Oxford Core Strategy 2026 Hearings        Wed 29 July  10 am   

Notes made by Marilyn Cox, Secretary, Jack Straw's Lane Association, with additions from New Marston Residents' Association

MATTER 9 - CLIMATE CHANGE 

Issue 2: Energy and Natural Resources

The Inspector, Mr David Fenton, opened the discussion by asking whether the Council should set specific targets in CS10 of the Core Strategy for the reduction in CO₂ emissions.  Richard Wyatt, a Planning Policy Officer for the City Council, replied that proposed modifications were being considered and the City Council had already adopted an SPD (Supplementary Planning Document) requiring a 20% reduction in carbon emissions, whereas the South East Plan called for only a 10% reduction over the same period.  However, he did not think the City Council would object to a minimum being specified in the CS as regards a target for reduction in CO₂  emissions. 

How, the Inspector asked, would this target relate to viability in terms of being both financially and technically possible?  Mr Adrian Roche, City Council Planning Policy Team Leader, said that the National Resource Impact Analysis SPD had been adopted in 2006 and developers were now keen to comply with the 20% reduction requirement on relevant development sites.  Mr Fenton asked whether there should be specific targets for large, individual, strategic sites.  Mr Wyatt did not believe this was necessary; sites over a certain size would automatically be subject to the CO₂ reduction requirement. Oxford’s West End development included a district heating scheme; the possibility of a similar scheme being implemented in Barton would be investigated within the framework of an Area Action Plan, rather than the Core Strategy.

In response to criticism from Mr Sean Feeney that the Core Strategy was unsound in relation to reducing carbon emissions and that the proposals merely constituted a ‘branding exercise’, given the large amounts of energy lost or required by the demolition and redevelopment of buildings, Mr Roche said that the City Council had an obligation to deliver new buildings and the Government had set out requirements for new buildings as regards energy efficiency.

Professor David Gavaghan, representing New Marston (South) Residents’ Association, felt the City Council could do more in the way of generating energy from renewable sources and reducing the carbon footprint of the properties it owned.  He cited the micro electricity-generating plant at Wolvercote Mill and Osney Mill as successful private ventures.  Mr Wyatt replied that the Council had been investigating the possibility of wind turbines and that it had recently won an award for reducing CO₂ emissions from its buildings.  Mr Hugh Jaeger (a Cutteslowe resident and the Oxford Representative of Bus Users UK) pointed out that water-powered generating plants had advantages, as they would work on days when there was little wind. 

City Councillor Craig Simmons (St Mary’s), a climate change expert, said the National Resource Impact Analysis SPD was out of date and targets needed to be revised in the context of a Regional Spatial Strategy, focusing on renewable energy – hydro-electric/combined heat and power plant/photo voltaic energy – with specific targets for each development site.  Mr Roche said that this SPD was due for review and, in response to the Inspector’s question as to how and when this would happen, that the City Council would revisit the qualitative levels set out by the SE Plan and incorporate updates and targets for renewable energy use in a Development Management DPD over the next couple of years – ‘In effect, deferred?’ said Mr Fenton.

Mr Feeney said that another reason (he had mentioned various other ones during the course of the hearing) why the Core Strategy was unsound and should be rejected in its entirety related to Policy CS14, which stipulates:

That, said Mr Feeney, was not consistent with the Oxford Core Strategy Habitats Regulations Assessment, which acknowledges that as a result of the proposed Northern Gateway development the A34 would experience a large increase in traffic due to additional journeys made by people coming into Oxford[1].  The Inspector said that this aspect would be looked at in detail when the Core Strategy Hearings reconvened on 10 and 11 September 2009.

Issue 3 - Flooding

Mr Fenton asked what, in terms of the Core Strategy, the Environment Agency wished him to do as regards the flooding problems in Oxford.   The representative of the Environment Agency said that all sources of flood risk should be included. 

Professor Gavaghan said that the frequency and seriousness of sewage flooding in parts of Oxford, including particular parts of New Marston, argued strongly for its specific inclusion in the main text of the Core Strategy along with river flooding, not just as a footnoted amplification of the ‘other sources’ of flooding risk (referred to in Policy CS12) that needed to be considered in relation to planning applications.  Mr Roche had no objection to ground water, surface water run-off and sewage being included.  The representative of the Environment Agency asked for ‘other sources’ to be retained, in the event of changes being made, so that artificial stretches of water, such as canals and reservoirs, would be included.

Professor Gavaghan referred to ‘a long-standing battle with Thames Water’.  He said that there were problems with flooding from sewers across Oxford and these had been raised regularly at Area Committee meetings.  As more developments were approved and built, the flooding became worse.

Mr Fenton asked whether New MARA’s claim that sewage flooding was a big problem in Oxford was justified.  Mr Fox replied that to date Thames Water had not produced any report on this but their failure to produce such a report ‘flew in the face’ of what had been experienced in Oxford.  A representative of Thames Water is due to address a meeting of the North East Area Committee in October 2009.

Professor Gavaghan maintained that the City Council was basing decisions on planning applications on incorrect evidence, as the model produced by Thames Water was faulty, one major flaw being that Thames Water used average flow rather than peak flow data. Professor Gavaghan also referred to the difficulty of engaging decisively at a local level because senior Thames Water engineering personnel were not usually assigned to liaison with local residents. He suggested that, since Council officers were well apprised of the problems experienced by residents, highlighting the seriousness of sewage flooding in the Core Strategy offered a good opportunity for the Council to secure an adequate level of engagement from Thames Water in solving the problem.  

Cllr Simmonds wanted more emphasis on the effects of climate change.  It was necessary, he said, to provide ‘a context for targets’, eg employment, retail space, rather than just seeing ‘more lip service paid to grand aspirations’ and ‘grandstanding’.  Mr Feeney felt the Core Strategy failed in not giving indications of the cost of improvements to the sewerage system that would be required as a result of new housing and job creation.  New MARA agreed that the costing of sewerage system improvements should be included for new developments.

Mr Fenton asked whether any new sewerage works were needed.  Mr Roche replied that the sewage treatment facility at Sandford was adequate.  There were proposals to upgrade it but not to increase capacity.  He said there was no overall problem with sewage flooding in Oxford, just local problems relating to certain drains.

Mr Jaeger pointed out that a flood risk assessment was not just necessary for larger sites.  He gave, as one example, the small Marlborough Court development at the end of Duke Street in Botley, which has prevented flood water escaping onto open ground, resulting in serious flooding in Duke Street.  He asked for the word ‘may’ in the sentence ‘Sustainable drainage systems may also be required for smaller developments, such as hard-standing on front gardens, as cumulatively these can also increase flood risk’[2] to be changed to ‘must’. 

The Environment Agency’s representative said that, although the question of hard standing was not referred to in the Core Strategy, it was covered by PPS25[3] (changes in relation to hard standing had been made earlier in 2009).  The City Council said that the Core Strategy stipulated that any new development should not exacerbate flooding problems elsewhere.

Mr Jaeger referred to a BBC news item on 22 July 2009, during which Mr Michael Crofton-Briggs, Head of City Development, Oxford City Council, had said that half of the flooding in 2007 had been caused by surface water run-off and had predicted that things would get worse.  Mr Wyatt said the City Council based its decisions on the statistics it had been given, not on the BBC.

Referring to Policy CS13 Biodiversity, the Inspector asked whether the intention was to seek to achieve a net gain rather than just avoiding loss.  Mr Wyatt said that the third paragraph of Policy CS13 did look at the possibility of creating a net gain and that, in relation to local sites, the City Council felt that the following was sufficient:

The representative of Oxfordshire County Council said that PPS9 did state that the aim should be to conserve or ‘enhance’ and that they had suggested a change to the wording so that there was an explicit requirement for the loss of local sites to be ‘mitigated or compensated for to achieve a net gain’.  The representative of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust felt this was insufficient and wanted the aim to be purely that of a net gain.  Dr Curt Lamberth (New Marston Wildlife Group) was also concerned about the reference to mitigation and compensation.  He said that many habitats depended on the hydrology and/or other very specific requirements provided by the site in question; it would be better to both conserve existing habitats and create new ones. 

Professor Kerry Patterson, representing Headington and St Clement’s Residents’ Associations, was also worried by the use of the term ‘mitigation’, which, he felt, could prove ineffective or impossible to achieve in practice.  He referred to the institutional development of 1.5 million sq ft in Headington over the years and said that the remaining green space was needed there for local residents.  He stressed the importance of Warneford Meadow (which, he said, was only one third of the size it was 20 years ago) both as part of the wildlife corridor extending to the East towards the Cherwell and as a valuable amenity for staff and patients of the Churchill Cancer Hospital and users of the hospital’s Maggie’s Centre.  However, although in April 2009 Oxfordshire County Council’s Planning & Regulation Committee decided to accept the Inspector’s Report and register Warneford Meadow as a Town Green, in June the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust requested a judicial review of the Inspector’s recommendation.  Development of the Meadow is permitted under Policy DS.87 of the current Local Plan and Professor Patterson asked for this policy to be rescinded.

Dr Susan Mallett (New Marston Wildlife Group) said that sites were often dependent on what was around them; if they became isolated as a result of development, their stability would be undermined.  A management plan was needed that would define aspects that were important to the creation of a habitat and how to protect these and the area’s biodiversity.

Natural England’s representative supported the idea of ‘buffering and linkage’ of sites, expressed concerns about the encroachment of recreational use that threatens habitats and called for consideration of how to respond to climate change.

Mr Jaeger (Bus Users UK), taking up the point of climate change, felt the City Council should be doing more to prevent the loss of broad-leaved tree cover in the city.  The policy of simply replacing a felled tree by a new one was not the answer.  Replacing a 30 ft mature tree with a sapling resulted in a huge loss of leaf cover.  He believed the Core Strategy, which covered the next 17 years, should seek to maintain at least the current level of broad leaf cover in the City and aspire to increasing it within the lifetime of the Core Strategy.

City Cllr Nuala Young (St Clement’s) pointed out the importance of ponds, which actually support more species than rivers.  A lot of ponds had been lost -  eg in South Parks. 

Mrs Sarah Benfield expressed concern about the loss of wildlife corridors and large areas of hedges.  

In response, Mr Roche said the City Council had already undertaken some habitat surveys and more were to follow.  Protection of habitats was afforded by SSSIs, SLINCs and SACs[4] and records of species were available in the Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre.  Dr Lamberth pointed out that these records were out of date by a few years due to resource limitations. Furthermore, the loss of biodiversity over such short periods could not be measured by standard methods but would still be significant over longer periods.  For example, sometimes the numbers of a monitored BAP or rare species are so low that year to year variations in such a small number become meaningless

Mr Feeney asked what was the baseline evidence the Council was going to use?  In response Oxford City Council said Phase I habitats survey (including BAP[5] species), a monitoring framework and the problem is measurement.  OCC will use information from Thames Valley Environmental Record Centre, which provides  GIS (Geographical Information Systems) layers of records for planning applications.

Dr Curt Lamberth (New Marston Wildlife Group) emphasised that seasonal variations were so large that such short term monitoring became meaningless.

Mr Fenton asked for clarification on how the Core Strategy addressed the isolation/fragmentation of wildlife corridors. 

Mr Roche said that a saved policy [a policy that will be maintained] in the current Local Plan addresses this question.  The Site Allocation Development Plan will include wildlife corridors and make provision for new ones as part of a strategic network – the Oxford Habitat Network; the Council didn’t want to get involved with giving details and listing suggestions for this in the Core Strategy.  The Council is also considering whether wildlife corridors should be viewed as being not only important for biodiversity but important simply as green spaces.

The Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust said there was a need for a ‘green infrastructure’[6] in Oxford to address the problems of climate change and flooding and to consider ‘multifunctional green spaces’.  The Core Strategy had no identification of such a network.  However, BBOWT indicated that it would not wish to see the wildlife elements watered down by multifunctionalism.

While welcoming the City Council’s intention to create new habitats, Dr Mallett said that potential sites were disappearing rapidly while difficult decisions were being delayed.  New Marston (South Parks), for example, had been designated as a wildlife corridor but it was isolated from the green belt, river plain and protected sites.  Any contribution to biodiversity made by a wildlife corridor within Oxford will be diluted, if the corridor does not link up with the green belt/flood plain outside the city.  Cllr Nuala Young suggested there was potential for an ‘inner green link’: Marston Meadows → Headington Hill Park → South Park  → Warneford Meadow → Boundary Brook  → Lye Valley → Bartlemas Enclosure, especially the area along Boundary Brook, which could be widened to take it from the northern part of the Cherwell to the southern part of the Thames.  Action was needed now before habitats were encroached upon.  These comments were supported by Mrs Benfield.

Mr Fenton asked whether the City Council intended to produce a habitat network plan - a Site Allocations DPD will be considered but would they take ‘a holistic view’?  Mr Roche said that Policy CS13 could make it clear that a strategic network – particularly important to East Oxford – would be considered.   In response to the Inspector’s request that he outline a programme for this, Mr Roche said that a review of wildlife sites was already in progress and will be completed by 2010 to 2011.  The results will be used to produce a Site Allocations DPD or a Development Management DPD. 

Mr Fenton asked whether the site allocations document would include an up-date on wildlife corridors and the wildlife network, and would it give interested parties an opportunity to provide input.  Mr Roche replied that the City Council had looked at ways of joining the sites together to form a network and everyone was welcome to suggest how these links should be made.  Mr Fenton asked whether this work would lead to ‘desire lines’ for planning purposes, which would provide guidance when a planning application came up for consideration; these, said Mr Roche, would be shown on a Proposals Map.  Would this Proposals Map include existing and desired wildlife corridors?  Mr Roche replied that both would be shown, with a proposed designation for the new ones.

Dr Lamberth expressed concern about proposals for basing the Site Allocation Development Plan purely on the number of species, as a site might be too small for such an approach.  Instead, he suggested considering:

1.  Connectivity
2.  Stability
3.  Inter-relationship between species
4.  Framework for habitats
5.  Management plan for requirements.

He also asked for gardens to be included, as these could now contain a higher number of species proportionally than agricultural land.  Well-treed roads should also be included (for bats etc), not just those growing in specified green areas. (Mr Fenton asked Dr Lamberth to send details of his suggestions to the Programme Officer.)  Cllr Young also felt small pockets of green space were important and that they should be safeguarded; there were a lot more of them on the map than had been properly recognised to date.

Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society felt that a weakness of the Core Strategy was that it failed to recognise the close relationship between heritage and the value of wildlife conservation.  Urban areas can provide habitats and much of the wildlife corridors are important parts of the historic infrastructure of the city.

Mr Jaeger highlighted a discrepancy between the encouraging words on page 67 of the Core Strategy (ideas for enhancing biodiversity) and the lack of ambition shown in the last paragraph of Policy CS13 (p. 70), which, referring to flood plains, biodiversity and habitat network, reads: ‘Opportunities will be taken…’.  Mr Jaeger felt that the City Council should instead refer to ‘Initiatives’ being introduced in order to protect biodiversity.   Adrian Roche (City Council) said that initiatiaves would be taken with ONCF and that the CS should include other areas that did not merit a designation of their own.

Regarding CS13, Mr Jaeger suggested that a pro-active, rather than just reactive, scheme would be beneficial.  Could the City Council consider a scheme whereby residents were encouraged to plant on their own land a tree that would grow to a good size, thereby providing a habitat for wildlife, as well as contributing to the city’s broad-leaf surface area.  Could a requirement for green space be incorporated into planning consents? 

Oxford Preservation Trust suggested a Natural & Built Environments DPD be produced for the city to provide ‘a sense of place’.  Mr Roche said the City Council would need time to consider the wording and that it was more difficult to produce a separate DPD.

Dr Mallett had concerns regarding some of the wording of Policy CS13: ‘adverse impact’, ‘significant adverse effect’, ‘compensate for the damage, ‘to be protected from harm’. How, she asked, could purely descriptive terms be used to monitor outcome.  Mr Fenton replied that planning documents often involved value judgements.  Dr Mallett offered as a particularly important example of the inherent dangers of non-quantitative objectives the case of the OXRAD land off the Marston Road, a habitat of great crested newts.  A ‘watching brief’ was supposed to protect the ecology and wildlife habitat but half the land area there had been lost when Astroturf was laid and hedges had been removed.  In practice, the ‘watching brief’ had turned out to be a digger driver keeping an eye open for newts, with a ecologist on hand to move them out of the way.  Was that, Dr Mallett asked, ‘protection from harm’ – moving the newts a short distance away and then having another go with the digger the following day?

On the subject of wording, Mr Feeney suggested that in CS19, the policy relating to Urban design, townscape character and the historic environment, the word  ‘respects’ (in relation to Oxford’s historic environment, its townscape and character) should be changed to ‘protects’, which would have more force.  Mr Roche said that although the City Council believed ‘respects’ was appropriate,  it would comply with the suggestion made by English Heritage that ‘protects and respects’ be used. 

Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society deplored the lack of museum storage space for housing archaeological artefacts unearthed during work on the Westgate development, as well as the loss of space in the Central Library for local history archives, which had been squeezed out by development plans.   Furthermore, the Society’s representative said protection of sites of archaeological interest, required as part of the planning process, was not always implemented effectively.   Skeletons had been destroyed in the burial ground beneath Bonn Square, while on the site of the former Radcliffe Infirmary a cemetery had been dug up in the course of the construction of a basement.  Policies for protection existed but were not always being applied. 

The Inspector said that his responsibility was not to monitor the implementation of policies but only to work on the policies themselves.  He said it would be very helpful, if the City Council could give thought to how the fulfilment of the requirements of policy CS19 could be monitored.  In looking at the depth and quality of the monitoring framework, he had noted that one of the changes related to ‘Timely development of a Heritage Plan for Oxford City’ and asked whether this Plan should have a link back to the Core Strategy.

Mr Jaeger asked about protection of the city’s view cones, not only those for people looking in from outside the city but also for people in the city looking outwards. 

Professor Patterson said that one of the attractions of Oxford was the variety of  buildings seen when looking down onto the city, for example, from Carfax Tower.  A restriction of 18.2 m in the height of buildings within 1.2 km of Carfax was part of a saved policy of the current Local Plan.  He suggested that this restriction be extended to the London Road – Oxford’s entrance ‘avenue’ – and Headington Hill in particular. 

Cllr Young pointed out that the map[7] showing the view cones had left some of them out: the views from South Parks, from the A34 to the West, and from Doris Field field towards the City's spires.