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New Local Plan consultation will be “before the end of the year”
19/07/2022
There have been hold ups, partly down to awaiting details of the Oxfordshire Plan
Our first look at a consultation document on the new Cherwell Local Plan won’t come until October at the earliest. It was twelve months ago that the council announced they intended to begin the process of consulting, as the first step towards creating a new plan.
Local plans are prepared to create a vision for the future of an area. They address issues such as housing needs and other economic, social and environmental priorities.
Work to date has included the submission by land owners of sites they are suggesting for inclusion in the plan, for new developments. A subsequent public consultation took place at the end of 2021.
At a full meeting of Cherwell District Council last night Councillor John Broad questioned progress on updating the Council’s last full local plan, which was published in 2015 with a life span of five years.
Councillor Colin Clarke, the Portfolio Holder for Planning, told Councillor Broad that an interim review had taken place in 2021, which was accepted by the Council. That found that all the policies decided in the 2015 Local Plan were still valid.
Councillor Clarke said: “It still is the bible as far as this council is concerned.”
He told the meeting that it was his intention to place a Draft Local Plan Consultation before Cherwell’s Executive at the start of October, but he acknowledged that there had been hold ups, some of which were due to needing details of the part Cherwell had to play within the Oxfordshire Plan.
Councillor Clarke said: “There have been delays which is purely and simply down to the Oxfordshire Plan 2050, which, as we know, the timetable for this has been reviewed and put back on a number of occasions.
“The Oxfordshire plan is a very complicated and totally unique plan to cover the whole of Oxfordshire and there is a lot of work that has gone into it and still more to go.
“It is hoped that there will be a draft [Oxfordshire Local Plan] consultation document …. ready in the autumn. The idea is that plan will lead the Local plan review, but as far as I’m concerned the Local Plan review is a priority.
“I can assure members it will appear before the Executive on October 3rd.
“If it turns out that the Oxfordshire Plan is almost ready, then that may be delayed by one month to the beginning of November. But certainly there will be a consultation before the end of the year.”
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam