At the Vale full council meeting on 17 July 2019, I tabled a motion about the problems with LPP2. You can read it here.

Vale has a duty to cooperate with our neighbouring councils. In our Local Plan, this shows up as Vale’s commitment to take on a portion of Oxford’s Objectively Assessed Need that they are unable to meet for themselves. That’s completely reasonable.

What isn’t reasonable is for us to have to commit to exact numbers of houses to help meet Oxford’s unmet need, BEFORE that need has been established by examination and adoption of their Local Plan.

Instead, our Inspector accepted the unmet housing need figures the Growth Board came up with, and said that the 2200 houses for Vale are a ‘working assumption’ and should be revisited once Oxford’s need is established. The inspector was silent on how we should do that. But it really matters, because once this LPP2 is adopted, the allocated sites will come forward in planning applications, and these Green Belt sites will be gone forever.

Letters to the Inspectors and the Inspectorate have argued that Oxford’s need must be determined prior to allocating sites in the Green Belt land for houses to meet Oxford’s need. Replies have been illogical. Cherwell’s inspector says that’s just the way planning works; examinations are scheduled when they come forward. The inspectorate says each local plan is handled independently; there’s no higher view for planning these hearings.

But the Local Plans aren’t independent. Cooperation requires sensible ways of working. We need to determine the need before adopting a radical plan to meet that need. That hasn’t been done.

In order to remove land from the Green Belt, there must be exceptional circumstances (beyond just a need for housing). Consider that the inspector of Vale’s LPP2 said that Oxford’s need for 2200 ‘mostly social rent houses’ was the exceptional circumstance. I’m shocked at the lack of rational thinking that demonstrates. How can that be the exceptional circumstances for such a serious decision, when the actual need hasn’t yet been established?  

Council needs advice from the Minister as to how he envisions this working out. If, as is expected, Oxford’s need is drastically reduced with a recalculation, it could well be that we need do nothing to help – that our Local Plan Part 1 had enough houses located close to Oxford to meet their unmet need. But we cannot know that until Oxford’s evidence and their own ability to deliver the housing they need is assessed.