Oxford Local Plan 2042: Regulation 18 Consultation Report

Introduction 

The Oxford Local Plan will set out how we want the city to look and feel. It will guide new development to the right locations while protecting and improving the environment and people’s quality of life. It will help deliver the new homes, businesses, jobs, shops and infrastructure needed to support the growth of Oxford over the next 20 years and it will be used in determining planning applications and to guide investment decisions across the city.  

This Consultation Statement sets out how Oxford City Council undertook consultation on its Oxford Local Plan 2042 Preferred Options document between 27 June to 8 August 2025. This consultation stage was the Regulation 18 consultation and followed the requirements of Regulation 18 of the Town and County Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012. The consultation was also carried out in accordance with the commitments in Oxford City Council’s Statement of Community Involvement in Planning, which sets out how we will involve the community in the planning process.

This consultation statement covers: 

1. Which bodies and persons were invited to make representation under Regulation 18
2. How those bodies and persons were invited to make such representations
3. A summary of the main issues raised by those representations
4. How we intend to address the main issues in the Local Plan

Following the Preferred Options consultation, the decision was made amend the plan period to 2025-2045, rather than 2022-2042, on a number of technical grounds.  While the evidence base is being updated to align with this plan period, all representations and comments received to date remain valid and will be taken into consideration for the production of the final submission (Regulation 19 stage) draft. 

One of the main principles of the planning system is that local communities and stakeholders should be involved from the outset in the preparation of planning policy documents.   

This statement has demonstrated how Oxford City Council has prepared the proposed Oxford Local Plan 2045 in accordance with consultation regulations.  Extensive community engagement and stakeholder consultation has been undertaken across each of the main stages of plan preparation including main issues and preferred options. Comments have been received on the proposed plan, Sustainability Appraisal and the plan’s evidence base.  These representations will be taken into careful consideration and will inform the submission draft of the plan, including amendments to the contents where appropriate.   

Local Plan Timeline

Early Engagement Survey (March/April 2025)

The early engagement survey was designed to ask a series of questions to assess to what extent the public and businesses deem certain topics important for the Local Plan to influence and prioritise. This survey was designed to preview certain topics that are prevalent in Oxford City and that can be addressed within a Local Plan.  The City Council was also keen to involve those who might not normally engage with planning. 

This was a smaller scale exercise as it would build upon the findings and evidence established for the 2040 plan. The compressed timescale meant that a small-scale engagement process (relative to the previous Issues Stage of the Local Plan 2040) was put in place, as much of the findings and evidence base that the withdrawn plan was built upon was considered to still be valid.  It would also help us in not losing the momentum generated by the work of the previous plan.  

As with the Issues stage for previous plans, this early engagement exercise is not a statutory stage of consultation; it is in addition to the formal requirements (see below).  This additional stage was incorporated into the project timetable because it was felt that early engagement, before any policy approaches are drafted, allows people the best opportunity to shape the plan as it develops.   

There were seven main topics screened into the survey to gain a sense of how important these are to the respondents and what should be a main focus for the preferred options consultation stage of the Local Plan. The consultation survey was open for six weeks, running from 17 March to 28 April 2025. It was distributed via the Oxford City Council website, social media, press releases, the Oxford City Council newsletter, email lists, and posters in libraries and community centres. 

Download the Early Engagement Report Local Plan 2042 

Preferred Options (Regulation 18) stage consultation (June/August 2025) 

The main consultation document was the First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042.  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 were set out in our Background Papers. 

The consultation document was approved by Cabinet on 18th June 2025.  It had previously been considered at the Scrutiny Committee on 12th June. The consultation period, which ran from 27 June to 8 August 2025, was to specifically gain people’s views on the policy options contained in the document as well as the background papers and other supporting evidence base.  The outcomes from this stage of consultation, as summarised in this document, will help the City Council to prepare the Proposed Submission Draft Local Plan.   

Proposed Submission Draft (Regulation 19) consultation (programmed for Spring 2026) 

Following the analysis of comments on the First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042 Consultation Document, we will draft a Proposed Submission Document and consult people for a further 6 weeks. Comments must be received in writing (or by email) as they will be submitted to the Secretary of State. 

Examination (expected November 2026) 

Following the Proposed Submission consultation, there is an opportunity to make minor changes to the Local Plan in response to the comments made, before the document, the supporting evidence base and comments received are submitted to the Secretary of State. An independent examination is then carried out. Those who have made comments to the Proposed Submission Document have the right to ask the Inspector to be heard in person at the examination.  The Inspector will provide a Report concluding whether the plan is found sound.  If the plan is found sound, any changes recommended by the Inspector are made and the plan will be taken to Full Council to formally adopt it. 

Preferred Options consultation process 

Who was consulted? 

The City Council conducted an extensive 6-week long consultation exercise between 27 June to 8 August 2025 to publicise the project and engage the Oxford community in the Preferred Options Stage of the plan making process.  

The Preferred Options consultation aimed to directly involve residents, workers, employers, students and visitors to Oxford as well as statutory consultees, service providers and other stakeholders with an interest in Oxford.

Direct contact was made by email or post as follows: 

• All residential addresses in the post code sectors covering Oxford (door-to-door delivery of questionnaires to approximately 46 000 households)
• Statutory consultees and Duty-to-Cooperate bodies (see Appendix 1 for list of consultees)
• Additional local groups and organisations who were likely to be interested (see Appendix 2 for list of consultees)
• Respondents from the Early Engagement Survey who wished to be kept informed of further stages in the Local Plan process (180 persons)
•  All contacts on the Planning policy contact list, made up of persons and organisations signed up for updates on the Local Plan and related matters (400+ contacts)

Consultation methods 

At this stage in the Local Plan project the material that was published was focussed on presenting the preferred policy options and the evidence base behind them. The consultation focussed on asking consultees whether they agreed with the Council’s preferences for the policy options.    

A leaflet questionnaire was distributed to all households and businesses through the city which could be returned using Freepost.  In addition to being delivered to every household in the city, the leaflet was made available in the 7 local libraries and the central library.  

Postal distribution problems unfortunately resulted in delayed leaflet deliveries for some parts of the city.  We encouraged affected residents who made queries to return leaflets if they still wished to do so, and we continued to accept returned leaflets for several weeks after the formal closing date of the consultation. 

The main element of the consultation was based online via the Council’s online consultation portal.  There were two questionnaire formats, the first was a ‘short form’ questionnaire that was based on the postal leaflets – aimed specifically at people who only wanted to provide high level comments or had limited time to respond.  The second was an in-depth, or ‘longer’ questionnaire, through which it was possible to make representations on all the policy options and supporting documents that have been prepared for the plan, as well as general comments on the plan or the process.  Representations were also accepted by direct email. 

Consultation materials 

To make this information accessible and to engage with a wide range of parties/people and levels of interest a range of materials were produced with different audiences in mind: 
 
For people with 5-10 minutes to get involved: 

• Leaflet (equivalent 2 sides of A3) with a freepost reply with basic information, a simple ‘Strongly Agree – Strongly Disagree’ questionnaire and some space for additional written comments
• Online questionnaire based on the 5 main topics contained in the leaflet survey

 For stakeholders and those with more time/interest: 

• First Draft Oxford Local Plan 2042 Consultation Document
• Draft Sustainability Appraisal
• Background Papers
• Structured online questionnaire (on the Council’s Consultation Portal) to comment on Preferred Options Consultation Document (in addition to the option of submitting written feedback on the council website, by email or by post)

The materials described above were available: 

• On the Council’s website, 
• In 7 local libraries and the central library,  
• As hard copies on request 

Promotion of the consultation period/Publicity 

The Preferred Options Consultation was publicised through the following channels: 

• Publication of an updated Local Development Scheme (LDS) in January 2025
• Direct notification of residents and stakeholders as described above
• Publishing information on the City Council webpage, and dedicated page on the consultation portal
• The City Council’s social media channels. There were three paid adverts on Meta (Facebook and Instagram). An economy advert which had 733 link clicks, 19,629 reaches and 36, 478 impressions. A housing advert had 2,082 link clicks, 48,135 reaches, 89,658 impressions. And a biodiversity advert which had 873 link clicks, 14, 835 reaches and 38,864 impressions. There were also three videos on TikTok. A housing video with 55,585 impressions, 40,318 reaches and 375 clicks. An economy video with 26,423 impressions, 18,851 reaches and 148 clicks. A video about sustainability with 22,728 impressions, 16,950 reaches and 103 clicks
• A press release
• Posters distributed for display on all community noticeboards in the city
• Briefings to Local Councillors

Consultation events and meetings 

We organised a number of face-to-face sessions – including in person ‘drop in’ sessions at various locations across the city, attended by officers of the Planning Policy team, and a number of online sessions that were subject and topic based for which there was a sign up/booking process for members of the public.  These were widely advertised through the posters displayed on all community notice boards, as well as on our website.  The events were scheduled as follows: 

Structure of this Report

The report provides a comprehensive summary and analysis of all responses received during the consultation period. As outlined above, responses were collected through a short questionnaire and long questionnaire, both of which featured open text boxes to encourage broader comments on the plan and draft policies. In addition, comments and representations were welcomed via email, with statutory bodies also able to submit their responses via email. Each response has been carefully summarised and analysed by chapter and by each draft policy. Findings have been presented in two formats: data drawn from the responses to the quantitative survey from the short and long questionnaires, followed by a table of the summarised public written comments alongside officer responses where appropriate. Summarised responses from statutory bodies are presented in a separate table.

Supplementary information is contained in the appendices, including the list of statutory bodies consulted, local community and amenity groups that were contacted directly, and the leaflet posted to all Oxford City residents.

View the Consultation Report

You can view the report by Chapter - Download the Consultation Report by Chapter.