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Infrastructure Week

Infrastructure week: What’s stopping Oxfordshire’s new houses?

Infrastructure week: What’s stopping Oxfordshire’s new houses?
Photo by Ümit Yıldırım / Unsplash

“Sir Keir Starmer has made overhauling planning the foundation of his push for growth, attacking the current rules as ‘ruinous’ and promising to take on ‘nimbys’ who have held Britain ‘to ransom’ and ‘choked’ the economy.”

So ran a splash in the Times this weekend. Local councillors have been fingered as the malign forces stopping Britain building. Developers agree (“Every time you have to engage with a committee of politicians is an enormous risk”).

Here in Oxfordshire, Banbury MP Sean Woodcock put the Government’s case to the Clarion. “Locally this is manifest by an explosion in the cost of temporary accommodation and a quadrupling of the housing waiting list. Councils must play their part in fixing the worst housing crisis in living memory, and we are calling on them to update their local plans and deliver the homes their communities want to see.”

But as we will see this week, Oxfordshire’s new houses are not solely being held up by a pantomime cast of councillors from the Village Green Preservation Society. There is one common theme: infrastructure.

Let’s take a tour around Oxfordshire of the near future, starting in central Oxford. You still can’t approach from the west by car or bus, as infrastructure works for much-needed extra capacity at Oxford rail station have overrun spectacularly with the 3+ year closure of Botley Road at the rail bridge. You can approach from the south, but watch for the regular Saturday tailbacks along Abingdon Road with traffic for the Westgate Centre – where a 1000-space car park was built despite Oxford’s road infrastructure already being full. Or maybe you might arrive by bike from the north, along Woodstock Road, where a crucial infrastructure scheme to connect new residents of Oxford North with their city centre was watered down to the point of uselessness.

Artists' impression of the Oxpens development (sewage connection not shown).

No matter. Our tour starts at Oxpens, under 1km from the city centre. This flagship development promises to be a new quarter for Oxford. The local branch of the Village Green Preservation Society, aka Oxford City Council’s planning committee, was delighted to give permission in January. (“It will transform the area and kickstart the wider regeneration of Oxford West End, helping it to realise its full potential.”)

But hidden in the papers were some frantic last-minute objections from the Environment Agency, received a few hours before the meeting.

“I refer to our recent discussions about the impact of wastewater discharges from the proposed development on the Northfield Brook. […] We object to the development because it will result in additional wastewater loads to the Oxford Sewage Treatment Works (STW) and risk further deterioration of water quality. […] Thames Water have yet to evidence how they will deliver sufficient capacity in their Phase 1 plan for the STW to ensure development can be accommodated (alongside new development with planning permission - and wider planned growth up to 2031). We have been engaging with Thames Water on their Phase 1 proposals since September 2024.”

Put simply: Oxford’s sewage works is full up, and the Environment Agency is not convinced Thames Water know how to fix it. And until they do, any sewage from Oxpens residents is going to overspill the sewage tanks, ending up in an emergency drain that empties into the adjacent Northfield Brook – and from there into the Thames.

The City Council agreed. It wasn’t in the press release, but hidden in the documents is this condition: “no occupation of buildings that discharge wastewater shall occur until adequate network and wastewater treatment capacity has been created”.

So the new buildings can go up, but no one can move in until the sewage works is sorted out at a cost of £240m. Thames Water promise it’ll be finished by 2031. Anyone who has followed the Botley Road saga may allow themselves a wry chuckle at this point.

Wrong side of the tracks

The next stop on our tour is Land North of Bayswater Brook. Not a placename you’ll yet find on an Ordnance Survey map, this is Oxford’s next great urban expansion, 1,500 new homes opposite Northway on the far side of the A40 bypass.

That’s over 3,000 toilets, all trying to empty into Oxford Sewage Treatment Works. Exactly the same issue as at Oxpens. Freddie van Mierlo’s Henley & Thame constituency includes the Bayswater Brook site; he says the current order of building first, worrying about the infrastructure later, is the wrong way round. “Instead of an infrastructure-first approach, we have stalled projects that either aren't happening or coming too late to cope with the unprecedented level of new homes coming forward.”

Hold that thought for now: we’ll return to Bayswater Brook later in the week. Because a short way along the bypass is Barton Park, already constructed, and already a textbook example of under-investing in infrastructure. The developers promised “outstanding housing design” and “a masterplan to support outdoor exercise, walking and cycling”. Residents should, surely, be able to walk or cycle the mile to the John Radcliffe Hospital and Headington’s shops.

But where Barton has two subways and Cutteslowe a bridge, Barton Park has the cheapest solution available: a traffic light-controlled crossing on a fast dual carriageway. The light timings, say residents, have been set to prioritise traffic throughput over safety or pedestrian convenience. The accident record is mounting. In January, an adult and child on a bicycle crossing from Barton Park were hit by a car proceeding along the ring road. Residents are calling for a safer crossing, but thus far, all that has been offered is a bridge down the road at Bayswater Brook.

Stills from CCTV of the car/bicycle collision at Barton Park in January.

More heat than light

Let’s stay on the A40 and head for West Oxfordshire.

In 2017, the Government announced funding for a new 2,200-home Garden Village just north of Eynsham, subsequently named Salt Cross. That was eight years ago. You might reasonably expect to see spades in the ground by now. You won’t.

A bucolic artist's impression of the Salt Cross development.

Salt Cross is conceived as a “truly sustainable” development. The new houses will be free of fossil fuels for heating, cooking and hot water. All energy will be generated from renewable sources, not least solar panels on the houses themselves.

In 2025, the idea of requiring developers to install solar panels on new houses should not be controversial. Yet this has become a solar flare-up. Government planning inspectors said in 2023 that West Oxfordshire District Council wasn’t entitled to insist on net zero standards. Environmental activists helped the case to court, where Mrs Justice Lieven told the inspectors they were talking nonsense. The Conservative (then) housing minister, Lee Rowley, disagreed with her and reversed the situation once more, saying “the Government does not expect plan-makers to set local energy efficiency standards for buildings”.

West Oxfordshire District Council has, perhaps understandably, thrown its hands up in despair and paused work on Salt Cross until the Government can make up its mind. Will it fall on the side of developers anxious not to be ‘burdened’ with too many obligations, or of councils worried about unsustainable development? Right now, according to Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover, “it is far too easy for developers to negotiate down the number of units for social rent or avoid building to zero carbon standards.”

(Lee Rowley’s Derbyshire constituents voted him out in May 2024. He is now Kemi Badenoch’s Chief of Staff.)

The road goes ever on

Our road trip could continue. We could take you to Didcot and Woodstock, where GP surgeries have not kept pace with housing growth. We could enjoy a slow cruise along already-congested roads which are set to become still more congested as new houses pop up – and debate whether projects like the Didcot/Clifton Hampden link (‘HIF1’) or the Watlington Relief Road will truly help. We could touch on schools, greenspace, and so much more.

Entire trade journals are written about this. But for what we’re calling Infrastructure Week, we have chosen to focus on four stories specific to Oxfordshire. Our menu for the week will be:

Though Oxfordshire’s MPs are of differing political hues, all have commented on the infrastructure shortfall in our county. Olly Glover has seen thousands of new houses appear without their supporting acts: “The number of homes built in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse districts over the past decade has far outstripped other Oxfordshire councils and district councils across the UK. A council’s power to ensure these homes are truly affordable, energy efficient and come with the transport infrastructure, health and community facilities required is severely hampered by national planning policies and building regulations.”

We hope today’s short introduction has opened out the debate a little beyond blaming the Village Green Preservation Society. By Friday, perhaps you might have a few ideas as to whether, and what, you’d like to build on the village green.

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