The Government has just released a policy paper which sets out the government’s planned approach to developing the Oxford-Cambridge Arc Spatial Framework, including a timeline for delivery, its high level scope, and how they will work with local partners.

At Budget 2020, the government committed to developing, with local partners, a Spatial Framework for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc – the area that spans the five ceremonial counties of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

They say that this is an opportunity for them to work with communities and local partners to develop a plan that will:

• support long-run sustainable economic growth across the area
• help to make the area a brilliant place to live, work and travel in – for existing residents and future communities alike
• support lasting improvements to the environment, green infrastructure and biodiversity

For details see our Oxford-Cambridge Arc page.

The District Council has announced that they have formally agreed that all work on the proposed new leisure centre between Grove and Wantage will now come to an end, as they are unable to raise the £18.8 million the centre was expected to cost.
The project has been paused since September 2018 while they waited on confirmation from the government on its intentions for future council funding.

They are intending to develop and introduce a new Active Communities Strategy, which will identify ways of providing leisure activities in the heart of local communities both in Grove and Wantage and across the district.

So over the last 10 years nearly £6 million has been spent on the leisure facilities in Abingdon and about £176,000 has been spent on our existing leisure centre. Once again, no funding for OX12. What will happen to the contributions from developers towards leisure facilities? What has happened to the new homes bonus received for the housing built in OX12 so far?

We wait for further explanations...

Wantage Neighbourhood Plan was first drafted in 2014/15, with the help of the Campaign Group but was rejected by a planning inspector in 2016. The updated Plan has been modified to amend or remove the policies that were deemed unacceptable by the Inspector, but disappointingly all other policies remain unchanged.
There is a copy of the draft plan on the Town Council website.
See also our comments.

There have been several consultations on the planning system in 2020 and we have contributed to all of them.

The first consultation was on the Changes to the Current Planning System. Our response is available here.

The second consultation was about wholesale changes to the planning system and included an proposal to impose a calculation which determines how many homes should be built. Our response is available here.
The proposed calculation was withdrawn on 16 December 2020.