Above: John Roque's 1761 map of Berkshire showing Wicklesham Quarry: 'A Pitt'

“The worst decision I’ve seen in fifty years of practice”. This is the verdict of a Chartered Town Planner and expert in planning law on Oxfordshire County Council’s resolution to approve an outline application for a 29,570sq.m. commercial/ industrial development on top of ‘Oxfordshire’s most important educational site’- a SSSI, Conservation Target Area and National Character Area. This verdict reflects shock and disbelief across the county and in the UK’s scientific community.

THE RESOLUTION TO APPROVE IS IN CONFLICT WITH THE LOCAL PLAN SPATIAL STRATEGY (SO3) AND WITH 5 CORE POLICIES (CP3, CP20, CP44, CP46, CP28). 

However, nearly four weeks after the planning meeting’s ‘resolution to approve’ no formal decision has been made.

County Councillors were repeatedly misdirected on a neighbourhood plan policy that the High Court ruled in 2017 was ‘unarguably in conflict’ with the Local Plan. The neighbourhood plan failed to meet basic condition (e): the requirement to be in general conformity with the strategic policies of the Local Plan, and the Basic Conditions Statement was ‘manifestly flawed’. The High Court ruled AGAINST the District Council on this ground of the Judicial Review.

This ‘conflict’ was imbedded in the Development Plan after the Vale of White Horse District Council sent Faringdon Neighbourhood Plan to referendum and adopted it rather than waiting for the Judicial Review. The High Court had been asked in 2016 to rule on the lawfulness of the District Council’s ‘decision’ to adopt the FNP - but had no power to rule or act beyond what it had been asked to do. As the neighbourhood plan had already been ‘made’ by the time the case went to court - the ‘conflict’ was imbedded within the Development Plan. This did not mean the ‘conflict’ had disappeared, or that the NP policy was acceptable in planning terms. The conflict is a fact that must therefore be taken into account by decision makers.

Does this mean decision makers are entitled to toss a coin to choose which policy they prefer? No. The District Council is the Strategic Planning Authority and the Spatial Strategy and policies of Part One of the Local Plan have overall authority. Basic condition (e) still applies, as national planning guidance makes clear. These principles are clearly set out in the National Planning Policy Framework, e.g NPPF para 13:

“Neighbourhood plans should support the delivery of strategic policies contained in local plans or spatial development strategies; and should shape and direct development that is outside of these strategic policies.”

Furthermore, the proposed 29,570 sq.m. development is a ‘strategic development’. It is therefore outside the scope of a neighbourhood plan and must be determined in accordance with the Local Plan. (Neighbourhood plans can only contain ‘non-strategic’ policies to meet ‘local needs’.) These points have been made repeatedly in planning consultations and ignored.

The erroneous advice of Oxfordshire County Council’s Report to the Planning Committee is based on TWO MAJOR MISUNDERSTANDINGS:

(a) that a neighbourhood plan can be used to justify a major strategic development, and

(b) that a conflict between a NP policy and the strategic policies of the Local Plan can be resolved in favour of the ‘conflicting’ NP policy. 

On both issues County Council Officers misdirected Councillors. County Councillors were left understandably confused by the misleading suggestions, garbled and incorrect statements of Officers who told them the ‘neighbourhood plan is part of the Local Plan’, and that ‘it’s not sufficiently wrong that it undermines the validity of the decision’- and that they should ‘give full weight’ to the neighbourhood plan policy because it was ‘part of the development plan’.

Councillors were: -

• NEVER TOLD that a neighbourhood plan policy cannot be the principle of development for a major strategic development;
• NEVER TOLD that a neighbourhood plan must be in general conformity with the strategic policies of the Local Plan;
• NEVER TOLD of the ‘CONFLICT’ between the neighbourhood plan and the Local Plan;
• NEVER TOLD of the High Court’s ruling against the District Council.

REQUIREMENT TO CONSULT THE SECRETARY OF STATE

Under the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Directions 2021, a planning authority is required to consult the Secretary of State if it intends to approve a “major development” of 5000 sq.m. or more floorspace that is “out-of-town” and “is not in accordance with one or more provisions of the development plan in force in relation to the area in which the development is to be carried out”.

The proposed development is in this category. It is in conflict with the Spatial Strategy (SO3), the Settlement Hierarchy (CP3), Spatial Strategy for the Western Vale Sub-area (CP20), and policies for Landscape (CP44), Conservation and Biodiversity (CP46), and Employment Development on Unallocated Sites (CP28).

THE COUNTY COUNCIL’S POSSIBLE OPTIONS

Oxfordshire County Council may conclude it has several options having reviewed representations in the wake of the Planning Committee. It could: -

• Commission a report from an independent planning consultancy and send the application back to the Planning Committee with better information, an accurate exposition of the National Planning Policy Framework and Local Plan, and clearer understanding of the material considerations in this case;
• Refer the planning application, Committee Report and representations to the Secretary of State under the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Directions 2021, if it intends to approve the application.

If OCC takes the latter course, this could mean a Public Planning Inquiry will be ordered. An independent request to the Secretary of State to call in this application has already been made.

• Following the Planning Committee meeting, representations sent to Oxfordshire County Council include substantive issues – material considerations- that the Report to the Planning Committee failed to consider, with the potential to overturn a decision to approve at Judicial Review.

However, we hope that Oxfordshire County Council will seek constructively to resolve this application in accordance with planning law:

(i) recognizing the role of the Local Plan and strategic planning policies under the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act; 

(ii) recognizing and giving appropriate weight to material considerations including national planning policy;

 (iii) reviewing this application against requirements of the Validation List;  and

(iv) giving ‘conscientious consideration’ to several hundred objections, the contents of most of which were withheld from Councillors; and ensuring that the views and identities of the UK’s expert scientific bodies and individuals are given due recognition.

WICKLESHAM QUARRY IS A CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC ASSET OF GLOBAL IMPORTANCE and the ONLY LOCATION where scientists can carry out field research on the unique Faringdon Sponge Gravels. ‘Faringdon fossils’ were known to Isaac Newton who sponsored Lhwyd’s first Catalogue of English Fossils in 1699. They were objects of speculation among natural philosophers regarding the formation and age of our world. Two hundred years before Charles Darwin, as Secretary of the Geological Society, led a petition to the Treasury to purchase Mantell’s collection for the nation, these mysterious fossils inspired questions about evolution and extinction that contiune to concern us today.  The Geological Society has written to Oxfordshire County Council:

“Losing this scientifically important preserved environment would be of detriment to both society and science.”

Please get in touch with any queries or comments: protectwicklesham@gmail.com