West Oxfordshire Local Plan

Tue 27 Jun 2023, 12:24

The district council is working on its new Local Plan for 2025-2041.

Local plans are one of those things that sound incredibly boring but are genuinely really important, because they dictate where and how much housing is built.

Put simply, if Charlbury is ever to have any more housing (above and beyond small-scale developments at £800k+ per house), that needs to be written into the Local Plan. Otherwise, inevitably the current housing will get more expensive from year to year.

There was an interesting thread here last year which went over some of the related issues. It’s worth rereading.

The WODC consultation is scheduled for this summer and they will be inviting responses. That really means that anyone who wants to make the case for Charlbury needs to be starting now – gathering examples of good practice from elsewhere, digging into what’s allowed in AONBs, that sort of thing. Otherwise the status quo is likely to go unchallenged.

I am sure the Town Council will be doing a balanced and even-handed response as always, but I thought it worth flagging this up given that many Charlbury people (rightly) feel strongly about this and now is the time to organise.