Cabinet will be considering the Housing Delivery Plan at its meeting on 12^th August. The Panel is asked to consider the report and make any recommendations accordingly.

Carolyn Ploszynski,, Planning Policy and Place Manager, and Tom Rice, Principal Planner will be attending the meeting to present the report. Councillor Alex Hollingsworth has also been invited to attend and speak to the report.

Councillor Alex Hollingsworth, Cabinet Member for Planning and Housing Delivery, introduced the report. A Housing Delivery Plan was a government requirement for councils whose housing completions were below 95% of their housing requirement over the past three years. It was unclear whether the Council fell into this category because central government to date had been unable to clarify which historical measures the Council should be measured against. Regardless of the whether it was mandated by central government or not, the Council had decided to develop one. Doing so had proven a particularly useful exercise in making clear the importance of ensuring the sites identified for development in the Local Plan are indeed completed; to meet its housing requirement (not including the unmet need met by neighbouring councils) Oxford would have to see 100% of its sites developed each year to 2036. The main housing sources arose from the Council, Oxford University, colleges within the University, and private developers, and the plan sought to identify and defuse any barriers to delivery before they could result in a shortfall in housing delivery.

The Panel raised a number of questions regarding the following:

-       Actions being taken to support the delivery of the Julian Housing and Lucy Faithfull sites. The Julian Housing site was reported to be on track, having only recently received planning permission. The Lucy Faithfull site had been subject to a hold up due to the presence of a 15^th century friary beneath it, requiring archaeological investigation, but it was otherwise moving forward.

-       The reasons behind the significant disparity between the level of the Council’s delivery under different measures. This was due to a quirk caused by Oxford being unable to meet its housing need. For the years without a government agreed target, if the Council were to be held up against its overall housing needs based on demographics as opposed to deliverability (a figure recognised by government in the current Local Plan as undeliverable) this would result in a very high target, meaning a significant shortfall. If the figures were based on Oxford’s ability to deliver, this would mean a much lower target and a much higher proportion therefore achieved.

-       The levels of response to the Council’s outreach activity with site promoters. It was suggested in response that the timing was unfortunate; the first round of outreach had commenced in the middle of lockdown.

-       The impact of possible future changes to the planning system. Particular concerns were expressed by Councillor Hollingsworth over ministerial proposals for automatic permission to be granted to certain properties. The impact would be to negate many of the Council’s policies in its current Local Plan whilst not speeding up housing delivery. In other changes, the upcoming update to rules around permitted development rights were in the process of being put into a briefing paper which would be distributed to all councillors, but it was noted that the rights to extend upwards in most areas would have a potentially deeply detrimental impact on Oxford’s efforts to retain views of its skyline, and conversion rights had in other places enabled conversions of offices into particularly low-quality housing.

The Panel also discussed the timelines of the report’s programme of engagement and progress to date. The Panel was informed Covid impacts had necessitated a prioritisation within the programme of engagement, focusing primarily on individual meetings with developers. Whilst prioritisation measures were an appropriate and indeed correct course of action, it was suggested by Panel members that remote working had had time to become normalised and that it would be beneficial to all stakeholders were the Council to indicate the dates by which paused activity would be recommenced. It was AGREED to make the following recommendation to Cabinet:

That the Council updates its programme of engagement and progress to date to include dates for recommencement of paused activities.