Agenda item

Cabinet will discuss and recommend Council on whether to approve the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal.  If approved by the constituent authorities, delivery of the Deal will be overseen by the Oxfordshire Growth Board.  The Growth Board is a statutory joint committee of the six Oxfordshire local authorities, the Local Enterprise Partnership and key strategic partners. 

The Deal, as announced by Government in November 2017, provides £215 million of additional government funding for Oxfordshire, to deliver the key infrastructure required to underpin proposed housing development, and additional funds to increase the supply of affordable housing.  This funding is comprised of £150 million for infrastructure, £60 million for affordable housing and £5 million capacity funding. 

The additional funding will support Oxfordshire’s ambition to plan for and support the delivery of up to 100,000 new homes across Oxfordshire between 2011 and 2031 to address the county’s housing shortage and expected economic growth.  This level of housing growth is that identified by the Oxfordshire Strategic Housing Market Assessment 2014, and is consistent with that planned for in existing and emerging Oxfordshire Local Plans. 

The Deal also includes a proposed package of planning “freedoms and flexibilities” to help Oxfordshire to plan collectively for the long-term, sustainable development of the county by offering some protection from the risk of unplanned speculative development for the duration of development of a joint spatial plan and early years of its implementation. 

If approved by all constituent authorities, confirmation, in writing, will go to the Secretary of State along with submission of the agreed Delivery Plan.

The Deal brings with it additional funds for Oxfordshire.

It is proposed that Oxfordshire County Council acts as the Accountable Body for the deal and provides relevant reports to the Growth Board on a quarterly basis.

Following decisions from Government expected on 5 and 7 February, the Housing and Growth Deal Delivery Plan as well as a full report for the Cabinet meeting will be published. 

Cabinet is being asked to recommend Council to approve the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Delivery Plan together with associated detailed recommendations to be set out in the report. 

Cabinet considered the report of the head of partnership and insight.  This recommended that the council signed up to the Housing and Growth Deal for Oxfordshire and approved the submission of the Housing and Growth Deal Delivery Plan to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

The deal involved all six principal councils in Oxfordshire working together to plan for and support the delivery of up to 100,000 new homes across the county up to 2031 through a joint statutory spatial plan and local plans.  In return, the government had offered Oxfordshire £150 million infrastructure funding, £60 million for affordable housing, and a further £5 million capacity funding.  The ministry had also offered planning freedoms and flexibilities for a limited period, such as a reduced housing land supply requirement of three years rather than the current five years, and a housing delivery test based on objectively-assessed housing need figures rather than the strategic housing market assessment figures. 

Cabinet considered the council’s options:

1.    agree to the deal as offered

2.    agree the deal subject to conditions

3.    reject the deal

Cabinet considered that the council could agree to sign the deal but first the following conditions would have to be met:

·         The scope of the joint statutory spatial plan must be agreed by Cabinet and full Council. 

·         Substantive work on the joint statutory spatial plan (such as the commissioning of evidence) must not begin until the government finalised the new National Planning Policy Framework and published a written ministerial statement establishing Oxfordshire’s planning freedoms and flexibilities.  

·         The joint statutory spatial plan must not allocate housing sites.  

·         Annual housing targets, trajectories and objectively assessed housing need must not be increased for any year in the life of the current local plan (to 2031); nor must land supply and housing delivery calculations be based on higher baselines than those already built into the adopted local plan. 

·         The council will only accept liability for any claw-back of funds arising from mismanagement by the Vale of White Horse District Council. 

Cabinet considered that the deal was better than no deal but preferred option 2 so that commencement of work to support and deliver the joint statutory spatial plan was subject to the conditions above.  These conditions would form appendix 4 to the report to the Council at its meeting on 14 February 2018.  The appendix also contained a list of matters where clarification would be sought. 

Cabinet concluded that the housing and growth deal would help provide much needed transport infrastructure across Oxfordshire, from which Vale residents would benefit.  Cabinet recognised that the sum offered would not fund every project; these would have to be prioritised by collective agreement with the other Oxfordshire councils.  Signing the deal could also help other infrastructure funding bids submitted to the ministry.  The deal would also give the council some security of a lower housing land supply requirement until after the joint statutory spatial plan had been adopted. 

Cabinet thanked the officers for their work on this project. 

RECOMMENDED: to Council to

(a)      agree to the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal (the Deal) (attached as Appendix 1 to the report of the Head of Partnership and Insight to Cabinet on 9 February 2018);

(b)     agree the Delivery Plan (attached as Appendix 2 to the report of the Head of Partnership and Insight to Cabinet on 9 February 2018) as the basis forthe Deal; noting that elements will be updated as detailed work programmes develop;

(c)     delegate authority to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader and the Growth Board, to make minor changes to the Delivery Plan that may be required to secure agreement with Government;

(d)     delegate authority to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Growth Board, to make non-minor changes to the Delivery Plan that may be required to secure agreement with Government, subject to the agreement of the Cabinet;

(e)     delegate authority to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Growth Board, to agree the Year 1 affordable housing delivery programme, phasing and processes specified in the Delivery Plan, subject to the agreement of the Cabinet;

(f)      appoint Oxfordshire County Council as the accountable body in respect of the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal;

(g)     delegate authority to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Growth Board, to review the terms of reference of the Growth Board and agree any amendments and any appropriate inter-authority agreements required to support the delivery of the Housing and Growth Deal, subject to the agreement of the Cabinet;

(h)     agree that the Cabinet will take any other executive decisions arising from agreement to the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal, until the revised terms of reference of the Growth Board are in place;

(i)      agree to participate in the preparation of a Joint Statutory Spatial Plan (JSSP) for Oxfordshire in accordance with the timescales set out in the Delivery Plan and in accordance with Section 28 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, the milestones for progressing the JSSP being contingent on Government delivering the Planning Freedoms and Flexibilities as described in the Delivery Plan; and

(j)      agree that commencement of work to support and deliver the JSSP is subject to Cabinet being satisfied that the conditions set out at Appendix 4 of the report of the Head of Partnership and Insight to Cabinet on 9 February 2018 have been met.