Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Travel & Development Strategy

Forward Plan Ref: 2021/122

Contact: Dawn Pettis, Strategic Planning Team Leader Tel: 07771 983395

Report by Corporate Director Environment & Place (CA8).

To seek agreement of the County Council’s formal response to the OP2050 consultation.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to consider the draft OCC response to the Oxfordshire Plan Regulation 18 (Stage 2) consultation and suggest changes to be made to the response as necessary.

Recommendations agreed.

Cabinet was asked to consider a draft OCC response to the Oxfordshire Plan Regulation 18 (Stage 2) consultation and suggest changes to be made to the response as necessary.

Councillor Duncan Enright, Cabinet Member for Travel and Development Strategy, gave the background to the report and outlined some of the main points of the Council’s draft submission which included:

·         Risk-based zoning of development with rigorous enforcement, including an absolute ban on building on flood plains.

·         The approach to zero carbon must not have a disproportionate impact on rural or deprived areas.

·         Securing 20 minutes neighbourhoods where residents’ everyday needs can be met within a short walk or cycle ride.

·         Making sports fields and halls available to the local community.

Councillor Enright urged everyone to make their own submission to the consultation.  He thanked officers for all of the work that went into drafting the submission.

Other Cabinet Members made the following comments:

·         There was nothing about digital infrastructure (Agenda Page 306) which was a key omission given its importance and that Oxfordshire was ahead of the curve on fibre broadband for example.

·         There was a real opportunity to build a society that was resilient to anything that nature could throw at it.

·         There were three scenarios given in the Plan for expected housing growth but should there be a further scenario which would take into account the pattern of growth we would envisage?

Councillor Enright responded that better information will be available at each stage and a decision on the level of growth is expected by December this year.

The Chair noted that no changes had been proposed to the draft.  She proposed that the submission be agreed as drafted.

RESOLVED: to agree the draft OCC response to the Oxfordshire Plan Regulation 18 (Stage 2) consultation.