Consultation launches on the future of Oxfordshire

Oxford City Council have opened a consultation to get public feedback on The Oxfordshire Plan 2050, the strategic planning framework for the future of the county.

An initial consultation was conducted in early 2019, and revealed key themes for the plan, including addressing climate change, improving environmental quality, creating strong and healthy communities, planning for sustainable travel and connectivity, and creating jobs and providing homes.

The county, city and district councils have worked together to deliver the plan and are now calling for public response to the highlighted themes, in order to develop and implement the plan.

Cllr Emily Smith, leader of Vale of White Horse District Council and chair of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050 Member Advisory Group, said: ‘This is an exciting and important step and I am looking forward to hearing what the public have to say about this important document.

‘The Oxfordshire Plan is a chance for all our communities to help shape our future and ensure we create opportunities for all while protecting our environment and tackling climate change. I hope that over the coming 10 weeks many people will take the opportunity to have their say.’

The new Oxfordshire Plan will focus on strategic planning issues relevant to the whole county, sitting alongside adopted Local Plans and Neighbourhood Development Plans and providing the framework for new plans to be developed.

It will be used to make decisions on planning applications and will identify broad locations for new developments in the county, running until 2050, which is double the length of normal Local Plans.

The consultation opened on 30 July and will run online for ten weeks until 8 October.

In related news, work to install a high-powered underground cable that will deliver electricity to a new public electric vehicle (EV) charging hub at Redbridge Park & Ride in Oxford will begin this week.

Photo by Matt Seymour