Publication

Spotlight: Oxfordshire Development - Spring 2015

Research Article

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Analysing the options for meeting the county's housing needs.

■ Stretched affordability in Oxford: House prices have grown by 12.1% in the past year and sit 23.8% above the 2007-08 peak. The pace of growth is starting to slow as affordability becomes more stretched.

■ Road to recovery: Elsewhere in the county, prices took longer to recover from the 2009 trough. Recent growth has been strong though, with Bicester and Witney both experiencing double-digit annual growth in 2014. In the ‘county towns’ values can be as much as 50% lower than Oxford.

■ Planning policy: The county has begun to take a joined-up approach to meeting its housing requirements through the 2014 Oxfordshire SHMA. Significant further co-operation and joint working is required to establish a planning strategy for future growth.

■ Housing supply: Oxford has seen little residential development in recent years, although delivery is anticipated to pick up over the next five years. However, it is very unlikely that housing completions in the city will reach the level required in the SHMA due to physical constraints, the Green Belt, and the tightness of the authority boundary. It will therefore fall to locations outside of the City authority boundary to fulfil the unmet need from Oxford.

■ Help to Buy: The Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme has made up 35% of private new build sales in the county. 80% of these sales were to first time buyers, and the scheme has supported particularly strong sales rates at urban extension schemes in Bicester and Didcot.

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