What is a Local Plan?

A Local Plan looks ahead fifteen years and plans how much development is needed in an area, like new homes, jobs, roads and schools, and where they should go. It also sets standards for environmental protection, sustainability, water quality and much more. South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils are working together to produce a new Joint Local Plan.

Preferred Options consultation

As part of the councils’ work to develop the Joint Local Plan 2041, we asked for your views on preferred policy options and draft policies in our ‘Preferred Options’ Consultation, held between 10 January and 26 February 2024, to help address local challenges and unlock future opportunities across the two districts. 

What happens next?

We are now reviewing all the comments we received and will summarise them in a consultation statement. Your views will help shape the draft of the Joint Local Plan for South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse. In Autumn 2024, we expect to publish a full draft of our Joint Local Plan (the Proposed Submission Joint Local Plan) for a further stage of public comments. After this we will submit the draft plan and the comments for an independent planning inspector to examine the plan.

To receive updates regarding the Joint Local Plan, including when we consult on the draft plan, please register your details using our sign up form.

The Preferred Options Consultation – January to February 2024:

You can still visit our interactive online platform to view:

• the full Preferred Options document
• supporting documents
• and the emerging policies map 

We also have the Preferred Options document available as a PDF.

We provided two main ways for people to have their say during the consultation: 

• The Joint Local Plan in a Nutshell survey (this included summaries of our preferred options across key topics)
• The full Preferred Options survey (this included full details of the policy options, preferred options, draft policies, supporting documents and the emerging policies map)

We also held ten drop-in consultation events during January and February 2024, and you can continue to view the materials via our virtual exhibition (if you are on mobile please use the link to the accessible version). An accessible version of the virtual exhibition is also available.