A virtual hearing has been arranged for 30 June.
DATELINE 17/04/2025: West Oxfordshire DC has submitted a revised Net Zero policy for Salt Cross Area Action Plan (AAP), for assessment by the Planning Inspectorate. ‘We have carefully considered the best way forward and decided to continue to promote a net zero carbon approach’, they say. Read the overview.
DATELINE 19/11/2024: Climate collective Rights Community Action (RCA) has won permission to appeal against the judgment restricting the net zero ambitions of local planning authorities - starting with WODC plans for Salt Cross.
Meanwhile, WODC has written to request a pause in the Examination of AAP Policy 2, on net zero carbon development, highlighting the inconsistency of approach to this issue within the Planning Inspectorate.
DATELINE 31/05/2024: A new Inspector has been appointed to revisit AAP Policy 2, on net zero carbon development. WODC has appointed a Programme Officer to facilitate her examination; provisionally on 17 and 18 December.
DATELINE 20/02/2024: WODC proposed one of the most progressive plans for a net-zero village in the UK but Government planning inspectors said the plans were too ambitious! RCA took the Government to court to challenge this decision... and the High Court ruled today that the Inspectors were ‘plainly wrong’.
The tale may take another twist, however, as a Written Ministerial Statement last December says ‘the Government does not expect plan-makers to set local energy efficiency standards for buildings that go beyond current or planned buildings regulations’.
DATELINE 14/04/2023: Climate change concerns and zero carbon development: the fightback continues. RCA has issued a High Court legal challenge to the planning inspectorate rejection of WODC’s net zero plans for Salt Cross.
Locally, the EPIC response to the inspector is typically robust; and an insidious threat to biodiversity net gain is the subject of a separate blog.
DATELINE 09/03/2023: The Planning Inspector’s report on Salt Cross Garden Village AAP, dated 1 March 2023 and published on the District Council’s dedicated web page, represents a slap in the face for zero carbon ambition.
WODC will now review the report recommendations, particularly in relation to net zero carbon development, and formally consider its adoption. View the press release.
The Inspectorate is inviting confidential feedback from anyone who took part in the examination via this short survey form.
DATELINE 01/12/2022: WODC consultation on a series of proposed Main Modifications to the AAP closed on 4 November. A schedule of responses has been compiled and forwarded to the Planning Inspectors. 136 of the total 174 relate to Policy 2 – Net Zero Carbon Development; selected links follow.
DATELINE 23/09/2022: WODC is consulting on Main Modifications for the Garden Village AAP, as required by the Government Inspector.
Its net zero carbon development policy in particular has been watered down, since the Inspector ruled it ‘neither consistent with national policy nor justified’: view the press release.
‘It is notable that for a small number of policies ... the significance of the positive effects identified previously has been reduced,’ says the Council.
The Oxford Mail records a stream of protests, from local and national organisations; and EPIC promises more. However...
‘The consultation... is on the substance of the modifications themselves. It is not on whether parties agree or not with [our] reasoning,’ write the Inspectors.
‘We are very disappointed’
DATELINE 16/06/2022: The Planning Inspector has finally approved the Area Action Plan (framework) for developing Salt Cross Garden Village, excepting chiefly the requirement for new homes to be built to net-zero carbon standards.