South Oxfordshire Local Plan 2035
Bioabundance Community Interest Company is challenging the South Oxfordshire Local Plan 2035 (LP2035) on the grounds of climate change, improper pressure put on councillors to adopt the plan, excessive and incorrectly calculated housing numbers, and inadequate consultation.
Lawyers from Brighton Legal Clinic has generously helped, without charge, and will continue to do so. They have won previous climate and environmental cases such as the refusal of Heathrow 3rd runway on climate grounds (since overturned).
Bioabundance will apply to the High Court for statutory review of LP2035, unless South Oxfordshire District Council provides an adequate response to the ‘pre-action protocol’ letter issued 4th January 2021.
This is a pioneering action by Bioabundance, and our last chance to put our environment before housebuilder profit in South Oxfordshire. Bioabundance is the only group that has come forward to challenge the Local Plan.
Communities all over South Oxfordshire are angry about this plan, and joining with Bioabundance to challenge It:
- will be catastrophic for an already massively-weakened natural world
- will increase carbon emissions markedly in the district
- will destroy the countryside and our part of the Green Belt around Oxford
- provides for 4 to 5 times the number of homes that can even be filled, based on current trends (household projections from the Office for National Statistics, see medium.com/@ecomorph)
Finances
Bioabundance will apply for protection under the Aarhus Convention which ensures for environmental claims that costs that can be awarded against the litigant are limited.
Read more about Bioabundance Community Interest Company at www.bioabundance.org.uk.
What is Bioabundance Community Interest Company?
Bioabundance Community Interest Company is a grassroots organisation focussing on the consequences for nature and climate change of land-use in South Oxfordshire. It addresses the question of how to restore nature to the best state it has been in since the 1950s.
Bioabundance is the campaigning arm of its sister group, SOS (South Oxfordshire Sustainability), set up in 2011 and with over 70 members: www.southoxfordshiresustainability.org.uk We engage and co-operate with other climate and nature groups across the county to protect and extend wild areas, aiming to join up swathes of land to enable nature recovery.
To-date, Bioabundance has been working on the creation of a regional biodiversity plan, mapping of the urbanisation of the district, and campaigning against LP2035. Bioabundance supports the May 2020 Nature Recovery Network maps produced by Natural England.
The strategy for Bioabundance over the next year will be to challenge breaches in environmental law, be it over air pollution, pollution with sewage, where development threatens a safe and secure climate and environment, and where heritage and conservation status of our buildings and protected areas (such as SSSIs, AONBs and nature reserves) are put under threat.
Other aims will be to engage climate and nature groups across the county, to protect and extend wild areas to join up swathes of land to enable nature recovery. Nature Recovery Networks are crucial to this, and we will work with South Oxfordshire District Council’s planning department to ensure that due regard is paid to Natural England’s maps as the Council produces its version.
Who can join and how?
Bioabundance is a grassroots organisation and welcomes the support of other nature and climate organisations, parish and town councils, churches and other civic societies. As an organisation you can join for £25.
We are attracting many new members and welcome all the wonderful individuals who care so much about our home. You can join as an individual for £10.
Go to: www.bioabundance.org.uk
Press release can be downloaded here.