The Head of Planning Services has submitted a reportto consider the approval of the Oxfordshire Plan consultation document which sets out a range of planning policy options and a series of spatial strategy options for Oxfordshire. 

When complete the Oxfordshire Plan will provide a high-level spatial planning framework for Oxfordshire up to 2050 and will be a statutory planning document supplementing Local Plans.  The Plan aims to be transformational and occupies new policy areas, such as on climate change, environmental betterment, health impacts and zero carbon transport.   It has now reached the Regulation 18 part 2 stage.

Cabinet is recommended to:

1.    Approve the Regulation 18 (Part 2) consultation document for public consultation as attached to the report;

2.    Authorise the Head of Planning Services to make any necessary editorial corrections and minor amendments to the documents, and to agree the final publication style, in liaison with the Cabinet Member for Planning & Housing Delivery subject to agreement with their counterparts in the other four partner Local Planning Authorities; and 

3.    Adopt the updated Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) which will become the formal basis for the forthcoming Regulation Part 2 consultation.

Please note that this report and its associated documentation are being published as two separate supplements.  The first will comprise the report and its principal appendices, the second will include supporting documentation.

The Head of Planning Services had submitted a report to consider the approval of the Oxfordshire Plan consultation document which sets out a range of planning policy options and a series of spatial strategy options for Oxfordshire. 

Councillor Alex Hollingsworth, Cabinet Member for Planning & Housing Delivery, introduced the report. The Oxfordshire Plan would be a new strategic planning document which would sit ‘between’ the National Planning Policy Framework  (and the Oxford- Cambridge Arc) and Local Plans. All Oxfordshire’s planning authorities and the County Council were being asked to approve the document for public consultation. It was important to note that the Council would be submitting responses to the document in its own capacity as a consultee in due course.

Cabinet resolved to:

1.    Approve the Regulation 18 (Part 2) consultation document for public consultation as attached;

2.    Authorise the Head of Planning Services to make any necessary editorial corrections and minor amendments to the documents, and to agree the final publication style, in liaison with the Cabinet Member for Planning & Housing Delivery subject to agreement with their counterparts in the other four partner Local Planning Authorities; and

3.    Adopt the updated Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) which will become the formal basis for the forthcoming Regulation Part 2 consultation.