26/07/10…New housing strategy ‘some year’s away’

SOUTH Oxfordshire District Council has announced that it will commence work on a new Core Strategy for future housing development, after it scapped the last one following the general election.

In a statement today, SODC warned that a new strategy could be some years away.

The purpose of this key document will be to set out how SODC will provide new housing up to 2026, as well as how it will help to provide new jobs and help town centres across the district to thrive.

In June, a report on the district council’s Core Strategy was withdrawn from the agenda of the council’s Cabinet in the light of a letter from Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, setting out his commitment to abolish regional spatial strategies, including the South East Plan.

The old South East Plan had contained housing targets for individual local authority areas – including 850 for Thame, to 2026. The strategy attracted much opposition from Henley, Wallingford and particularly Thame, where a petition against SODC’s preferred site for a large housing development attracted many signatures.

The secretary of state has issued further guidance on what the council should now be doing and makes clear that revoking the South East Plan is not a signal for councils to stop making plans for their area and that they should continue to develop their core strategies, reflecting local peoples aspirations and decisions on important issues such as housing and economic development.

Cllr Angie Paterson, Cabinet Member for planning, said:
“We now have a strong steer from government that we are responsible for establishing the right pattern of development for our area, including the right level of local housing provision. The withdrawal of the South East Plan means that housing targets will no longer be imposed upon us.

“The responsibility is now ours to address how best to meet the various challenges facing us, including how best to foster a healthy local economy and how to meet the present and on-going need for more housing.

“To respond fully to these new freedoms and responsibilities will mean a fresh approach to producing local planning policy documents and we know this will take some time to do, probably several years. But in the meantime we are also very conscious that our current Local Plan only takes us to 2011. We need a clear vision to carry us through the next few years until we can deliver the next generation of local plan. We need a vision that will help us to continue to attract funding and investment for those areas where we are confident there is support for further development and that will also ensure we are in control of what development happens elsewhere – development led by our vision and not by speculative planning applications.”