Was the Oxfordshire Growth Deal introduced in a democratic way?

Oxford’s City Deal, or ‘Growth Deal’, is excellent news for the city of Oxford, and also for the wider county.

It reflected many hours of negotiations with Central Government by elected politicians of different political colours, as well as support from local MPs.

Let’s face it – Oxford and the surrounding region has a great reputation globally: for the automotive industry, world-class universities, the fusion research centre at Culham, as a powerful player in the global publishing industry, home to fantastic hospitals, and much else besides.

But if we sit back and complacently rely on the successes of yesteryear, our competitors will get ahead. Decades ago, Cambridge and its surrounding local authorities reached a consensus on plans for new housing and employment sites and, of course, Oxford faces competitors globally, not just within the UK.

• Ed Turner

The Deal provides backing for small businesses, including those in the engineering and scientific sectors; it will speed up infrastructure funding. It will provide over 500 apprenticeships for local youngsters and, crucially, it will accelerate delivery of much-needed housing – including affordable housing for local people – to support these aims.

Clearly there are some who would sit back on their laurels, and try to preserve Oxford in aspic, as a quaint destination for tourists and Russian oligarchs looking to buy a weekend pad, rather than a live city at the heart of a thriving region.

This would be hideously misplaced – it would see jobs lost, some of the brightest minds in our region depart for other places, and it would also see much less investment in the infrastructure and housing that we need.

Of course, there are areas where there is not complete agreement: for instance, I’d like to see a greater emphasis on the expansion of Oxford for new housing, and would argue very strongly for new council housing as part of that.

But still, it’s pretty rare to see elected Tories, Liberals, Labour politicians, and the business community coming together, but in the case of the City Deal that’s exactly what happened. Let’s get behind it and make it a real success.

• Michael Tyce

NO: Michael Tyce, executive committee member, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Oxfordshire

The Growth Plan’s vision of an industrialised, built-over county, with mass inward migration, is not one that we share – along with, we are sure, the majority of Oxfordshire people who treasure the environment and amenity of our primarily rural county. None of us, however, has been asked. 

Under the Growth Deal, Government provides £108m for pet projects and in return the Local Enterprise Partnership – an unelected quango of local authority and business leaders – agrees to create 85,000 new jobs, to be filled by incomers to the county, for whom new houses must be provided. 

The consequence of this is the non-negotiable housing growth plan (the SHMA), which will increase the average size of every town and village in Oxfordshire – except Oxford itself which is already ‘full’ – by 50 per cent. 

How can this be happening? It was in no-one’s manifesto. There has been no vote. There has been no openness, never mind consultation, with the public at all. It is all being decided behind closed doors. 

When we asked for information on what they were up to behind those closed doors, they called in solicitors to say they wouldn’t tell us. They said that although disclosure would create greater transparency of decision-making, it could potentially mislead or cause unnecessary anxiety to the public and inhibit the frankness and candour with which views are exchanged. 

In other words, we should be told, but we won’t be, because, if we found out what they were up to, we would be so shocked, they would have to stop it. 

In my opinion, our elected council leaders in this secretive cabal have been both seduced with cash for pet projects – what Americans call pork barrel politics – and terrorised by Government threats to take away their planning powers if they don’t fall into line.

That means them going along with these secret schemes to transform Oxfordshire into an urbanised and built-over county, without any mandate from the people who elected them, or any semblance of democracy. 

It is still not quite too late to repent before the damage is irrevocable.

They should put the Growth Plan and all its implications before the public without delay, and call a referendum on this nightmare future for Oxfordshire. 

This is, after all, supposed to be the Age of Localism, and having our say – not grubby deals behind closed doors.

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