Oxford City Council currently plans to construct 31 homes on the existing 0.66-hectare Bertie Park recreation ground (Site A). This would squeeze our playground and Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) into an area roughly 20% of its current size. To compensate, Oxford City Council want to construct a 250m footpath on a 2.6-hectare plot of land behind Wytham street (site B). The site is currently open space, occasionally maintained by the parks department. OCC want to build a fence on site B around an area equivalent to the land lost on Site A, and to restrict our access to the rest.
Having previously installed bars to restrict wheeled access to the site in order to prevent joy-riding (blog here), they now want to build a huge bridge to improve access for pushchairs/wheelchairs. Thames Valley Police have always said that site B is not suitable for unaccompanied children. Local parents agree. We object to the OX Place proposals for Bertie Park for a number of reasons. Click below to find out more:
Oxford City Council creates complexity in order to obscure the issues. They state that proposals are in full accordance with the local plan policy, then advertise their proposals as a departure from the plan. Their documentation is contradictory and slapdash. Bertie Park is well-used, but the client brief is to upgrade an under-used site. In the 2026 Planning statement they have cut and pasted NPPF 104 twice into the same page (6.1.9 and 6.1.10), but this does not mean to say that they intend to comply with it. They say that their mitigating actions ensure that there will not be a disproportionately negative impact, but then they claim, in the face of all evidence, that “Bertie Place B” is “equivalent or improved … in terms of usability, quality and accessibility.”
The problem is that if this development goes through, based on such transparently dodgy arguments and shifting truths, it will rightly take another chunk out of the credibility of Oxford City Council, and severely damage trust in local democracy.
Save Bertie Park Oxford 