Oxford Local Plan 2042: Preferred Options

Oxford City Council is embarking on the development a new Local Plan. The Local Plan 2042 will set out the planning strategy for meeting the needs of the city, and once adopted it will be used in determining planning applications for a  range of developments.

It will set out where and how new developments can take place in the future to make Oxford a better place to live, work and visit.

It will look at how we can protect the things that make Oxford special such as open space, ecological habitat and areas of heritage.

It will guide how development happens, helping to support the transition towards a zero carbon city, ensuring high quality design, being conscious of health and wellbeing, and addressing inequalities.

Following careful consideration of feedback received from previous consultation, and a growing evidence base, we have identified a number of proposed policy approaches that we believe will enable us to achieve the objectives of making Oxford a better place to live.

Regulation 18 (Preferred Options in the First Draft Local Plan 2042) Stage

The Regulation 18 stage is the first of two statutory consultation stages for the Local Plan. At this stage a local authority is required to notify and invite representations from relevant bodies or persons. It provides the main opportunity to influence the content and scope of the policies in the plan, for example by bringing to our attention areas we may have overlooked, before the plan progresses to a more advanced stage. 

Preferred Options Document (First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042)

The Preferred Options document contains a series of draft policies which cover a range of topics including housing, economy, communities, green spaces, design and heritage. It also includes a development sites and infrastructure chapter, which sets out proposed sites that may require an  allocation in the plan. 

The draft policies presented in the document are what we have identified as the preferred options, which is the approach that we consider will bring about the most beneficial outcome for a particular subject area when compared to the other possible alternatives. The alternative approaches considered are set out in our Background Papers. 

This First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042 document is an important step in policy development which transitions from the issues identified through early engagement and collection of evidence, to the draft plan which will be consulted in the next consultation stage.  

Go to the First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042 Consultation document.

Sustainability Appraisal and Background Papers

The purpose of the Sustainability Appraisal process is to appraise the social, environmental and economic effects of a plan from the outset. It helps to inform decisions by assessing the likely positive and negative impacts of options, policies and sites across a wide range of topics. It therefore performs a key role in providing a sound evidence base for the plan and is an integrated part of the plan preparation process.

Part of the Sustainability Appraisal is presented as Background Papers that correspond with the subjects that are addressed in the emerging plan. They cover the relevant national and local policy context, research data and other pieces of evidence that have directly informed the policy options. The documents contain the full set of policy options for each subject area, and we highlight the preferred option (presented as the draft policy in the First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042) with discussion on the rationale for the chosen approach.

Go to Sustainability Appraisal Documents and Appendices including Background Papers.

Go to Individual Site Assessments.

Evidence Base and Supporting Documents

The Preferred Options document is supported by a suite of studies, as well as the Sustainability Appraisal. It will also be possible to leave your feedback on these specific documents in the consultation.

Go to Evidence Base and Supporting Documents

Maps, including the draft policies map

Our interactive policies map displays spatial polices as proposed in the Preferred Options document. The potential development sites listed in Chapter 8 are shown here.

Having unmet housing need means that the government tells us we have to see if areas of the GreenBelt could be developed for housing.

At this stage, we have ruled out much of the green belt as not being suitable for development, for example because it is functional flood plain or because of its wildlife value.

The rest of the Green Belt we have assessed against the purposes of Green Belt, and we now need to investigate landowner interest, biodiversity interest, whether there is access and whether there are any other constraints.

This map shows the area of Green Belt, the areas ruled out at this stage as absolutely undevelopable .

Consultation

We are seeking comments on the Preferred Options document for 6 weeks between Friday 27 June to Friday 8 August 2025. Your feedback will help us to refine the policies for the next stage. 

There is the choice of 2 questionnaires: a full set of questions that address all the policy options and supporting documents, or a much shorter set of questions that focus on key policy proposals and themes. 

Visit our Local Plan 2042 consultation page

During the consultation period, planning officers will be available to answer any questions on the draft plan at a number of locations around the city and online question and answer sessions.The locations, dates and times of confirmed events are listed below. We will update this if more events are added or if dates or locations change.

We are looking forward to hearing your ideas and views about the options in this document.

Previous engagement

See our previous Early Engagement Consultation report.

Next Steps

The full detail of our timetable for developing the new Local Plan is set out in the Local Development Scheme (LDS) on the website.

View the Local Development Scheme.