Oxford City Council publishes first draft of Oxford Local Plan 2040

The plan aims to build more affordable homes, tackle the climate emergency and make Oxford’s economy work for all residents. 

The draft Local Plan’s proposed policies include: 

• Requiring all new homes and businesses to be zero carbon in operation  
• Requiring all major developments to plant more trees, hedges and other greenery to meet new minimum standards 
• Requiring developments of 10 or more homes to provide at least 40% as affordable housing 
• Allowing homes to be built on all employment sites for the first time 
• Requiring large developments to establish and deliver a plan to employ local people and deliver affordable workspaces 

The Local Plan also identifies sites where 9,612 new homes will be built across Oxford by 2040 to help tackle the city’s housing crisis. 

If agreed, the Local Plan will become the legal document that underpins decision-making on all planning applications in Oxford. It will replace the existing Oxford Local Plan 2036. 

The City Council consulted Oxford residents and organisations last year and used the comments from 1,730 respondents across two consultation rounds to draft the new document. 

The draft Local Plan 2040 will be discussed at the City Council’s Cabinet meeting on 18 October. 

The Cabinet will also discuss changes to the City Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which requires large developers to contribute towards local infrastructure improvements. 

Due to a significant rise in the value of business space – particularly office and lab space – in Oxford, the City Council is proposing to require developers of this land to contribute more to the local area. 

If the Cabinet approves the Local Plan 2040 and CIL changes, both will go out to public consultation. 

"The Oxford Local Plan 2040 aims to find the right balance to help us tackle the housing crisis and climate emergency, support our communities and residents, and make Oxford’s successful economy work for all residents. 

“We have left no stone unturned as we search for housing sites inside the city boundaries, and the Local Plan sets out the locations where an additional 9,612 homes can be built by 2040. We have contacted all major landowners to identify potential opportunities for development, encourage a significantly higher housing density than our neighbouring districts currently allow, and are proposing to allow homes to be built on employment sites for the first time.

“The Local Plan is also a major step forward in how we will tackle the existential threat of climate change. It will require all new homes and businesses in Oxford to generate enough electricity to cover their needs, to operate without using fossil fuels, and to plant more trees. 

“And, on top of this, the Local Plan will support and encourage vital community facilities, promote public transport, cycling and walking, and require large housing and business developers to employ more local people on fair wages.”

Councillor Louise Upton, Cabinet Member for Planning and Healthier Communities

Tackling the climate emergency  

The most significant change in the Local Plan 2040 is the focus on reducing carbon emissions and promoting nature recovery.  

The Zero Carbon Oxford Roadmap has found that around 60% of Oxford’s total carbon emissions come from buildings – and residential buildings makes up 25% of total emissions. Oxford has a goal to become a net-zero carbon city by 2040, and decarbonising buildings is key to this. 

The existing Local Plan 2036 requires: 

• New residential developments to go 40% further than Government targets now, rising to 50% after 2026, and zero carbon from 2030
• Overall, a 5% net gain in biodiversity, including requiring 10% of residential sites of 1.5 hectares or more to become new public open space 
• Car-free developments where they are within a controlled parking zone, near regular bus routes and close to local shops 

The new Local Plan 2040 aims to take this further by: 

• Bringing forward the requirement for all new homes and businesses in Oxford to be zero carbon to the adoption of the Local Plan 2040 – likely in 2025 
• Requiring no fossil fuels to be directly used in the operation of new housing or commercial developments (e.g., no gas for heating or cooking) 
• Increasing the biodiversity net gain of housing and business developments from 5% to 10% 
• Requiring all major developments to plant more trees, hedges and other greenery to meet new minimum standards 

Any offsetting of carbon emissions to become net zero will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances, and then only through local offsetting schemes in Oxford or Oxfordshire. 

Tackling the housing crisis 

Oxford is one of the least affordable places to live in the UK, with average house prices more than 12 times household earnings and about 3,000 households on the waiting for council housing. 

But Oxford has already built up to the edge of its boundaries and – with the constraints of the Green Belt and flood plain – has run out of large development sites to build new homes. The city is already the fifth most densely populated of the 64 local authority areas in the South East. 

The current Local Plan, which runs until 2036, includes: 

• Identifying land within the city’s boundaries to deliver 10,884 homes until 2036 
• Intensifying new development on previously developed land 
• Making it easier for large employers to build affordable housing for workers on their land 
• Requiring developments of 10 or more homes to build at least 50% as affordable 

The draft Local Plan 2040 proposes: 

• Allowing housing on all employment sites for the first time
• Encouraging the conversion of poorly performing or poorly located employment sites to housing 
• Protecting existing housing stock as much as possible, and disincentivising the loss of dwellings for other uses, such as short term lets 
• Continuing to limit student accommodation to the city centre, district centres (e.g., Cowley Road, Summertown, Headington) and land adjacent to existing campuses 

In the draft Local Plan 2040, the affordable housing requirement on developments of 10 or more homes has been reduced to 40%. This is being done because global economic factors have made housebuilding more expensive and, due to the success of Oxford’s economy, residential use now has a lower land value than offices and lab space. Therefore, without this change it is very likely that developers would choose not to use land for housebuilding and there would be fewer affordable homes built in the future. 

However, the City Council is continuing to prioritise new social housing. Within the 40% affordable housing required at larger developments, 32% must be new council homes, with the remaining 8% being other forms of affordable housing, such as ‘shared ownership’. This is significantly higher than the requirements for new social housing in neighbouring districts. 

The draft Local Plan proposes building 9,612 new homes within Oxford by 2040. This is lower than the 10,884 new homes needed in the Local Plan 2036 because Oxford has successfully built 3,780 homes since the Local Pan 2036 was adopted in 2016, and many of the large available sites in the city have been developed. 

An economy that works for everyone 

Oxford has one of the best performing economies and has one of the highest concentrations of knowledge-intensive businesses – e.g. scientific research and high-tech industry – in the UK. 

The city’s economy is likely to continue to grow. The University of Oxford has created 205 spinout companies since 2011 – more than any other UK university – and large institutions, including Oxford’s universities, BMW and the Ellison Institute, are proposing billions of pounds of investment in Oxford over the coming years. 

To protect housing sites, the City Council’s existing Local Plan 2036 prioritises housing over economic developments. No new land was allocated for employment sites and, instead, developers were required to intensify existing employment sites. 

The City Council’s new Local Plan 2040 aims to build on this by ensuring Oxford’s successful economy works for all residents. New policies include: 

• Encouraging the intensification of existing economic development sites near sustainable transport hubs 
• Requiring large housing developments (50+ homes) to create a Community Employment Plan, setting out how the development will hire local residents, pay fair wages and offer opportunities for local young people 
• Requiring commercial development proposals to include a strategy for delivering affordable workspaces for small local start-ups as part of their masterplans 

Supporting stronger communities 

Oxford is a starkly divided city. The gap in life expectancy for men between the least and most deprived parts of Oxford is up to 16 years, and 29% of children live below the poverty line. 

To improve public health and bring people together, the existing Local Plan: 

• Protects and encourages more leisure, community and cultural facilities in district centres (Blackbird Leys, Cowley Centre, Cowley Road, Headington and Summertown) that are within a short walk, bike or bus ride of most Oxford residents 
• Requires major developers to submit a Health Impact Assessment, which sets out the ways the development will promote healthy lifestyles (e.g., with new walking routes, playing fields or parks) 

The new Local Plan 2040 aims to take this further, including by: 

• Protecting existing leisure, community and cultural facilities, and requiring new facilities that attract people – from workplaces to places of worship – to be located near to homes and existing public transport hubs 
• Encouraging low-car developments across Oxford with good, secure bicycle parking 

The Local Plan aims to build on the success of Barton Healthy New Town, which was showcased at the World Health Organization’s Healthy Cities Conference in 2018. Alongside new homes, the Barton Park development was designed to embed health and wellbeing into the fabric of the community, including pleasant walking routes in new parks, outdoor gym equipment, sports facilities, improved allotments, and homes designed for whole lifetimes. 

Protecting and enhancing heritage 

Oxford is a world-renowned city with a rich and diverse built heritage, including colleges, museums and an iconic skyline. 

The new Local Plan 2040 continues to encourage new, high-quality buildings within Oxford’s world-famous conservation areas – but only if these buildings respect and draw from the city’s heritage.

Similarly, Oxford’s skyline will continue to be protected, but the Local Plan 2040 does allow for new higher buildings – if they are in the right location and make a positive contribution to design. 

Next steps

If the City Council’s Cabinet approves the draft Local Plan 2040 on 18 October, it will go out to public consultation later that month. 

The views from the consultation will be used to create a final draft of the Local Plan, which will be published and then submitted to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate in spring 2024. 

A public inspection will then take place and, if the planning inspector approves the scheme, it could be adopted in summer 2025. 

Consultation on the changes to the Community Infrastructure Levy will run in parallel to the Local Plan 2040 and, if the Planning Inspectorate approves them, could be adopted in summer 2025. 

Oxford residents can read the draft Oxford Local Plan 2040 by visiting the Local Plan 2040 webpages.