Planning Inspectors slam South & Vale councils for Local Plan failure

In an extensive nine-page letter to both Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils the Planning Inspectors have concluded that the councils have failed to discharge their statutory obligations and the draft Joint Local Plan 2041 should be withdrawn. Read the letter in full here.

The Joint Local Plan sets out housing proposals for both districts for the next sixteen years and the failure to adopt a new Local Plan could have significant impacts on residents locally.

Having been Leader of the Vale of White Horse District Council when we successfully adopted the last Local Plan in 2016 I understand the challenges of getting such a plan agreed - but also the importance getting it right. Most people agree we need more housing nationally, but locally in southern Oxfordshire we have already seen significant growth, with more planned in future years. If this latest set back causes the Local Plan to be withdrawn it could mean that the councils lose control over development and lose the ability to gain vital infrastructure funding.

Already we know that the councils have failed to secure the delivery of a new Health Centre in Didcot, despite land being available on Great Western Park and money having been set aside by the developers. A failure to have a Local Plan in place will risk future infrastructure investment as it increases the chances of development happening piecemeal across the districts.

Vital to keeping control of planning, and avoiding unplanned, speculative development with inadequate infrastucture is having a five-year housing land supply. This means having a supply of housing sites planned over the next five years. The Vale of White Horse is currently just meeting this criteria with a 5.8 year supply, but South Oxfordshire is already below that important threshold with just 4.5 years of housing supply.

In the letter to the Councils the Inspectors state: “In the light of the failure to adequately discharge the [Duty to Co-operate], there are two options open to South and Vale, either to withdraw the JLP from the examination or to ask that we write a report setting out our conclusions. The latter option would incur further expense, and the contents of our report would likely be very similar to this letter.”

By failing to manage the Local Plan process properly the Lib Dem councils have created a real risk of uncontrolled development and inadequate infrastructure for communities across the southern Oxfordshire.