We have been told many times:
“Both the current and previous Local Plans were adopted after extensive public consultation and rigorous examination at a public inquiry.” (cabinet meeting,2024)
At public inquiry, plans are examined to determine whether they are sound:
For more than 30 years, plan policies for the development of Bertie Park have included the requirement to re-provide the recreation ground, including the MUGA, on site B. This requirement meant that plans were compliant with NPPF 104 when subjected to rigorous examination during inspection. But it has evidently never been possible to re-provide either the recreation ground or the MUGA on site B. Re-provision was not even a design principle. The MUGA did not appear in the OX Place’s plans until late 2022, after pressure from our local councillors. In November 2019, the OCC heralded their intention to “increase the play opportunities to children and access to nature around Bertie Place” by renovating a nearby play area in Fox Crescent and building “a new children’s playground within the (Bertie Park) development, which would be open to the public” (Oxford Mail).
When the 2036 local plan was submitted for inspection in March 2019, the plan policy SP32 was compliant with NPPF 104, but OCC knew or should have known that it wasn’t “deliverable over the plan period”, nor had it been deliverable for more than 30 years. OCC should also have known that Bertie Park was well-used, and that the requirement to replace the park with “equivalent or better provision in terms of quantity and quality in a suitable location” should have been part of the client brief.
By contrast, the plan policy for the 2045 local plan is deliverable; OX Place won’t have to advertise proposals as a departure from the local plan. It requires “adequate” rather than “equivalent or better” re-provision. No need to simply declare that “Bertie Place B” is “equivalent or improved … in terms of usability, quality and accessibility” (Planning Statement 2026) – which is a bit of a far stretch; all mention of site B is quietly dropped. The MUGA can be replaced “with an alternative type of facility or by improvements to the capacity of an existing one, provided the re-provision is in the neighbourhood and meets the recreation needs of teenagers.” The only other existing facility in the area (Fox Crescent) is much smaller and has no scope whatsoever for increased capacity.
“Adequate” is very different from “equivalent or better” re-provision, and so we will be challenging the soundness of the Bertie Park plan policy SPS3 during inspection of the 2045 local plan. But in a bizarrely circular argument, the 2026 planning statement states that 2045 local plan will itself be a material consideration at planning committee, and that somehow this plan, which is evidently unsound “provides further support for the approach taken in the Proposed Development, which locates the replacement MUGA and children’s play area on Bertie Place A to ensure natural surveillance, inclusive access and enhanced safety.” Which, in plain speak, means that they are going to simply shrink our recreation ground down to less than 20% of its current size, and couldn’t care less if our kids have nowhere to play.
Save Bertie Park Oxford 