We had a chance to respond to the consultation ending 25 Mar 19 about the visions and aspirations of Oxfordshire Plan 2050 (I’ve adopted ‘OxPlan50’ to talk about it, which used to be called the JSSP).

The link to my responses, submitted on behalf of the Liberal Democrats of Vale of White Horse, is available to view on Dropbox (Dropbox may require that you download it). https://www.dropbox.com/s/8p64wysri7uvun6/OxPlan50%20Introduction.pdf%20-%20Adobe%20Acrobat%20Pro.pdf?dl=0

Essentially there are four main things:

1. The Climate Emergency, recently adopted as a policy by Vale and Oxford City, needs to be behind every policy decision in this OxPlan50. Our policies need to work to reduce our carbon footprint.
2. Transport Plans of recent years have done nothing to increase capacity or reduce congestion on the county’s major highways. I suggest we should assess the way we make these transport plans, and try to find a way that is more effective at solving our problems.
3. The Oxford Green Belt must have a proper assessment and review. For the past several years, individual councils have nibbled away at the boundaries to meet their own housing needs. This is the opportunity we’ve waited for, to take a holistic approach to our Green Belt. By that I mean a formal review to find the places where land can be released, and also where we can put other land under Green Belt protection. It’s characteristic is its openness and permanence. But local districts’ approaches have been not supporting wither of those things.
4. Water supplies seem problematic in this plan, along with renewable energy commitments.

I had other points, But these are the main themes.