Over 6,000 homes on stalled sites in Oxfordshire district

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

West Oxfordshire District Council's proposed target is to provide 889 homes annually up from 549.

But already sites with over 6,000 new homes have been approved in the district but construction has not yet started.

Developers at 1,250 home Witney North have questioned the council over 'lack of progress' on its planning application (Image: Witney North Consortium) These include large strategic sites in the local plan including North Witney, East Witney, West Eynsham and East Chipping Norton.

The 2,200 home Salt Cross Garden Village at Eynsham remains in a holding pattern after the High Court ruled that planning inspectors incorrectly applied national planning policy by not requiring the new homes to be built to net-zero standards.

Slow delivery means that the council is just falling short of showing it has a 5-year land supply, a requirement to demonstrate that enough new homes will be built over the next five years.

This is leading to more and more speculative developments getting approval on appeal despite local opposition, including in Woodstock, Minster Lovell and North Leigh.

In its response to a government consultation on its planning system proposals, the council said: "We are currently reliant on landowners and developers to build the homes we have approved, and in some cases, they are not delivering.

"We can't do anything about this.”

It said up until recently, rates of housing delivery in West Oxfordshire "have been very strong and in line with the local plan".

Hugo Ashton, executive member for planning, said the council wants to the government to reconsider the benchmarks for local authority performance "away from the number of housing completions, which we have little or no control over, and towards a measure based on planning permissions granted or sites allocated which the council can control."

Grosvenor's 2,200 home Salt Cross Garden Village has been in a holding pattern since a High Court ruling in FebruarySome housebuilders have been accused of land banking – sitting on sites that already have planning permission but refusing to build on them until they feel the market conditions mean they can make maximum profit.

Mr Ashton told the Oxford Mail: "The delays are due to many factors, almost all of which are outside the control of the district council such as developers not bringing forward planning applications and land ownership difficulties."

But deputy leader of the opposition Conservative group Liam Walker said builders were not to blame for missing targets but the Lib Dem, Green and Labour coalition's 'dithering' and 'weak decision making'.

He said: "The coalition at West Oxfordshire District Council repeatedly blame developers for not building whilst failing to provide any evidence of where this is happening.

"In fact, the council has been criticised by the Witney North site developers for dragging their feet on responding to a number of reports causing further delay."

Salt Cross developers Grosvenor also said an outcome of the High Court ruling in February was the council was required to submit new policies to the planning inspector for approval before any works can commence and they are still waiting for these.

Mr Walker added: "We have a complete Lib Dem housing mess in West Oxfordshire now only likely to get worse as the new government increases housing target numbers.

"Whilst they dither and delay on the strategic housing sites developers are taking advantage of the council not having a 5-year housing land supply and it's our villages that are taking the brunt of these developments.

"In recent months, the council has lost a senior planning officer and now the head of the department is leaving the council.

"This mess has been caused by weak political decision making and rather than taking responsibility the coalition just blame others," he said.