CAMPAIGNERS have begun the process for taking their local council’s unpopular housing plan to court.
South Oxfordshire District Council approved its Local Plan at the end of last year, a document which sets out where 30,000 homes can be built in the area between now and 2035.
The council’s Liberal Democrat and Green had tried to scrap the plan because they were concerned it would lead to overdevelopment in the largely rural district, but were ordered by Government to pass it.
Now a company called Bioabundance CIC has began the process of taking the council to court in a judicial review, also known as a statutory challenge over the plan.
The company describes itself as ‘a grassroots organisation focussing on the consequences for nature and climate change of land-use in South Oxfordshire’.
One of its directors is South Oxfordshire district councillor Sue Roberts, who resigned from the Green group of the ruling coalition on the council after the Local Plan was passed.
Dr Roberts said the campaign group was working to ‘restore nature’ to the district and had begun fundraising online.
She added: “This is all about land use at the end of the day; when it came to that awful plan being pushed through at the fateful vote we decided we would challenge it.”
Advocado Nimby Sue Roberts, of Bioabundance, the company that wants to challenge South Oxfordshire’s Local Plan in court
Sue Roberts
A copy of a legal letter sent to SODC by Bioabundance has been seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
It sets out the terms for the challenge against SODC, and also lists Robert Jenrick, the Government’s Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government as an interested party.
The letter says Bioabundance believes SODC’s Local Plan fails to comply with the Climate Change Act 2008 because of the amount of homes planned for the district, and because many are being built in Green Belt land.
This will obviously fail for three reasons
Firstly standing – this group failed to make plan representtions and is is a front for those who voted to maintain the examintion nd adopte the plan.
Secondly for the same reason as the recent JR on Heathrow failed – a statement for zero carbon doesnt translate to automatic sector by sector announcments which have to made for public comment.
Thirdly because the NPPF already had a test for examining extra miles driven through pushing development outside the Green Built and rectifying the jobs / homes imbalence was a major theme at all of the Oxford pln examinations.
We can see the minanthropy of the Advoado Nimbys here in full force, housing i.e. people are automatically producing carbon so the less of it you plan for the better. Thank goodness this fake Mathusian Path was challenged by common sense.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions 