Public speakers13 June 2023 |
1. Ian Green, Chairman Oxford Civic Society
Planning Advisory Group Draft Terms of Reference
Oxford Civic Society is very pleased to see this Draft Terms of Reference – we have been looking forward to it. Our five comments are as follows:
1. Purpose and objectives: we are delighted that a Planning Advisory Group is proposed to provide a forum in which local authority members can discuss county-wide strategic planning matters.
We suggest much more emphasis on the provision of a wide-ranging strategic planning forum. The forum provided by the Group would be enriched with the inclusion of business interest groups, community interest groups, academic interests and strategic planning expertise.
A wide-ranging strategic planning forum could provide stimulating ideas from all quarters and could be extremely useful to the local planning authorities and the county council.
2. Membership and Appointments: paragraph 2.5 is welcome as it acknowledges that partnerships, with wider partners and experts are expected. But it is unnecessarily qualified in that wider participation will be as the agendas of meetings require.
3. Meeting Arrangements and Structure: paragraph 6.2 stipulates that the Group will meet in private. Why? The future of the county is of great public interest.
4. Work Plan: one of the gaps in strategic planning in the county is infrastructure investment planning – how do we overcome the massive infrastructure funding shortfall? Could the Planning Advisory Group take this on, with a specialist sub-group looking at innovative funding sources?
This is consistent with one of the suggestions made by FOP for the work of FOP – ‘commissioning a piece of work to explore innovative funding options e.g., land value capture, social bonds to support in financing infrastructure ambitions, as well as other workstreams which support delivery of the Strategic Oxfordshire Vision’.
This is very consistent with an Oxford Civic Society report of July 2022[1] which emphasised the importance of integrated development planning.
5. Challenge: the Oxfordshire 2050 Plan largely failed because agreement could not be reached on the rate, pace and distribution of employment and housing growth. Why did it fail? Does the design of the Planning Advisory Group address the reasons for the failure?