Public addresses relating to matters of business for this agenda. Up to five minutes is available for each public address.

The request to speak accompanied by the full text of the address must be received by the Director of Law, Governance and Strategy by 5.00 pm on 7 January 2026.

The Committee heard two public addresses.  

The Chair invited Deborah Glass Woodin from Oxfordshire?Doughnut Economics to address the Committee. The address was delivered as follows: 

There are several flaws in the Local Plan process & content that require your scrutiny: 

1. The notion that the Scrutiny Committee can properly scrutinise a Local Plan of this length & complexity (over 900 pages including an unreadable policies map) in the course of a few days is unrealistic and procedurally flawed.  

2. Important statutory information that is missing: 

The officer report does not include even a summary of responses to the last consultation, never mind any explanation of changes made in light of that consultation or the reasons for ignoring consultee feedback. This does not meet essential transparency standards, nor fulfil the stated corporate priority to support thriving communities. The information needs to be provided before the plan can properly be considered. 

3. Additional key information that is also lacking: 

a) what is the proposed balance between new jobs (on one hand) & new housing & green spaces (on the other) in the city & how has this been reached? 

In particular, has any of the land previously identified for employment use been firmly re-allocated for housing? This was a promised policy change around a common theme in many responses in previous consultations. If the plan continues to prioritise a huge increase in employment and economic growth over better provision for housing for the existing population’s needs, especially genuinely affordable housing, then Oxford’s housing crisis as well the related infrastructure issues including flooding, sewage, water scarcity, commuting, congestion, pollution and loss of green space in Oxford, will continue to get much worse. 

b) what work has been done to measure the impact of the Local Plan on key measures of thriving & resilience? 

4. The proposal is for the plan to move directly to the Reg 19 stage of consultation where feedback can be given only on specific and limited material matters. Why are Oxford City Council not following the process and best practise (as being undertaken by neighbouring districts), with a further Reg 18 Spatial Strategies stage of consultation? Moving straight to Reg 19 gives no opportunity for constructive feedback on sites. 

In conclusion, these deficits in procedure & content present serious risks in achieving an appropriate balance in the corporate objectives for the Local Plan, risks that will have far-reaching impacts on how the city copes with the escalating multiple cases we face. What recommendations will the Scrutiny Committee make to address these risks so that the City Council produces a plan that is fit for the future for Oxford? 

There were no questions from the Committee on this address. 

The Chair then invited Martin Reed, Chair of the Friends of Iffley Fields, to address the Committee. The address was delivered as follows: 

I am Martin Reed, Chair of Friends of Iffley Village speaking on behalf of Iffley’s residents and visitors. 

Your scrutiny is requested today, to review the soundness of the decision to re-allocate Land at Meadow Lane. This is a 2.5 acre greenfield plot which forms an integral part of the Iffley Conservation Area. There is now abundant expert evidence that any development here is unsustainable in planning terms. Including evidence of your own consultants.  

Known locally as the Horse Fields in Iffley, there is now no realistic dispute that this site is of considerable significance: for wildlife, for heritage and for wellbeing as a treasured city-wide resource, and should never have been considered for allocation. This meadow dates back to the Domesday Book, and unlike nearby green spaces has never been built nor used for landfill.  

Unsustainable development 

Rejected from earlier Local Plans due to access and heritage constraints, the Council’s mistaken allocation to Local Plan 2036 and later application resulted in an unprecedented number of objections from residents and visitors to any development here:  60 000 on our petition and over 1000 objections (98% of respondents) to the first planning application in 2023. The main reasons they give are multiple and all of them relate to valid planning issues:  

1. Destruction of the abundant wildlife here that sits along the Thames blue / green corridor: protected species, 636 species of invertebrates some rare at County and National level that qualify it easily as a City Wildlife Site 

2. Harms to the rural conservation area and drovers routes which are a much used Principal Quiet Route for Active Travel 

3. Increased flood risk and pollution of the ancient ditch, river and Iffley Meadows SSSI across the Thames 

4. Traffic and safety concerns, and unresolved queries about whether the areas needed for development are even fully owned by the Council 

Objections have also been received from the following organisations and statutory bodies: The Environment Agency, Bucks, Berks and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, BugLife, Oxfordshire Badger Group, Oxford Urban Wildlife Group, Windrush Against Sewage, Cyclox, Oxford Pedestrian’s Association, Greyfriars School, Oxford Preservation Trust.  

Errors, omissions and inconsistencies 

Given the wealth of factual information now elicited by the planning application, we are surprised also to see the number of ongoing errors, inconsistencies and omissions in the allocation that persist despite 2 earlier rounds of consultation feedback. 

These errors, omissions and inconsistencies have the effect of making the allocation appear to be deliverable and sustainable when the evidence is to the contrary. That is not sound.  

I’d like to highlight some of these for your scrutiny - you will find the policy listed as SPS8: Land at Meadow Lane on page 257 of your packs. 

In the first table (p 257): The current use is not ‘private green space’ as stated. This land is held in public ownership by Oxford City Council’s housing subsidiary. On any rational reading, this is public (publicly owned) land.  

Notable heritage status applies to Iffley’s rural Conservation Area of which the meadow itself is a vital part. The Conservation Area designation is about setting as well as material structures. The meadow is an integral and crucial part of that setting.   

The list of notable ecological features fails to mention that the biodiversity found on the Council’s own surveys is more than sufficient to qualify as a City Wildlife Site. The Council’s own consultants concluded it was of County level importance for invertebrates alone.  

Moreover, the recently published Local Nature Recovery Strategy rightly identifies the whole meadow as a restoration and enhancement priority, not just part of it as the policy claims.  

In terms of Urban greening, given that achieving BNG is already highly unlikely (and impossible on site) no credence can be given to the claim ‘likely to score above the urban greening factor target’. Nor is any evidence presented to that end. This is redolent of past mistakes where the site was assumed to be of low biodiversity value without any proper surveys to inform that view.  

Looking at additional errors in the detailed points on p258, Open space, nature, flood risk. 

• The site does not merely have ‘Potential to become important for biodiversity’ - the biodiversity is already of county and national significance and qualifies for City Wildlife Site status. This comment is misleading and Inconsistent with section 3.17 of the Sustainability Appraisal (Appendix 2) which states that ‘LNRSs are intended to identify important areas for biodiversity as well as opportunity areas for its enhancement’. This is already a key extant resource.  

• The policy states a requirement for ‘a detailed assessment of the site’s value for invertebrates’ despite the Council having already done multiple ecological surveys, finding species of county and national rarity which is impossible to compensate or mitigate for. This comment indicates a disregard for what the council’s surveys have already revealed and suggests an attempt to throw the dice again in the hope of a better answer. 

These multiple errors and omissions draw into question the credibility and soundness of the Council’s assessments and decision making in seeking to continue to allocate this site for development. Unfortunately, despite requests for the amended Reg 18 Site Assessment, the site assessment was not made available with the Reg 19 documents. That is a failure of publicity.  

Ignores residents’ input 

We wonder how the Council can achieve their aim to ‘get the Local Plan right’ whilst steadfastly ignoring input from large numbers of residents.  

For example, the early engagement survey elicited 50 emails from residents asking that Land at Meadow Lane should not be developed. The Council’s engagement survey report highlighted ‘cross-cutting themes, including the protection of green spaces, sustainable infrastructure (particularly sewage and flooding concerns), and the importance of aligning development with community health and wellbeing’.   

It is unclear how any of this early engagement feedback was taken into account at Reg 18.  

Currently Reg 18 Consultation feedback is not available. Surely scrutiny of the Reg19 stage of the Local Plan 2045 cannot proceed without the Consultation Report on the Reg 18? 

Conclusion 

Any development of Land at Meadow Lane is clearly unsustainable in planning terms, given the weight of evidence covering heritage, biodiversity, flooding, urban drainage and transport and the clear and unresolvable policy conflicts that have been exposed.   

It is misleading to mask the extent of unsustainability with errors, omissions and inconsistencies in the Local Plan policies. Indeed, this is procedurally wrong.  

It is contrary to the Local Plan stated objective to seek feedback but fail to take into account the overwhelming and ongoing level of valid objections from residents, statutory consultees and other expert bodies. 

Finally, you will notice that the minimum number of houses for this allocation has been reduced from 32 in LP 2036 to effectively ZERO in LP 2045. Why exactly is the Council continuing to pursue harmful development here at all costs, particularly when this site is not needed to provide any material contribution to Oxford’s housing need, and is not capable of doing so without breaching national and local nature conservation policy? 

We invite the Scrutiny Committee to question how the expensive, resource intensive and risky process of continuing to pursue development plans on this ancient meadow is either politically advisable or financially viable. 

Councillor Ottino asked what action Mr. Reed had taken to communicate with planning officers regarding the points raised in his address to the Committee, and whether he had received a response. Mr. Reed confirmed that he had attended a public consultation hosted by the planning officers at which time he raised some matters, however he is yet to receive a substantive written response.  

Councillor Mundy joined the meeting during this address.