Oxford City Council have no clear vision

Oxford City council’s new economic strategy is incoherent by design. It is driven by the Venn diagram below:

Choosing a Venn diagram allows the council to use a pick and mix approach where OCC e.g. can say that inclusion is a priority, but run projects that make Oxford more unequal. For more details of this approach, see the draft economic strategy.

This approach produces many contraditions, but contradictions also appear elsewhere. OCC’s Green Spaces Strategy states: “Play spaces should be located on accessible green space where feasible and include elements of natural and free play” and “A buffer zone should be provided around play areas”. Yet OCC want to build houses on the buffer zone around Bertie Park. The only green space will be on waste-land which is unsuitable for unaccompanied children.

OCC have also been consulting on their City Centre Action Plan. They say that delivering more housing is a priority, but there will be little housing in the city centre, and no family housing. They can build more houses for their money outside of the city centre (e.g. on Bertie Park). While city centre businesses struggle to fill vacancies, the CAP aims to create far more new jobs than homes. Increased demand inflates house prices. The council always use the number of people on the housing list to justify the need to build on Bertie Park, but what if their policies make housing less affordable, driving new people onto the list? The housing list has been the same size for at least 20 years.

The city centre action plan relegates homelessness to the section on “getting the basics right”, just above effective street scene management and cleaning and waste regimes. OCC see homelessness as a symptom to be treated, while their policies drive up the cost of housing, one of its underlying causes.