxford-led growth was one of the spatial options but his preference was a focus on public transport corridors.

·       Recommendations – it was felt that the report was not at a stage where full recommendations could be made and the Committee requested it be brought back to a future meeting with additional information for further consideration. Cllr Hollingsworth commented that the Committee needed to specify what additional information it required. It was agreed that the Scrutiny Officer and the Planning Policy and Place Manager would discuss the feasibility of this after the meeting.

Cllr Imogen Thomas, Cllr Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini and Cllr Lizzy Diggins left the meeting and did not return.

The Head of Planning Services highlighted the time pressure around the production of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 as the Local Plan could not be finalised without it, however he did not know the timetable that the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 team was working to.

The Committee resolved to recommend to Cabinet that:

1)    The Council requests a brief supplementary report that focuses on the points of contention within the consultation in order that members (and the public) can understand what the political choices are that Oxford City Council is faced with.

2)    The Council requests that the supplementary report referred to above identifies consultation responses by respondent type so that Members and the public can understand where particular respondents, or groups of respondents are pressing for particular policy choices.

3)    The Council seeks to ensure that future consultations on the plan involve greater depth of consultation amongst a more demographically representative group of respondents.

4)    The Council requests that the results of the focus group undertaken as part of the Regulation 18 Part 2 consultation be made publicly available and distributed to Members.

5)    The Council works with partners to ensure there is alignment between Thames Water’s future investment plans for water treatment works and those areas outlined in Oxfordshire for growth.

6)    The Council should support the alternative policy option for policy 16, but with an extended remit to include play areas and parks and nature reserves as well.

7)    The Council seeks that current relevant policies are amalgamated into one dedicated policy of how the Plan will reduce inequality and deprivation.

The Committee resolved to agree the exact wording of recommendations via email after the meeting before they went to Cabinet on 09 February 2022.