06/10/2026
📢 Planning Inquiry Summary Day 8
After procedural updates, Day 8 was all about Housing Land Supply and discussion about treatment of Oxford Unmet Need. There were a lot of detailed discussions, this summary will be high level and as simple as possible!
The Vale of White horse issued a statement mid-September just before the start of the inquiry. This statement explained how it meets the required Housing Land Supply test of 5 years and so the Local Plan "stands". The Appellant want to prove it does not stand, and so help their argument that the Vale is not providing enough houses and so the appeal should be allowed and to build the 200 houses.
The first discussion focused on the validity of assumptions about delivery rates of house building to support the statement. A round table discussion was held reviewing a number of sites including Didcot, Grove, Kingston Bagpuize, Rogers concrete, Crab Hill and others. The debate was mostly about the validity of the developer provided build rates, and whether given market conditions these were valid/reliable.
After a short break the topic of Oxfords Unmet Need was introduced. It is argued by the appellant that some of the housing supply should be excluded from the data as this was to be for Oxford, the Vale argue that the plan stands, as whilst it includes Oxford needs, there are no specific sites or locations specifically allocated.
The background to the local plan and the development of it was explained. In short, the Vale have to supply 20560 houses over the plan period, and then another 2200 on top to help Oxford. The local plans in part 1 and 2 do this, with the Oxford part being delivered in the Abingdon and Oxford Fringe area.
Very detailed discussions back and forth, with the appellant putting a view that certain sites should be excluded from the land supply calculation as these were for Oxford, thus trying to make the test fail. This was countered by the fact that nowhere in the plan does it allocate specific sites, that these sites trying to be excluded are for residents of Vale and Oxford, and it could not be determined who buys these houses and for what reason. Lots of technical discussions through the afternoon.
There was also a separate session dealing with potential S106 legal agreements that need to be finalised "should" the inspector be minded to grant the appeal. This focused on requirements to address affordable housing, contributions to education, delivery of open spaces and management of them, biodiversity net gain requirement, highways and requirements around possible healthcare or community building. There are a couple of minor areas of amendment required and it was expected this would be finalised after the hearing around the third week of October.
The day ended with some further technical cross examination discussions on the Oxford Unmet Need topic.
Day 9, Wednesday, will start at 9:30am and focus on Planning matters.
