Oxford Local Plan 2042 - Early Engagement Survey

Overview

Oxford City Council is starting the preparation of a new Local Plan for the city to guide where new development can go. This early involvement is taking place prior to the legally required stages to seek early views from residents, businesses and other bodies to help identify the main issues being faced.

What is the new Local Plan?

The new Local Plan will aim to address the key issues facing all of Oxford’s residents and businesses. Based on the existing use of the land in the city, it will outline where and how new housing developments can take place in the future, ensuring the city’s economic growth is managed and made more inclusive for everyone whilst preserving the qualities that make Oxford unique.

The plan will include policies on the following key topics:

• Prioritising the delivery of affordable housing for Oxford’s needs, especially social housing and key worker housing.
• Flexibly allowing residential development on land currently used for employment, such as offices and business areas.
• Addressing climate change, flood risk and seeking to protect new buildings from adverse impacts.
• Requiring low carbon and environmentally friendly buildings with carbon and efficiency standards that will seek to go beyond national requirements.
• Protecting heritage assets and their surroundings, protecting in-use cultural and community venues.
• Promoting good design of new buildings across the whole of the city.

Why your views matter

Your views matter because the consultation will be used to shape options for how the Local Plan could tackle some of these issues within the wider planning framework. As part of the preparation of the Local Plan 2042, all previous consultation material, background studies, and evidence base documents are being reviewed.

We invite you to fill out this questionnaire to assist us.

What happens next

Following this initial involvement, the drafting of Local Plan 2042 will continue to involve all of Oxford’s communities and stakeholders. Further consultations will take place later as follows:

• The formal “Preferred Options” (Regulation 18) consultation where you will have the opportunity to raise any concerns or questions regarding the Local Plan.
• After a period of analysis, a further formal “Submission” (Regulation 19) consultation will take place on the final draft of the plan.
• It will then be submitted for public examination by the Planning Inspectorate.