The Coalition Government’s City Deal initiative will benefit our area greatly if our bid is successful.

Oxford and Oxfordshire are preparing the proposal to government for a City Deal. This is an agreement between government and a city region that gives more local control over decisions affecting the local area, and helps create economic growth. Twenty city areas are currently preparing City Deal proposals.

The Oxfordshire councils are working closely together with the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, the science facilities at Culham Science Centre and Harwell Oxford, and the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership to develop a major City Deal programme that seeks to boost the knowledge economy and to create a new partnership for growth.

A feature of the programme is the development of new incubator centres for research and business across the region in the key economic hubs of Oxford, Bicester, and Science Vale UK. In Oxford, this includes the Magnet development at New Road and the Bio-escalator development at the Churchill Hospital campus. Other developments in the programme include the Northern Gateway, and West End Renaissance (Oxpens, Westgate and the railway station), as well as schemes to accelerate housing development in Barton and elsewhere. The proposed programme within the city is worth £730m and would attract £1.6bn investment, with over 16,000 jobs and 2,000 new homes supported by government and Local Authority funding.

Proposals are being finalised over the summer and will be presented to government ministers in the Autumn, with an aim to agree the City Deal by the end of the year.