A BLUEPRINT mapping Oxford’s future for the next 17 years has been rejected by the Government for being too sketchy.

Oxford City Council was told its Core Strategy document, which identifying sites suitable for housing and other kinds of development, lacked sufficient detail and would not be approved by the Government.

The full council had approved the strategy in November, but embarrassingly it has been handed back by a planning inspector for more work.

The document sets out the pattern of development across Oxford until 2026.

Among the key sites earmarked are a site off Grenoble Road, where the city council wants to build thousands of new homes.

The city council said it has already responded to the inspector’s criticisms and the planning document will be discussed at a public hearing in mid-July, where the inspector will decide whether to accept the strategy.

A spokesman for the council said: “We have added more detail – there have been no policy changes to the document.

“The planning inspector had some initial concerns about the level of detail.

“We have sent the revised version to the inspector after discussing it with relevant councillors and this will be considered at the public examination in July.

“We will be carrying out some consultation next month on the changes that we have made.”

Craig Simmons, leader of the Green Party group on the city council, said: “The planning inspector found the document to be inadequate. It demonstrates there is a lack of forward thinking and master planning.”

He said inspector’s response offered further evidence of the need for the council to engage in dialogue with the university and other big institutions about their long term planning requirements.

Last week, Mr Simmons and councillors from the other major parties said the Town Hall had to learn lessons from the planning dispute over the Bodleian Library’s failure to find a suitable site in Oxford to build its book depository.

After a long planning wrangle the university announced that it is planning to build the £25m book storage depot near Swindon instead.

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