Oxfordshire County Council Minerals and Waste Development Framework
OCC are redeveloping their gravel and sand extraction policies through the Minerals and Waste Development Framework.
A number of sites have been nominated for sand and gravel extraction throughout Oxfordshire and the OCC have developed a series of spatial options for consideration. The recommended option(s) will be in force until 2026.
PAGE will continue to represent the parishes of Benson, Berinsfield, Berrick Salome, Dorchester, Drayton St Leonard, Newington, Stadhampton (including Chiselhampton) and Warborough (including Shillingford).
There are a number of nominated sites in the PAGE area:
SG-03 Land adjacent to Benson Marina (view map from Oxfordshire County Council website)
SG-09 Land north of Drayton St Leonard, Berinsfield and Newington (view map)
SG-13 Land at Shillingford, Warborough and Overy (view map)
SG-59 Land at Stadhampton (view map)
OCC originally devised a series of five spatial options for consideration and the PAGE area was listed in 4 of the 5 spatial options, putting our local communities at significant threat.
OCC have conducted a series of consultation workshops with mineral rights holders, statutory bodies, environmental groups and local Parish Councils. This round of consultation in relation to the five options took place between October 2009 and March 2010.
PAGE attended the environmental groups workshop, and each Parish in the PAGE alliance attended the Parish Councils workshop to reinforce the PAGE opposition to these plans. The OCC presentation from the March workshops is available to download from the County website.
As a result of this round of consultation, the County Council Planning Officers have consolidated the options down to three:
Option 1 - Existing sites - Windrush Valley (West Oxfordshire), Cassington, Radley area, Sutton Courtenay
Option 2 - New sites - Clanfield/Bampton, Sutton/Stanton Harcourt, Clifton Hampden/Wittenham, Warborough/Benson (including nominated sites at Drayton St Leonard and Stadhampton), Cholsey
Option 3 - Dispersal strategy - a combination of options 1 and 2, with a number of additional sites
The County Council have conducted another round of consultation with minerals companies, environmental groups and local Parish Councils in July.
Despite the rationalisation of the options from five to three, the PAGE area is nominated in two of the options, so the threat has not reduced.
Regional government consultation on minerals quotas
In May, PAGE and the Parish Councils in the alliance submitted their objections to the 2.1 million tonnes per annum quota placed on Oxfordshire by GOSE (Government Office for the South East). This quota was open to consultation until 1st June 2010, under a process initiated by the previous Labour government. Oxfordshire County Council also opposed this quota. Our submission to the GOSE consultation can be downloaded here: Comments form - Parishes Against Gravel Extraction 26 May 2010.
Coalition government abolishes the South East Plan
In an announcement on 6 July 2010, Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, announced the revocation of regional strategies. This means that the South East Plan, driven by GOSE to develop a top-down approach to housing targets, minerals quotas and other planning issues, has been abolished.
This should mean that County Councils will now have the freedom to determine their own minerals quotas: "Planning authorities can choose to use alternative figures for their planning purposes if they have new or different information and a robust evidence base." (point 15 of the Revocation Q&A document)
Although the South East Plan has been revoked, County Councils are obliged to continue the creation of Local Development Frameworks (of which minerals strategy is a key component).
PAGE have been building a proposal that challenges the current supply/demand figures for minerals in the county and proposes an alternative solution which could benefit the county as a whole.
We will continue to work closely with the County Council planning officers to get our message across that the GOSE target of 2.1mtpa and the County's own assessment of 1.58mtpa are unnecessarily exaggerated, particularly with increased potential use of recycled and secondary aggregates to replace primary aggregates from new minerals extraction sites.
2010 Planning Process
Although there is no confirmed timetable for OCC's planning process, we anticipate that any public consultation will not take place until after the summer. We believe the timetable will look like the following:
March 2010 - Consultation on the 5 spatial options
July 2010 - Consultation on the revised 3 spatial options with Parish Councils and environmental groups
September 2010 - Planning Department submits recommendations to County Council
Autumn 2010 - OCC Cabinet decision on preferred option(s)
Winter 2010 - Public consultation on preferred option(s)
The government is due to publish the new Localism Bill in the current parliamentary session. The County Council timetable beyond 2010 is uncertain, particularly with the new government in place and their policies to decentralise government decision-making down to local level. These delays give us more time to devise the oppostion arguments and gather more evidence.
Campaign events
PAGE held a series of launch events throughout South Oxfordshire to launch the 2010 Campaign.
Over 500 people attended the events, and have signed up to the campaign, with many more independently joining our Facebook Group and following us on Twitter.
We continue to run public meetings in the PAGE area to update residents about the Campaign. Dates for these meetings are published in Parish newsletters and magazines, are detailed on this website, and are published in our regular "yellow sheet" newsletter and monthly email newsletter.
