Design review meetings - Oxford Design Review Panel

Meetings of the Panel

Oxford Design Review Panel (ODRP) meetings take place for a morning or afternoon session on alternate Thursdays, online if necessary. Face-to-face review meetings will be delivered in Oxford at an agreed venue often close to the application site. Larger and/or more complex schemes may take up to a full day to review.

If a second review is booked, all Panel members where possible will remain the same. In order to achieve quorum, the review should be attended by at least the chair and two other Panel members.

Site visits

Design Reviews/workshops are preceded by a site visit. The ODRP chair, panel members, the presenting team, case officer, and ODRP Panel Manager from Oxford City Council attend the site visit. For smaller proposals, a site visit may not occur prior to the review; however this will only be in exceptional circumstances. If no site visit occurs, proper site contextual information is needed in the briefing information. In general, site visits are not required for second reviews, unless major contextual or other changes have occurred since the last review.

The Design Workshop / Review

An ODRP session lasts approximately half a day including the site visit and briefing meeting.

In standard reviews, the presentation to the Panel should be approximately forty minutes and include illustrative material which must be sufficiently clear and visible to enable the Panel to understand the proposal properly and include the necessary level of detail. It is recommended that a physical model of the proposal within its context is provided.

The planning case officer should be present to provide a statement of how well the proposal satisfies the relevant planning and regeneration policy context. Other expert bodies with specialist interests such as heritage or the natural environment will be invited to ODRP meetings where appropriate.

Following the presentation, the Chair asks the planning authority for their thoughts, gives the Panel a brief opportunity to ask questions of clarification, and then devotes the main part of the 60-minute review to a discussion of the proposal.

The Oxford Design Review Panel report

The aim of the ODRP report is to assist and encourage the potential developer or applicant to achieve and maintain high quality design when the proposal is built. In addition, the report for a scheme will be conveyed to the Planning Committee through the planning case officer’s report on the proposal.

Advice makes clear whether the Panel supports the proposal or finds areas requiring improvement. The Panel may take the opportunity to make comments to the City Council in relation to design matters of wider relevance than the specific proposal. The report is likely to highlight both commendable aspects and areas for improvement. The ODRP advisors can offer clarification on the contents of the report if requested. The Panel’s formal Design Review report is not the minutes of the Panel meeting.