Councillors quizzed on pouring £11.1m from a £13.620m sustainable transport fund for “active travel” and “market towns” into an uncosted, unconsented road building scheme

Oxfordshire’s LibDem Green Alliance has been criticised by County Councillors and leading active travel campaigners that it is breaching the Council’s unanimously adopted Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP) in its 2025/26 budget proposals.

Critics say its proposed £13.620m capital budget for active travel and market towns is greenwashing by labelling a road capacity scheme an active travel scheme, and awarding it over 80% of the sustainable transport fund. The Council’s LTCP does not identify a Watlington Relief Road as a proposed scheme. Additionally, Watlington is classified as a larger village in South Oxfordshire, not a market town. Watlington Parish Council has objected to being classified alongside towns of Grove and Wantage in the draft South & Vale Joint Local Plan 2041.

Cllr Roberts, Cabinet portfolio holder for infrastructure and development strategy, was questioned on the budget line last week by the County Council’s Scrutiny Committee. Cllr Roberts explained the £13.620m active travel and market town priority capital budget was for market squares in Oxfordshire’s market towns to be attractive spaces free from traffic for socialising and shopping and for Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans. Market square improvements in Banbury (£0.200m), Wantage (£0.500m) and Watlington (£11.1m) fell into the market square category; £0.870m will fund St Giles’ – Public Realm Improvements and £0.500m to pay for LCWIPs “in rural areas”.

Cllr Roberts could not answer if the Council’s quoted policy to support high streets and walking and cycling in market towns with large populations (above 10,000) and with large scale planned population growth (like Banbury and Wantage), prioritised need in villages to justify allocating 80% of the active travel and market town fund to Watlington.

The County has not undertaken an economic viability study on the impact of its proposed Watlington Relief Road on Watlington’s high street. It has cited Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Oxford, supported in its Local Transport and Connectivity Plan, as evidence that the relief road will increase high street spending in Watlington. Watlington’s well established mix of independent, specialist retailers have disagreed their businesses are viable with loss of passing traffic.

Cllr Gant, Cabinet portfolio holder for highway management, was emphatic the road capacity scheme is characterised correctly as “to encourage and facilitate active travel and improve market towns”. He directly equated more housing planned for Watlington to more traffic, for which more roads had to be built, thus contradicting his own professional highway officers, his own LTCP policy to ONLY consider road capacity schemes as a last resort, not a first choice, and expert studies, showing the existing highway at Watlington can be improved by better traffic management to accommodate all planned housing without building the road.

Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance has urged councillors not to agree to fund the Watlington Relief Road in the 2025/26 budget but Cllr Gant told ORAA: “there is no question of excluding the project from the budget and it is firmly supported by all local elected representatives” (Watlington’s district, county and MP is the same person).

In response, the County Council made clear the planning application for the WRR has received objections from surrounding parishes and that budget consultation for 2025/26 runs to 2nd January 2025. It can be accessed here. While this is mainly focussed on proposed changes to revenue budgets for the council’s services there is also an opportunity to “comment on any other aspects of our budget proposals.”   All of the budget proposals remain subject to approval by Council in February 2025. 

Watlington Relief Road Funding

The road capacity scheme is unconsented and a full costing can only be completed after planning permission and conditions are granted. The County accepts the extra road capacity would not deter car journeys and that the scheme includes no bus infrastructure or new or improved bus services. The County says these are beyond the scope of the relief road. It also accepts cycle provision for a brand new road does not meet LTN 1/20 standards, which the Council excuses by saying it will be infrequently used. This confirms 80% of a budget for active travel and to improve market towns to fund the road is unjustified.

In addition to £11.1m in the Council’s capital budget, £8.201m of combined S106 and Housing & Growth Deal funding in the budget paper includes £4.327m of unsecured Housing & Growth Deal funding and a balance of £3.874m of S106 funding (which is subject to indexation increases and dependent on the County Council constructing the road).  

Annex 1a of the most recent Housing & Growth Deal report to the Future Oxfordshire Partnership on 3 October 2024 sets out that the £4.327m funding for the scheme is part of the planned Housing & Growth Deal spend which is expected to fully utilise all of the available funding. Since expenditure on the schemes is on-going until 31 March 2025 the remaining grant funding will be reclaimed in early 2025 based on actual expenditure incurred. This is dependent on agreement by central government that the County Council as the accountable body for growth deal funds has met the terms and will be paid £30m in arrears, and that the Watlington Relief Road is a qualifying scheme. It was removed from the growth deal in Q1 2024/25.     

Spend to date on the project amounts to £3,682,340. The Cabinet approved an investment decision in 2021 to release £2.893m based on an  Outline Business Case the project was fully funded and would cost £9.98m. The Council says this was largely spent by the end of 2023/24. It states the spend of £3,682,340 is within the amount that has been approved up to the end of Stage 2: Design & Procurement, which is still underway, but has not provided any papers or decisions on when this expenditure, over the £2.893m, was approved. Nor has it provided any papers or decisions that a spending review has reconsidered alternatives and value for money as the project cost has doubled to £19.301m.

To progress its planning application, the County appointed new town planning consultants in the summer, and has submitted a revised planning application to address the many objections.