Do we need concentrations of economic growth in already prosperous areas like Oxford or the Cambridge-Oxford Arc? These places may well grow without additional resources which would be better spent in poorer areas.
In Oxford, traffic, infrastructure, and planning problems are substantial. This makes the Interim Report of the Oxford Growth Commission, with its multiple heavily qualified statements, an interesting read.
Time for better housing policies
The foreword to the report summarises recent growth in Oxford and, to some extent, in Oxfordshire, and potential for more. It also mentions the need for “sustainable and inclusive growth” county-wide. But, as elsewhere in the UK, low-paid groups are not sharing sufficiently in such growth.
Oxford still has appreciable poverty and the poverty of the poorest in the country is worsening. Housing costs in Oxford for home purchase and private rents remain extremely high. This means even incomes of qualified and experienced people may prompt them to look elsewhere for work.
Only the Green Party can be commended for agreeing a policy to phase out private letting. A further process of phasing out private landlords is needed, particularly as Oxford has about 50% of homes in the private rental category.
Whilst the report foreword mentions improving housing affordability, options for this are not outlined. The report has already been condemned on infrastructure and affordable housing grounds.
Oxford does not need more market homes for sale or private rent; Oxford needs low-cost housing options including:
- council homes and keyworker part-rent/part-buy from the existing empty built environment and buying homes on sale;
- more secure long-term moorings for Oxford’s boating community;
- council aid for creation of more housing cooperatives;
- a long-term phase out of houses in multiple occupation on grounds of poor space per person, impacts on car parking, and the need for community building with more long-term residents. This could be achieved by steadily improving regulations over a 15-year period to encourage a decline in private landlords;
- a concerted effort to build council and keyworker apartments above both public and private car parks as an indefinite policy, up to heights appropriate to each site and retaining car parking at surface level where most desirable;
- reduced car parking throughout the city centre, including removal of most of the 4,000 Oxford University and College spaces.
Oxford City Council’s approach to housing is not the result of “limited capacity” or space, as the report suggests, but of policy limitations.
Unrealistic expectations of market housing
The Government is not meeting its own housing targets. Market housing enterprises pursue profits rather than build targets. In the long history of this problem, developers have not built homes unless they liked the prices they could obtain, and infrastructure may not be completed. Such planning permissions have reached about 1.4 million homes unbuilt.
Regeneration of existing settlements makes far more sense than building new towns, as facilities and infrastructure may already be in place. Regeneration certainly makes more sense than bemoaning the inability to deliver large housing projects (p.5), as peripheral or new settlements create new infrastructure demand. And it is of interest that Cambridge has been performing better in many respects than Oxford over the last decade.
Rail options are not pursued
OxRail 2040 as a county plan for rail does not currently include re-opening the Oxford to Witney and Carterton line. Nor does it include linking plans to open the Cowley Rail line to passengers to an attempt to connect this line northwards towards the Wheatley area. This would make partial use of the disused rail line through the area but ideally not include the existing viaduct at Horspath or a tunnel on the line, which is a sanctuary for bats. Underground rail options should be considered for much of this route.
It should be noted that the UK compares poorly to other European states, particularly France, in terms of underground lines in proportion to population. Oxford, like Cambridge, is an example of where underground lines are needed to help reduce traffic.
Green belt theft
Development on Oxford’s green belt will create satellite settlements, fostering even more car commuting into employment in the centre of Oxford. Oxford needs to use its massive brownfield reserve of car parks for apartment construction.
Reducing private landlordism
It is impossible to have sustainable and inclusive growth in Oxford, or address inequality, while about half of all homes are in the highly priced private rental sector (p.1). Neither is it realistic to expect the very low UK growth post-Brexit to change unless steps are taken towards rejoining the EU (p.2). Skills shortages are unlikely to be met without a return to freedom of movement with the EU.
Airport expansion jeopardises climate policies
Major roads linking Oxford to Heathrow (p.1 of the report) are, at current levels of usage and with the threat of further expansion of Heathrow looming, clearly not helpful for the climate.
A major imperative is deep and immediate cuts in human-created greenhouse gas emissions. Growth which contributes to overall transport emissions in the UK needs to be addressed in policy. We need a new growth story for the UK. But whether we need to focus on traditional ‘growth’ or an expanded list of Sustainable Development Goals rooted in green economics is a key question. Our mass media, and politicians, use gross domestic product as the major indicator for our society. This indicator is useless for determining sustainability or reductions in inequality.
Land use: housing versus food security
Neither housing allocations nor other forms of development on greenfield land are appropriate. Global food price increases and climate emergency conditions that create both droughts and flooding in countries the UK imports food from, necessitate more food production in the UK. Measures to reverse vast biodiversity loss remain wholly inadequate.
Human food production should use more pasture land and less for feeding domesticated animals on health, climate, and land use grounds.
The report levels criticism at the Environment Agency (EA) and other statutory bodies for being slow to respond (p.13). Yet this fails to recognise the long shadow of austerity plaguing the UK. The EA’s funding has been cut by more than 75% since 2010 – and it faces further cuts under the present government,
We should all be concerned about the impacts of AI and data centres on water and electricity supplies (p.16); and building a massive reservoir near Abingdon won’t make it rain.
Reducing traffic
Expecting travel by sustainable means to expand rather than private car use is unrealistic without more measures likely to achieve this. Oxford and its approach roads need Electronic Road Pricing; reductions in car parking in Oxford should be stepped up by all means both city and county councils can use. Active travel spending needs to rise in England. Specifically, walking and cycling networks need resources for delivery.
The great Oxpens failure
The Oxford Central, Oxpens, and West End development proposals are primarily for employment creation which should happen elsewhere in England. There is very little low-cost housing planned for this large area.
Pedestrianisation, footfall, and the local economy
Research has long demonstrated gains for businesses in pedestrianised and pedestrian priority areas. But Oxford has little pedestrianisation and needs more – particularly on George Street and Hythe Bridge Street to allow far better pedestrian access to central Oxford from the rail station. Moving the existing Gloucester Green coach/bus station to the Becket Street Car Park is also needed to create a better transport hub near Oxford rail station – currently under expansion works.
The Oxford East ‘Opportunity Area’
The Warneford Park re-development is to include a substantial increase in car parking which should not be allowed. As exemplified by the nearby Oxford Brookes University, there should not be any car parking in this area except for visitors and blue badge holders.
Too much faith in the market
There is no joined-up thinking about growth in this report – or the many relevant city and county council documents I have read. There is too much reliance on market actors for growth. Insufficient state resources to support this allegedly high priority growth area will undermine intentions.
The state remains unwilling to address longstanding issues in England’s poorest areas, including how they will adapt to the business as usual climate policies in the UK.
This report should have called out government for its faith in conventional economic growth and markets as inappropriate for Oxford, Oxfordshire, and elsewhere. Without major government interventions, traffic, water and energy supplies, and inadequate housing policies, will remain problems into the future. Bearing in mind the poor economic performance of the UK since Brexit, the advantages of rejoining the EU cannot be understated.
Comments? We want to hear them. Please write to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
