Oxfordshire Council taxpayers’ money will pay millions of pounds towards the cost of a County Council road construction project following the decision it does not qualify for central government funds.
Last year, Oxfordshire County Council applied for planning permission to build the Watlington Relief Road (WRR), anticipating receipt of £7.1 million in central government forward finance towards the costs. Reassurance was given to parishes by the local member that the scheme was funded, with the certainty it would not lead to “further developments in regards to funding”.
But the Leader of the County Council has confirmed that due to a number of factors, the scheme does not qualify to receive all the funding expected from the Oxfordshire Housing & Growth Deal.
The funding risk to the WRR project isn’t new. The road scheme was placed “in review” in September 2022 when the risk emerged of a £30m shortfall in the total pot of £150m of forward finance the County Council expected from the Oxfordshire H&GD. When it was first added to the H&GD list in 2018, it was expected that developers would fund almost all of the project. Then in Q1 of 2024/25, it was removed as a scheme that qualifies for growth deal funding.
The leader of Oxfordshire County Council says it remains committed to building the road and will use Oxfordshire Council taxpayers’ money in the 2025/26 budget to build it.
When funding shortfalls have arisen on other new road schemes, the Council has refused to use Oxfordshire taxpayers’ money and has halted schemes, sometimes for years, until it agrees funding from central government. Earlier this year, ORAA called on the County Council to conduct its own spending review on all its capital transport projects.
A review of the WRR project, rather than continuing with a planning application, would give Oxfordshire residents the opportunity to reconsider an expensive road capacity scheme. The benefits of reduced delay and congestion can be achieved by rearranging on-street parking and the 7.5t weight limit rigorously enforced. Priority transport schemes like the Milton Heights Pedestrian Cycle Bridge or the Thame Haddenham Greenway for sustainable travel remain unfunded. A new road likely means more traffic on crumbling roads.Would the money be better spent on maintenance, benefitting road safety of the whole county?
This was the argument made to the government last week by Henley & Thame MP, Freddie van Mierlo (who is also Watlington’s district councillor and county councillor and MP). He wrote to the Chancellor to say Oxfordshire’s councils have a £54bn funding gap over the next five years, which could cripple essential service provision and put the care and support for some of Oxfordshire’s most vulnerable residents at risk. He also said there is a £26m annual shortfall in road maintenance funding, which leaves Oxfordshire’s roads in a dangerous state. Current funding of £14m is well below the £40m needed to keep roads safe.
What are the likely costs to Oxfordshire’s public purse of proceeding with the current Watlington Relief Road without a spending review or considering alternatives that have been shown to deliver benefits and don’t require a new road to be built?
There isn’t a detailed cost. The project does not have planning permission for an agreed scheme so the County Council has not been given a detailed price to build it.
The County Council said in 2021 in its business case for why it should invest public funds in the road scheme that 70% of its £10m project cost would be met by central government forward finance, with the remainder expected from house builders. The county would build the major part of the scheme, including roundabouts, a t junction, zebra crossings a bridge for a new road crossing of the Chalgrove Brook chalk stream, and 1.3km of road to HGV spec. It would incorporate roads that Bloor Homes and Redrow Homes were granted by South Oxfordshire District Council to build for their housing sites at Watlington.
The County Council says it expects to submit a revised planning application shortly. It still claims the scheme will be funded “through a combination of Housing Growth Deal funding and Section 106 contributions from developers” and has not updated that it will now be funded in part by Oxfordshire Council taxpayer money, if it is built.
There is a 30 day public consultation once the planning application is resubmitted. The scheme has been redesigned as 20mph and not a bypass but as a “spine road” with the spine running through a series of housing developments, according to an update given at OCC’s most recent Cabinet meeting (15th October 2024).
The County Council has claimed the road contributes to reducing private car trips and makes walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice. Critics, including Oxford Civic Society Transport Group, say a spine road – or local distributor road – as an internal road on which to hang new housing drags increased traffic through the heart of where people live. Increased traffic which results when more roads are built makes active travel and public transport harder to deliver, both because of increased traffic but also because the cost of road building reduces funds for sustainable transport.
Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance asked Oxfordshire County Council if it had confirmed with the government that it can reclaim money spent in the current financial year to progress its planning application. The County Council declined to comment. The terms for reclaiming expenditure from the H&GD deal include:
• OCC S151 to confirm expenditure on qualifying ‘Housing from Infrastructure’ schemes
in-year on a quarterly basis (February/May/August/November, unless otherwise
agreed), payment to be made in arrears;
• No funding will be available beyond FY24/25, Oxfordshire authorities to cover any
expenditure beyond this date, or reconsider which projects to prioritise if necessary;
• Oxfordshire authorities remain responsible for funding any cost increases in
project/programme spend
Oxfordshire Housing & Growth Deal explained
The Oxfordshire H&GD was a 2018-2023 five year deal agreed by Oxfordshire’s authorities with central government, extended to March 2025. The deal included £150m for “Housing from Infrastructure” paid to the County Council in five £30m installments to forward fund infrastructure and accelerate delivery of 8,473 homes. An Oxfordshire Plan for 100,000 new homes by 2031, representing around 30% housing growth, was to be adopted but the plan was dropped in August 2022. New terms were agreed in March 2023. Payment of the final £30m Housing from Infrastructure payment is in arrears.
The Watlington Relief Road was included in the list of projects announced in 2018, to be delivered using H&GD Housing from Infrastructure funding and most of the funding from developers. There is no employment growth planned at Watlington. Housing growth of around 25% is planned in Watlington’s neighbourhood plan, made in 2018, and has planning permission. The cost if Oxfordshire’s public purse funds the bulk of the relief road potentially makes parish plans a huge financial liability. The County Council would step in and pay instead of developers. Oxfordshire has 332 parishes that can adopt parish neighbourhood plans.