County could see 2,000 more homes built a year

Other authorities will be expected to take housing from Oxford, its city council leader says

Nearly 2,000 more homes than previously planned could be built across Oxfordshire every year, according to government figures.

The new Labour government said it wants authorities to permit just over 5,100 new homes across the county, up from about 3,200 expected by the previous Conservative administration.

Some residents said they worry about the impact on the countryside in certain districts, while a council leader said providing infrastructure will be critical.

The government said it wants to see a “big rise in ambition in areas central to driving growth, like Oxford”.

It said the previous way of calculating homes for the city “has been demonstrably below the number of homes necessary to support economic ambitions”.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced the government's plan to build 1.5m new homes across the country by 2029 last month.

It previously unveiled plans to review the green belt to identify lower quality land in it that could be designated "grey belt".

Susan Brown, Oxford City Council’s leader, said a lack of capacity has left many people “precariously” housed and resulted in “lots of family catastrophes”.

As part of the new figures, the authority will be expected to provide 1,051 homes a year, up from 762.

And Ms Brown said it will again be reliant on other Oxfordshire districts to help it fulfil its responsibilities, like the 4,400 homes that will be built in Cherwell district in and around Kidlington.

A council-by-council breakdown

• Cherwell District Council: from 706 to 1,095 homes

• Oxford City Council: 762 to 1,051

• South Oxfordshire District Council: 579 to 1,179

• Vale of White Horse District Council: 633 to 937

• West Oxfordshire District Council: 549 to 889

“There is no doubt that Oxford will have to turn to the surrounding districts again to ask for help because we simply don’t have enough land in our own district that’s not developed and developable to build housing,” she told BBC Radio Oxford.

“We don’t shirk away from our responsibilities here and we absolutely are taking difficult decisions within our own area about housing sites but you will understand that within an urban area there are limits as to what you can do.”

Andy Graham, West Oxfordshire District Council’s leader, said the government was right to conclude there was a lack of affordable or socially rented homes.

“We are already looking at being interventionist and building social rent properties in West Oxfordshire to address that shortfall," he said.

“If we are going to sustain our communities, we need to take a holistic approach to infrastructure. We’ve really got to have governments committing to invest in infrastructure.”

Residents opposed to a housing development in Banbury said they felt “unequivocally let down” after it was approved on appeal by the Planning Inspectorate last month.

A member of the Keep Hanwell Village Rural group, Cat Reid, said Labour’s plans could mean it “waging war on the countryside, one field at a time”.