STOP PRESS

Councillors voted tonight and amended the recommendation on ways to handle planning decisions as follows:

Area Committees to be given the choice of whether or not they continue
to determine planning applications

So this means the paper will be referred through to area committee meetings for further debate, and if councillors at Area Committees vote against continuing to determine planning applications, they will have to do so in front of their own residents and residents’ associations who will be able to petition them and challenge them

Basically this will mean that, if councillors vote according to party lines then NEAC is likely to meet only every two months and won’t determine its own planning decisions, as I understand it, unless a couple of Labour councillors are brave enough to defy the whip.

This may mean that there will be disparities between the way planning decisions are made in different areas of Oxford

David and I feel that this outcome is better than we expected. We are really pleased that residents will now have the opportunity to have their say and we thank all those Headington residents and the Highfield Residents’ Association for taking such a spirited stand on the need for public consultation and partnership