Green Belt 'will be reduced'

9:03pm Thursday 23rd August 2007

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Oxford's Green Belt is set to be substantially redrawn north and south of the city, opening the way for major housing schemes.

As revealed exclusively in the Oxford Mail this week, a review of the city's Green Belt will be one of the key recommendations of a high-level planning document released by the Government on Wednesday.

The report is expected to pinpoint pockets of land that inspectors believe could be removed from the Green Belt without causing substantial environmental harm.

Land off Grenoble Road, where Magdalen College wants to build 3,500 homes, is to be the most significant section to be reviewed.

Magdalen and Thames Water, owners of the site near the Kassam Stadium, want a settlement on the outskirts. Shipton Quarry, north of Kidlington, a former cement works, is ripe for 5,000 homes, developers say.

The recommendations are also expected to boost Oxford University's hopes of building thousands of homes on a greenfield site between Kidlington and Yarnton. Independent planning inspectors spent four months examining housing numbers proposed by the South East England Regional Assembly (Seera). Critics said the numbers proposed by Seera underestimated housing need.

Government planners are set to recommend a 20 per cent increase in housebuilding in Oxfordshire, compared with 10 per cent across the South East.

That would mean 9,440 extra homes in the county on top of the already proposed 47,200.

Oxford City Council leader John Goddard said: "Proposals to have more housing around the edge of Oxford city is not a proposal to concrete over the Green Belt - it's an option to use up to one per cent, which is no big deal."