Hester attended 2 more sessions of the Local Plan Examination – one on the “Five-year housing supply” and one on infrastructure issues. The key points were:
1 In order to approve the Plan, the Inspector has to be satisfied that it will genuinely meet what is known as the “Objectively Assessed Need” (OAN) for housing in the area over the next 5 years. There are some people who challenge the OAN figures for this area, but the Inspector has to work with the ones that have been laid down.
2 Our area has been identified as nationally significant for economic growth – with very ambitious plans for new jobs in the “Science Vale” area (Culham, Milton Park, Harwell etc) so we are required to show that there will be adequate housing for all these new people. There was a debate as to whether job growth was really likely to be as fast as predicted, but there was a certain amount of “chicken and egg” to the discussion – employers report that it is difficult to recruit here because suitably-priced housing is in short supply… Interestingly, at the sessions I attended, there was little mention of the Vale having to help Oxford City meet their housing needs.
3 Both the Vale and the developers were adamant that if the Plan is approved, the houses on the various sites can be delivered in the required timescales, but some of those present were doubtful, largely because of the cumulative effect of all the sites on for example the ability of the Vale to process planning applications and of the builders to obtain manpower and materials.
4 The infrastructure discussion was depressing from an Abingdon perspective. The good news is that the plans for the two North Abingdon sites include provision for a Primary School and a “Local Centre” (which presumably could be a Community Centre, Health Centre or whatever is deemed necessary) although I did not hear a date for those. There is also reasonable provision for footpaths, cycle paths and bus stops. However, house building is scheduled to start in 2018 with about 500 due to be built by 2021: however that is the earliest date mentioned for the Lodge Hill interchange and other considerably later dates were also mentioned. Since building on the Radley and Kennington developments will be going on at the same time, that does not bode well for traffic in the next few years.
5 While it does seem pretty certain that the new slip roads will be built – eventually – other proposed improvements to the A34 in this area (widening, addition of a bus lane etc) sound unlikely, largely because the County Council favour an alternative approach involving a new road from the Didcot northern ringroad to Culham – including a new river crossing. They believe that, as well as linking up the key Science Vale sites it will also reduce traffic using the A34 north bound by providing a link from Milton interchange to Culham and places to the East of Oxford. Since presumably this will be largely funded by Science Vale and Local Enterprise Plan money there is a perception that it is more achievable than the A34 improvements.
At present the “North Abingdon” sites are actually in Sunningwell and Radley parishes, but the plan is for the boundary to be moved so they are in Abingdon.
Doh…I’m just itching to make a weak witticism….
Thanks for this Hester, good report, how does this fit with the VWHDC’ s announcement that they are to pursue their wish for us to have a Unitary council by abolishing OCC? My understanding of where & how these have been successful has been where the county councils have abolished district councils and reserected the old Borough councils? Now that begs the question ( as if we’ll ever be asked ) would we want the VWHDC abolished and continue with occ along with more powerful borough councils or expand the VWHDC and abolish occ?
The whole local government structure needs to be de-balkanized with consolidation into a much larger single entity employing a higher quality of local official. The District Councils need to go as their main function appears to be to provide jobs for light-weight panjandrums to pomp and preen themselves in their local communities with the aim of getting their photographs in the paper as often as possible.
Something of the size of an Oxfordshire Council is required to take charge of large socially systemic issues such as transport and housing, while there should be stronger local representation to lobby for local issues. By ‘local representation’ I mean local people and not, for example, some panjandrum parachuted briefly into Abingdon from Henley to make lasting and damaging decisions about the traffic system in Abingdon.
its good to see some progress on the unitary debate as there has been virtually nothing in the public domain on this since the original options paper OCC produced in January 2015.
Personally I like the idea of removing a layer but, in common with the two posts above (who I dont usually agree with) I suspect the better solution would be to eliminate the district layer and strengthen the town/parish councils. In effect reversing the changes made in 1974 which I dont think have served towns like Abingdon well.
What is interesting in the DC proposals is the idea of the new unitary authorities working in a more integrated way with the local NHS, Police and LEP which I think would make good sense, whether at county or district level.
Good to see this debate gaining traction at last, and regardless of which layer gets eliminated unitary authority should be better than today’s highly confusing three tiered structure.
so if they build lots of new houses, house prices will fall here as a result and become more affordable? – bet that wouldn’t happen!
Not the old chestnut of a second river crossing. We were promised this before and told that no new housing would be built in South Abingdon until a new road was in place Promises of new infrastructure just to not materialise. I agree Rudi. This is a high housing price area. People have always had problems if they wish to move here from the North or other areas where the housing prices are not so high. We are more of a commuter area. People who cannot afford to buy in London look for this area to commute from. There is also the issue of increased pressure on G P surgeries in Abingdon.
Janet – this isn’t the South Abingdon relief road river crossing – it is further down stream, by Culham – so no direct help to the Drayton Road problems. I guess it might take some of the through traffic out of Marcham Road, Ock Street which would help a bit – but like you, I am not holding my breath!
There are organisations actively lobbying for a new surgery to serve North Abingdon: the plans do include a “Local Centre” as well as a primary school so hopefully that will happen.
Rudi – i don’t think anyone is suggesting that house prices will fall, but there is a requirement that 35% of those built should be “affordable” – we need to keep a watchful eye to make sure that requirement is enforced.
All of these things are why a proper Neigbourhood Plan -which would be enforceable – is important.
Sorry Hester but forgetting the neighbourhood plan go a mo I’ve just seen the online Heralds feature on David Cameron supporting the Vales intention of becoming a unitary council by abolishing occ and complete amalgamating with SODC to become one entity? To me this is very worrying, 1, is this anything to do with the PM getting his own back on Ian Hudspeth ( leader of occ) for writing a letter to the PM ( and publicising it). Criticising the £50 million cuts inflicted on occ by government? 2, how can enlarging the DC’s to create 4 mini county councils possibly save money? 4 x education authorities, 4 x highways agency’s, 4 x police & Fire agency’s etc etc, and what about the thousands if not millions the vale and SODC have spent in recent years making people redundant if they’re now going to have to go on a recruiting drive? If any layer of authority should go surely it should be the district councils as has been the case elsewhere? We are being poorly served and fed whatever suites the politicians at that moment, for instance, yesterday the PM spoke to workers at a British Aerospace factory that he was
Oops establishing better links with Saudi so as to procure more arms sales there, meanwhile in Brussels the EU has announced an arms embargo against Saudi? Who’s telling porkys? Who and what are we to believe?
Iain, appreciate your thoughts on this please?
Affordable to people earning £100000 a year perhaps
I’m not clear what you’d like me to comment on Steve – there’s 8 questions in your two posts.
I am looking forward to seeing some more detail on the proposals from the DCs and hope the County Council will also produces a counter-proposal which eliminates the district layer.
The points you raise about duplication may be correct but to be honest that depends on how they approach it for which we’ll need to see the detail of how they think it will work. At a more prosaic level there will definitely be more back office people than if it was a unitary county, but fewer than we have today with both tiers.
In terms of the politics, I’m not close to this so can’t really judge. When last years document came out the political issues seemed not to be with central government but from the district authorities, mainly West Oxfordshire and the City from what I heard.
I have a lot of sympathy for the City Council’s position as the needs of a city are very different from the needs of the more rural/market town issues of the rest of the county.
Having said that, intuitively i’d have thought a unitary county with stronger parishes/boroughs would be the cleanest model.
I agree with you Rudi. Affordable housing? People earning low wages will not be able to afford them. Homelessness is set to rise. The Government is doing nothing about this. No social housing is being built. It is so easy for some people to loose their homes. Just becoming redundant can do it. George Osborne has announced more austerity today. People smugglers tell immigrants that Britain is a very rich country. To use an old adage, Britain is all fur coat and no knickers.
This is not linked to the thread but I wanted to highlight that the widow of the gentleman who was stabbed in Poundland has started a petition to ask retailers to amend the way they display knives.
If you would like to sign it you can find the link on the Streetlife website.
Thank you.
Adequate housing for all these new people? Most people who buy these new houses will no doubt commute elsewhere – lots to London. A neighbour 3 doors away lived here for 5 years and commuted to London every day – in all that time we never saw them – don’t even know what they looked like. How many cars do I see leaving Abingdon every morning for their work, and yet see the same amount of cars coming in to work.
Yes, we’ve indeed become a commuter belt.
Shame all these new jobs can’t be filled by all Abingdon’s unemployed – people who already live here.
Abingdon has been a commuter town for a long time. Certainly for all my time here (over 5 decades).
There just are not all that many jobs in the town itself. My own “commute” has grown from 1/4 mile (town centre), to 5, then 9, then 45, now 66 miles. Yet I have stayed, I do talk to my neighbours, and they know what I look like.
Perhaps all those outraged, could advise what journey time or distance denies someone the right to chose to live in Abingdon?
Picking up Iain’s point about the County Council coming up with proposals:
As part of the County budget discussions, which resulted in cross party agreement, our group proposed reopening the debate about going Unitary as we see it as one of the few remaining ways we can save significant amounts of money to protect front line services. The County Council Leader wrote to the district Leaders two weeks ago asking for discussion about it.
Personally I am open to different models, though I think any resulting unitary councils would need to be larger than current districts in order to be viable in the longer term and to be large enough to attract good quality staff.
The County proposal also ties in with the discussions that have been going on about stronger links with the NHS, LEP etc.
What I genuinly don’t understand about the district council proposal is why you would bring chunks of Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire into the structure. Why not merge West Oxfordshire and Cherwell instead and end up with three unitaries within the county. Bringing in neighbouring districts will make it harder to line up with the NHS, LEP etc.
3 unitaries as Neil describes is what was on the table last time there was a serious proposal for reforming local government in Oxfordshire. Unsurprisingly district cllrs mostly favoured the three unitaries option and County cllrs wanted a county based unitary. In the end the the whole thing was abandoned. I was a Vale Councillor at the time but supported the Single Unitary option provided services that could be, were devolved to the towns/parishes.
I still think that’s the best option
Here we go again then, seems all our councillors are in favour of a unitary approach providing it’s there council that doesn’t get abolished ! It makes no sense to abolish the county council in favour of larger districts (and more of them) you would increase burocracy? But I fear we’re to late even for discussion? I said at the time the only reason the vale merged with SODC and west Ox merged with Cotswold ( a council not even in the county) was to expand their empires to such a degree it would abolishing either of them impossible and as a result we now have the tale not only wagging the dog, but biting it too, sort that lot out then?
Surely there’s a consultant consulting on this?
No, CaptainKaos, I said mostly, not all., and some genuinely believed their level was the best option because that’s the level they knew and therefore could see how it would work,
Pray tell us how it would work please Angea?
Well, I agree with your comments at 8, that Unitaries based on joined up Districts are not a good option.
I like what Cornwall Unitary has done in devolving services that individual town and Parish councils want to take on. Falmouth has taken on running a local bus service, the library, the town’s public toilets to name but some. From what I’ve seen It seems to work very well.
Any town/parish can ask to take over a service locally so long as they can demonstrate that they can do it.
How does that work with rates Angela? I assume that a town/parish can charge a higher rate when they are providing more services, but does the unitary then charge less for people living in that town/parish than for those living in areas where they (the unitary) provide the service?
You dont necessarily need to adjust the rates Hester – you could have a cross charging process between councils to achieve the same thing. We already have this in Abingdon where OCC pay ATC to manage the town centre residents parking scheme for example.
Most of the above is just too, too depressing. Councillors being so huffy-puffy about their own fiefdoms.
It’ll all work out so inconsequential as National Politics, with CallMeDave at the wheel, is heading for Dead Man’s Curve to crash through the EU barriers.
All politicians at all levels are career serving party hacks without one useful idea between them.
With luck the Status Quo is a temporary aberration.
Iain I think you’ll find the arrangement the t c had in collecting street parking charges on behalf of occ has finished ?
Let’s hope so newcomer, with what you’re proposing… else we’ll be going down down, deeper and down. You’re right though, they just tell us Whatever you want….and leave us to be the wanderer…until we’re just left with burning bridges.
…I could go on…it’s an extensive Quo back catalogue…
I am probably a bit out of date on the arrangements with the residents parking, last i heard theres was some renegotiation going on with the county but that was a while ago.
Still the principle holds that services can be cross charged between authorities in this way.
Cornwall UA pays the local council to run the service, the local council is free to run it as they wish and add whatever bells and whistles meet the needs of their community but have to meet the extra cost.
Newcomer, your third para at 26 is not true and is very offensive
Angela, had I known how culpable you’d been in the Old Gaol fiasco I might not have helped you in the last election.
I find incompetence on the part of elected officials quite unforgivable.
Angela/Iain – thanks for the clear factual answer to my question.
I think this is going to be an interesting debate – I am amazed that some people find it so easy to make up their minds at this stage – I for one would like a lot more facts and am hoping they will emerge.
Mind you, who actually makes the decision? (That is largely a rhetorical question, but if anyone does know the answer I would be interested!)
Wouldn’t we all Hester, wouldn’t we all ?! Surely there would be some sort of vote on this? That said would we the tax payer really be any better off? Seems to me just one more political merry go round that will no doubt cost us all dearly ? B,t,w, are councils still offering final salary pensions for new employees?
As Ive said in earlier postings, I did NOT support Cranbourne Homes. I was personally prejudiced against them and so felt morally obliged to not take part in discussing them, although I had no pecunairy interest
Bill, would you say that, because some policemen have proved to be racist, immoral, and even criminal, that all policemen were so? or because one or two doctors have been convicted of murdering their patients, that all doctors are murderers?
If you lay down with dogs ….
Angela, were councilors to operate in an open manner I’d have no need to comment.
I’m not the only person who thinks like I do.
If Cranbourne develop the site opposite The Nags everyone will cry ‘Fix’.
People might not mind if the company didn’t build everything form the Lego Play Book.