Have Your Say on South Oxfordshire’s Local Plan 2034

The Local Plan and its supporting studies are district-wide planning policy documents that set out South Oxfordshire District Council’s (SODC) vision for South Oxfordshire up to the year 2034. Together they identify where housing, retail and employment land should be located as well as the infrastructure required to support this growth, such as new roads, schools, health services and sewerage.  The proposed policies in the plan will be used to help make decisions on planning applications in the district.

In 2018, South Oxfordshire District Councillors asked officers to reassess all of the main sites available for housing in the district and prepare an updated version of the plan for public consultation. SODC have completed the review and on 20 December 2018, District Councillors voted to approve the plan for publication and its subsequent submission to the Planning Inspectorate for examination. 

You can read about the background and progress of the Local Plan at www.southoxon.gov.uk/newlocalplan

The publicity period
Between 7 January and 5pm on 18 February 2019, SODC are inviting comments on their plan. SODC have carried out a number of public consultations earlier in the process. This next stage is formally referred to as the Regulation 19 publicity period. 

At this stage, SODC have to ask very specific questions. Partly based on the answers given at this stage, a planning inspector will make a decision on whether the Local Plan and the supporting evidence:

  • have been prepared in accordance with legal and procedural requirements;
  • have been prepared in accordance with duty to cooperate; and
  • are sound. 

The planning inspector will give more weight to comments that relate to these points, but you are free to comment on any aspect of the plan and evidence you like. These are explained further in the guidance note and video.

You can view all of the documents available for comment here.

Drop-in events
Drop-in information events are being held across the district to help explain the process and how to submit your comments. There will be a drop-in session at Thame Town Hall on Tuesday 5 February between 10am and 2pm.

How to comment
Responses can be made in one of the following ways:

Date posted: Friday 11 January 2019