Protest against allocation of £3.7million additional funds for Oxpens River Bridge, outside City Council Cabinet meeting in town hall, 13/8/25

Photos by Talula du Feu (insta: t_du_feu)  

A lively crowd of around sixty people gathered outside the Town Hall on Wednesday afternoon (13th August 2025) to mark their disapproval and anger at the City Council cabinet meeting’s likely approval of an additional £3.7m for the disgraceful Oxpens bridge project. With placards and chants, they challenged the spending of more public money on a project that they knew would destroy much loved woodland in Grandpont Nature Park.

Young and old were united in disbelief that the City was forging ahead against powerful local opposition. Passers-by expressed their interest and support and took home the campaign’s pictorial booklet about the beauties of the Nature Park. Under the cheerful goodwill of the campaigning crowd, there was a deep sense of anger and disillusionment that the natural world can so easily be wiped out by the interests of big institutions ploughing ahead with projects that provide little benefit to local people – and diverted funds from developments that would meet real human needs.

Inside, the City Council Cabinet were meeting to discuss allocating a further £3.7million of public funds to the bridge, entirely from other existing Council budgets, to meet the rising costs of the scheme. The plan is that this money won’t actually need to be spent, as the shortfall is being sought from Homes England and Oxford University - but this is far from guaranteed. This is especially so as the previous £1.5million from Homes England had been obtained under false pretences, secured on the basis it would provide a floodproof path between Osney Mead and the new bridge (necessary for residential planning permission to be granted) but then diverted purely to paths within the Grandpont Nature Park which do nothing to floodproof the route out of Osney Mead (see press release on this issue under our ‘press’ section!). A complaint has been lodged to Homes England about this, which they are currently considering. 

At the meeting, only half of the eight-member Cabinet were in attendance, three sending their apologies. One, representing the constituency in which the bridge would be built, arrived late, missing our address. 

The meeting began with a 5-minute address from a member of Friends of Grandpont Nature Park (full address below), which raised three concerns: 1) that the bridge fails to meet its basic purpose of providing a floodproof route from Osney Mead to Oxpens. This is because, to reach the bridge from Osney Mead, you would need to use a section of the towpath which regularly floods. The Council have no plan for dealing with this issue, as their original plan, to build floodwalls along the towpath, was vetoed by the Environment Agency in 2021 on the grounds it would increase flooding elsewhere. The report they commissioned into the issue admitted that none of the other options for floodproofing the path would meet current cycle safety standards; 2) the strange omission from the figures of over £1million that Oxford University had previously claimed to have committed to the project. Have the University reneged on this commitment?; and 3) the planned use of Balfour Beatty, a notorious construction company, to deliver the bridge without even putting the contract out to tender. Balfour Beatty were recently fined £49million for systematic fraud in the US, and are being sued for £34million after a student residence they built in Bethnal Green had to be evacuated for years to deal with all of the faults with its construction. The company were responsible for the death of a construction worker in Britain in 2020 after they failed to comply with statutory safety regulations, and are rated ‘bad,’ with a 1.7 rating out of 5, on trustpilot. 

Cabinet member for planning Alex Hollingsworth’s response to these points failed to address any of them, and instead involved quoting lots of old documents going back to 2008 referring to plans for a bridge in the general area. Nearly all of them were from before 2021, the point at which it became clear that a bridge in Grandpont Nature Park could not viably serve as the required new connection between Osney Mead and Oxpens due to the flooding issue. Essentially his argument was - who cares about the changed situation; we have been digging this hole for ages, so we’re gonna keep digging! 

Alex Powell, the Green chair of the Scrutiny Committee, who met to discuss the bridge plans last week was invited to feedback from that committee’s discussion, and put forward its request for an understanding of the impact on the project should the pending appeal of the judicial review verdict be granted a hearing (the current cost estimate is based on the assumption that the request for an appeal will be denied). Council officer Jenny Barker said that the likely impact would be to set back the plans by another year, at an estimated cost of between £600,000 and £1million. This figure is interesting as it is far less than the recent cost increase of £3.7million. One Cabinet member had previously attempted in social media posts to pin the entirety of this cost increase on the judicial review, but this new figure suggests that perhaps as much as three-quarters of the recent increase cannot be attributed to delays caused by the legal challenge, or else why would another year’s delay not cost as least as much again? 

This point had in fact been raised by Councillor Mike Rowley at the Scrutiny Committee the previous week - he noted that the judicial review only took five months, but that the costs had risen by over 35%, and asked for an explanation. In response, Councillor Hollingsworth admitted that it was impossible to say how much of the rise in costs was due to the judicial review as opposed to other factors. The claim that the cost increase was purely down to the judicial review was therefore clearly very spurious and disingenuous. 

None of the other Cabinet members had anything to say about any of the points raised in our address, and discussion was minimal: the Cabinet member representing the constituency in which the bridge would be built ran through the issues around using the Mill Stream path and the pipe bridge (omitting any reference to the actual official cycle route from the gasworks bridge into town, or to the existing route along Oxpens meadow!); whilst another councillor said he was happy to vote for the motion given that the bridge sought external funding and that responsibility for maintenance of the bridge would be transferred to the County Council on completion. That was the sum total of members’ contributions to the discussion. The flooding issue was not mentioned, nor was the strange disappearance of the University’s promised contribution; and nor was Balfour Beatty and the failure to put the contract out to tender. It was slightly disturbing that not a single member of the committee had even asked about whether the Council had any solution to the flooding issue; but attending these meetings, it is hard to avoid the impression that there is no real interest or curiosity amongst members as to what they are actually voting on. 

The Cabinet then unanimously agreed to transfer the additional £3.7million from various Council budgets (including £1million from the maintenance budget) to the pot intended for the bridge. This outcome was as expected; everyone knew there was little chance of a change of heart, but no-one was going to let this wasting of funds and of nature pass without a show of defiance. And the campaign will continue. 

Photos below by Talia Woodin @taltakingpics

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park address to City Council Cabinet 13/8/25 

Almost 2000 people, the vast majority of them local residents, have now signed the petition against Oxpens River Bridge and its connecting paths. There are many reasons people are up in arms - the ecological destruction involved, the lack of democratic consultation, the fact that there are already two excellent pedestrian and cycle bridges within quarter of a mile of the site, the misuse of £10million of public money intended to facilitate affordable housing - but what I want to focus on today is how the bridge singularly fails to meet its own intended purpose - to provide a floodproof connection from Osney Mead to Oxpens. 

So the local plan specifies the need for both a new bridge linking Osney Mead to the other side of the river, and a floodproof route out of Osney Mead. These two things have subsequently been combined into plans for a single floodproof connection reaching all the way from Osney Mead across the river, as is made clear in several official documents. 

The problem is, to reach the bridge from Osney Mead, users would have to go across a stream and under a railway bridge along a section of the towpath that frequently floods. 

To solve this problem, the City Council commissioned Stantec to develop a project called Osney Pathworks, to create a new floodproof path linking Osney Mead to the planned new bridge. The preferred plan was to erect floodwalls under the railway bridge. But the Environment Agency vetoed this proposal in 2021, as it would cause further flooding elsewhere. Stantec’s report admitted there is no solution available which adequately addresses the flooding issue whilst also meeting current safety standards for cycling and walking. 

This remains the case today. There is still no solution to the issue of flooding on the path between Osney Mead and the proposed new bridge. 

This makes the bridge completely redundant, as it utterly fails to provide the new floodproof connection from Osney Mead across the river without which housing cannot be built on the site and which was the whole point of the project in the first place. 

The City Council is now right on the verge of committing up to £14million of public money, and causing irrevocable damage to a cherished piece of countryside on our doorstep, for a bridge that singularly fails to meet its basic purpose. We urge you - please do not be a party to this shocking waste of money and biodiversity. Surely no further funds should be committed so long as there remains no viable plan to floodproof the connection between Osney Mead and the new bridge. 

I would also like to address the issue of the University’s funding commitments to the scheme. A spokesman for the University told the Oxford Mail back in January that, the University, quote, “last year agreed to make a contribution of around 10 per cent of the cost of the new bridge after learning that cost increases had put its viability at risk.”

10% at that time equated to more than £1 million of the project’s projected costs. If the University had already committed more than a million pounds last year, why is this financial commitment not appearing in the figures before us today? Why is the public purse being asked to guarantee the full £3.7million in increased costs, and not, say, £2.7 million, given that a million from the University is already in the bag? Have the University now reneged on this commitment? And if the Council is willing to commit the entirety of the increased costs from the public purse, what incentive is there for the University to contribute any money at all? 

Finally I would also like to address the issue of Balfour Beatty’s monopoly position in the delivery of the scheme. Balfour Beatty are set to be awarded the construction contract without any competitive tendering process at all. Balfour Beatty are a notorious company. They are involved in the imposition of near-slavery conditions on their migrant workforce in Qatar; just four years ago they were fined £49 million for massive fraud against the US government after it was revealed they had been systematically falsifying data in order to get bonus payments - and in this country their failure to comply with statutory safety requirements led in 2020 to the death of one construction worker and serious injuries to another, according to a ruling by the Health and Safety Executive last year. 

But as well as being criminally unethical, they are also just not very good builders. On trustpilot, they are rated ‘bad’ with just 1.7 stars out of 5 and student residents have had to be moved out of their accommodation in Bethnal Green recently due to significant defects which have been blamed on the contractor, and which have cost its owner over £34million to address. 

Why is the Council so keen to work with these incompetent criminals that it is prepared to set aside its usual tendering process and guarantee the contract to Balfour Beatty without any tendering at all? And is it’s willingness to do so the reason why the company feels confident enough to hike its bill by over 35%, from £10 to £14 million in just a few months? 

After all, the company do have form here - in 2016, one of their employees revealed how they had been extorting the taxpayer by systematically inflating their costs. The company responded by sacking the whistleblower, for which they were later forced to pay £137,000. 

I will end there but if you would like to be in touch about this, or to see any of the documentation I have referred to today, please do not hesitate to be in touch with Friends of Grandpont Nature Park at gnptrees@gmail.com 

More information is also available at our website - savegnp.org 

Picnic in the Park!

All welcome!

Saturday 5th July 2025; 2pm-5pm

Lets celebrate our lovely

woodland together

At Grandpont Nature Park

On the meadow near the entrance to the woods on the Grandpont side

What’s happening:

•  2.30-3.30pm - Nature walk

•  4.15-5.00pm - Bird-spotting

•  Giant nature-collage-making for children

•  Jake Lynch reading from his new Oxford mystery (copies    available on the day)

•  Bring a picnic / food to share and hang out with your neighbours

Whose really wasting public money? 

22/6/25

Labour City Council Cabinet member Anna Railton, in her response to the recent judicial review hearing on the Oxpens Bridge, suggested that the over 400 local residents who brought the case were causing delays and wasting taxpayers’ money by attempting to hold the Council to the law. 

A few points:  

1. The bridge was supposed to be built years ago; the original deadline for project completion was March 2023, when the pricetag was £6million, half of what it is today. Repeated delays resulted from the Council’s own incompetence and cannot now retrospectively be blamed on a judicial review process which began in October 2024. Indeed, the reason work did not start on the bridge in February 2024 as intended was because the Council had failed to obtain either planning permission or the necessary tree-felling licence without which, the Forestry Commission ruled, the work would have been illegal. All of this is due to the Council’s incompetence and nothing to do with the judicial review. 

2. Until this year, every projected cost increase for the bridge was financed by repeatedly dipping into the Housing and Growth Deal, a county-wide fund which is supposed to facilitate affordable housing, with an additional £2.8million granted in early 2024. It was only when local residents started exposing the misuse of these funds (for a bridge that will do nothing for affordable housing) in the local press that the real beneficiaries of the project (Oxford University) began coughing up money of their own for the first time - to the tune of £2milion, we are told  - presumably because the Council were too ashamed to keep dipping into the housing fund now the spotlight was on them. Local residents’ efforts to expose the Council’s shenanigans have thus saved the taxpayer millions - and hope to save millions more by scrapping the project altogether. 

3. The Council have their own in-house planning lawyers who, if they genuinely believed the legal challenge to be groundless, could surely have easily fought the case themselves. Instead, they chose to dig into the public purse once again to employ an exorbitant King’s Counsel barrister (“a clear sign of a guilty conscience,” one lawyer friend commented). That was their choice, not ours. It’s not local residents seeking accountability that wastes money - it’s the state’s attempts to avoid it.

Residents reject false assurances about damage to Nature Park 28/4/25

Our two local councils continue to underestimate and misrepresent the extensive damage that will be done to the community asset of Grandpont Nature Park (GNP) if the new Oxpens bridge is finally given the go-ahead.

Local councillor Susanna Pressel issued an email on the issue (reprinted below), including some misleading claims which local residents respond to here: 

• ‘There is not a precise number for the trees removed’. Six large trees, all around 40 years old, were removed from the nature park before the Forestry Commission intervened to prevent the much broader, illegal, felling the Council were attempting. According to the arboricultural impact assessment for the bridge and connecting paths, there are “a total of 68 tree features which have the potential to be impacted by the development proposals,” 66 of which would otherwise have had a “useful safe life expectancy” of more than ten years, and 44 of which were categorised as “medium to high grade.” A minimum of 31 trees will need to be destroyed altogether. The aerial photograph below shows just how much of this particular woodland will be lost (almost all of it), as made clear to us by the developers themselves on a site visit in March 2024. 

• ‘Only a small area will be affected’: yes, a small area of the total park (which is 7.4 acres) but a precious woodland of wild flowers, bird habitats and ecological diversity with a sympathetic, winding path through it. This footpath is the most popular and used part of the park and is greatly valued by local people. The joy of this area is that it is informal, natural, coherent and beautiful; it is, in fact, the only woodland on the whole of the main path running through the nature reserve. Many hundreds of people per day benefit from it as part of their commute or stroll, enjoying all the attendant mental health benefits known to result from being surrounded by trees. All this would be lost. 

• ‘No mature trees’: the park was created in 1985 so there is little that is over 40 years old; by this measure there is no reason for not felling everything! This is a semi-mature, wild woodland that could be irreversibly damaged by significant loss of its semi-mature growth; replanting and other local measures are neither net-gain nor compensation for such losses.

• ‘The path will be widened to. 3.5m and realigned to reduce the gradient’: this super-wide new path (in fact 4.5m wide including the new verges) will require more felling of trees, will waste the existing path, and entirely destroy the natural, informal nature of the location. The changing of the gradient (which will involve removing a small hill) will cause further, unnecessary damage and introduce designed artificiality into a semi-wild area.

• ‘[There are] new plans for removal of fewer trees”: By any standards, this part of GNP is a vestigial woodland; the removal of any more trees will irreversibly alter its density and ecological value.

• ‘No part of the Park will be lost’: this is obfuscation. Even if the size of the nature park will remain the same, much of the actual nature within it will be lost, to be replaced by steel and concrete. A major part of the GNP’s beauty and character, and the particular place it has in local hearts, will be lost irretrievably.

• New bridge vs old bridge: the local plan requires a new floodproof route across the river from Osney Mead in order for the Osney Mead development to get planning permission. The proposed Oxpens bridge does not provide this, as to reach this new bridge from Osney Mead you would first need to go under the railway bridge along a section of the towpath which is often flooded. If this cannot be resolved (and the Council currently have no solution for this, as their initial plan for a new floodwall was vetoed by the Environment Agency as it would increase flooding elsewhere), they would have to build yet another bridge (the fourth in quarter of a mile) directly from Osney Mead to Oxpens (as originally contemplated in the local plan). We believe most local residents would have no objection to such a bridge: if the University want a new bridge to connect their new developments, they are welcome to build it on their own land, with their own money. What is not acceptable is to simply use adjacent community green space for the purpose, and to pay for it with pubilc money intended for affordable housing. Especially when the outcome does not even meet the intended purpose of the bridge in the first place! 

Over 400 local residents have now sponsored a legal challenge to the Council’s planned destruction of the woodland in the northwest of the nature reserve to make way for the bridge and its connecting paths. Currently the legal process is at the stage of appealing against the outcome of a judicial review which was lost on a number of somewhat technical matters which (perversely) could not include fundamental environmental and community issues that are making residents so angry. 

Assurances have been given that no felling or construction will take place until 2026. Nevertheless, whatever the result of the judicial review appeal, the City Council appeared to determined to build this expensive and superfluous bridge at all costs (and the costs are now estimated at a staggering £12million!); the project remains a significant threat to a much-loved piece of woodland– which is, at this time of year, coming into its verdant and glorious best. 

Original email from Councillor Susanna Pressel, March 2025 

'Several people have told me how unhappy they are that Grandpont Nature Park is going to be “destroyed” or “ruined”, and how they need to try and “save” it. I’d like to reassure everyone that it won’t be ruined or destroyed. The work is being carried out sensitively and only a very small area will be in any way adversely affected. I have attached a couple of maps to show the area involved.

I have gone back to council officers to get an update and to establish some facts.

1. Officers have answered my questions:

How many trees have already been removed?   

On the north side there was some pollarding.  On the Southside the trees were originally surveyed as a group and there is not a precise number for the trees removed. I attach a plan that shows the area where trees were removed.

Are any of them large mature trees?

The area cleared had trees and vegetation at varying stages of maturity.  This is described in the arboricultural assessment as 'Ash, Field maple, Sycamore woodland with Hawthorn and Elder understory. 1 - 5m spacings'. 

The plan below shows the full proposal for tree removal at Grandpont. It is just the area between the path and the river which was cleared last year. 

 2. I also asked officers what % of the nature park will be lost. This was the reply:

In my view no part of the park will be lost and the area will remain a greenspace and accessible to the public. 

The changes as a result of the works are;

 The path between the existing rail bridge and the proposed bridge will be widened to 3.5m and realigned to reduce the gradient. Where the path is moved from the existing alignment and the original path is not needed, it will be broken out and the area planted. The widening of the path will help to avoid conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians.

The bridge itself will oversail the tow path, which will remain as is, and therefore it is only the small area under where the bridge lands, roughly where the upper path is at present, that changes. This was trees and shrubs but was the area cleared previously.  In the future there will be access over the bridge at this point. 

It is difficult to put a precise % on the area as there are a number of variables. The diagram below was produced to try to put the works in context of the park as a whole and show there is only a very small area impacted as well as replanting proposed. 

Aerial view of Grandpont Nature Park with impact of bridge

In terms of the number of trees removed. This was set out in the arboricultural report that accompanied the planning application. However in working on the details further there is a revision being developed that reduces the number of trees that would require removal. There is a meeting with the consultants tomorrow and once this has been finalised I will be able to let you have further details on tree removal. 

3. Another officer confirmed that…

“The realignment of the footpath on the south side of the river would result in far fewer trees being removed.” 

4. Finally (at least for now), people are saying “there is already a bridge a minute’s walk away from the proposed bridge”. This is the response from the local councillor [below].

I hope this helps to reassure people that if the new bridge is finally built, it won’t be as bad as some have feared.

Councillor Susanna Pressel

City Councillor for Osney and St Thomas Ward

Here is the Labour Council's recent leaflet arguing for the bridge, followed by our response underneath 

JUDICIAL REVIEW - report back! 14/2/25

Several of us attended the judicial review hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice last week. The hearing lasted a full two days - longer than the 1.5 days originally allocated. Our barrister Peter Cruickshank laid out our arguments against the lawfulness of the planning permission for the bridge and the judge asked thorough questions about each of our five grounds.  To us, the judge seemed most convinced by Ground 3, specifically our claim that the pathworks which form part of the planning application cannot be seen as standalone from the pathworks project as a whole which was always envisaged to run from Osney Mead to the new bridge. 

The pathworks in the planning application stop at the railway bridge between Osney Mead and Grandpont Nature Park, with the final leg of the pathworks excluded from both the application and the Environmental Impact Assessment screening process for the bridge development. This final phase, from the railway bridge to Osney Mead, will have serious environmental impacts, as it will cause flooding and significant habitat loss, and the Council’s plans have been rejected by the Environment Agency as a result. The fact that the Council have no solution for dealing with this last phase of the pathworks makes a mockery of the whole project, whose sole purpose in the local plan is to provide a new dry connection all the way from Osney Mead across the river. 

A dramatic twist came on the morning of the second day of the hearing when we finally received a response to the Freedom of Information request we’d put to Homes England back in July 2024. Homes England had kicked the request into the long grass citing “commercial sensitivity,” but a critical front page article in the local press, along with a complaint to the Information Commissioner, appears to have forced their hand. 

Homes England provided £1.5million for the pathworks part of the bridge development from their Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF). The FoI response showed that HIF money can only be provided to projects that are necessary for housing developments, and the Council’s application for these funds (included in the FOI response) insisted that the pathworks were essential for housing at Osney Mead to go ahead. This was because, the application explained, Osney Mead is on a flood plain and currently has no safe dry route out in times of flood. 

The pathworks from Osney Mead to the new bridge were to provide this safe route, without which residential development could not proceed. This clearly demonstrated that the pathworks was a single project, which was itself necessary for the Osney Mead development to go ahead. The Environmental Impact Assessment screening assessment should have been carried out on the Osney Mead housing development as a whole, as well as the pathworks project in its entirety. Such a screening report would have had to conclude that a full EIA was necessary due to the significant environmental impacts of such a large project in such an environmentally sensitive location. 

The judge overruled the objections from the Council’s legal team and allowed us to submit the FOI documents, along with written submissions explaining how it fitted into our case. The Council would then get a chance to make their own submissions in response. The final ruling will likely come sometime in March or April. 

Our crowdfund remains open to fund the additional work now required - please give what you can!

Oxfordshire County Council: Stop the abuse of public housing money! Pull the funding for the bridge!! 

Demonstration outside County Hall 

Tuesday 21st January 1.30pm - 2pm 

As overseers of the Growth Deal, the County Council have both the power and the moral duty to claw back the £8.8million funding provided from that fund to the Oxpens River Bridge. The Growth Deal is intended, not to augment private developments of Oxford University, but for projects that facilitate affordable housing. We demand the County reallocate the bridge money to projects that actually do this - before it’s too late!

Good News! 

We’ve been given permission for the judicial review to go forward, as the judge found all our grounds (see below) to be arguable and to merit consideration at a full hearing. The case will be heard in the High Court in London on February 4th and 5th.

We are very fortunate to have a ‘pro bono’ barrister, one of a group of lawyers who will take on worthwhile environmental cases for free. 

However we still have to pay for solicitors and court fees. The money people have already so generously contributed has enabled us to get this far, but we need to raise further funds to prepare for the High Court hearing. Can you help us win this battle, so important for the protection of public green spaces and the right of local communities to hold their Council to account?

Donate here! 

Judicial Review lodged against ‘concrete monstrosity’ bridge

DONATE HERE! 

26/8/24

An application for a judicial review of the Oxpens River Bridge (referred to by one Councillor as a 'concrete monstrosity') has been lodged this week by the Friends of Grandpont Nature Park. The bridge would link Grandpont Nature Park and Oxpens Meadow, despite the two sites already being linked by a well-used existing bridge less than two minutes walk away, and would destroy the only wooded section of the main path through the Nature Park. It would be built using over £10million of public money from a pot intended to facilitate housing. 

The planning application for the bridge was approved by the planning review committee by 5 votes to 4, but the group claim that permission was granted unlawfully after the committee were misled. They are urging the City Council not to sign the construction contract until the judicial review has been heard and the legality of the project clarified by the courts. 

The Judicial Review application is based on five grounds: 

1. The officers’ report presented to the planning review committee falsely claimed that the site for the bridge was ‘located in an Area of Change,’ and councillors were repeatedly told that a bridge "in this location" had been mandated by the Local Plan. Areas of change are areas designated for development within the Local Plan Policies Map. But Grandpont Nature Park, where the bridge is scheduled to land, and where the most destruction will occur, is in fact designated as ‘Green infrastructure’ scheduled for protection in the Local Plan, and not as an ‘Area of Change’ at all. This had a materially misleading impact on the committee members, helping to create a false narrative that the bridge’s landing in the Nature Park had been mandated by the Local Plan. 

2. Committee members were wrongly told by officers that they were not allowed to question the Council’s opinion that an Environmental Impact Assessment was not required by the bridge, even if they believed it was wrong. If this were true, Councillors would be obliged to grant planning permission even where they knew or suspected that doing so would be unlawful. Clearly this is a nonsense. 

3. The Council’s opinion that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was not required was wrong. Wherever one development is “an integral part of a wider development,” that whole wider development must be ‘screened’ for EIA. In reality, the Oxpens River Bridge and its pathworks form part of the new connection from Osney Mead across the river specified by the Local Plan. Yet the most problematic part of that new connection - from Grandpont Nature Park to Osney Mead, which will require significant natural destruction and loss of large mature trees - was left out of the planning application and not considered in the screening decision. 

4. The Council failed to follow due process by a) allowing a Councillor who had approved key decisions on the bridge as a Cabinet member to then sit on the planning review committee judging the application and b) falsely telling committee members that they were not allowed to meet with local residents concerned about the development. 

5. The Council failed to inform the committee about an official report into refurbishing the existing bridge as an alternative to a new one. The report concluded that the refurb could be done for under half a million pounds (compared to over £10million for the new bridge), the only drawback being that it would “not deliver a new bridge structure in the visible landscape of the new Oxpens development.”

Much of this pertains to the murky situation in which the City Council, as both applicant and planning authority, is effectively in the position of ‘marking its own homework.’ We believe this has allowed the Council to get away with much that would have been disallowed were it to have arisen in an application submitted by an ordinary member of the public. 

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park are launching a ‘crowdjustice’ crowdfund campaign to raise the legal costs required to bring the case forward. 

The Council claim the bridge is “a key requirement for the future potential development of Osney Mead,” where Oxford University intends to build a new Innovation Quarter. 

Dan Glazebrook, from the Friends of Grandpont Nature Park, commented: 

“The reality is that there is no mandate whatsoever for the destruction of the Nature Park, not in the Local Plan, where it is listed as protected Green Infrastructure, nor anywhere else. Nor is there a mandate for misusing public funds intended to alleviate the housing crisis to instead subsidise a private commercial development of Oxford University which will worsen the housing crisis. The Council repeatedly misled their own members about all this and more to ensure their white elephant project scraped through planning committee. We urge everyone who cares about nature, about local democracy, and about public green space, to help us challenge the Council’s contempt for all three in Court. And we urge the Council not to recklessly sign a contract that will commit them to spending millions of pounds on a project which we believe will ultimately be declared illegal.” 

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park responds to more City Council misinformation

The leadership of Oxford City Council are clearly on the backfoot over their disastrous £10million white elephant Oxpens River Bridge project, and have responded to our speech to the full Council last Monday with a series of obfuscations and half-truths. What is noticeably absent from their excruciating defence of the bridge, however, is the claim – which has hitherto been presented as the whole raison d’etre for the bridge – that the bridge will facilitate Oxford University’s planned forthcoming private commercial development at Osney Mead. To get their hands on money from the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal, which is intended only for affordable housing, or for infrastructure that facilitates housing, the Council have always claimed that the “the Growth Deal allocation was made because the bridge is a key policy requirement to unlock the growth potential of the Osney Mead site.”

In a 180-degree about-turn, however, the latest statement makes no mention of Osney Mead, instead claiming that the “homes attributed to Growth Deal funded schemes in Oxford were done on an area rather than site-specific basis” and the project aims simply to “accommodate additional needs across the city arising from growth,” whatever that means.

The truth is the Council have got themselves in something of a pickle due to their speaking out of two sides of their mouth on this issue. To the funding body, they have insisted the bridge is necessary for the new homes that form a (tiny) part of the proposed Osney Mead development; whilst to the planning committee, they have insisted that the bridge is ‘standalone’ and not required by the Osney Mead development at all! This is presumably to avoid carrying out the Environmental Impact Assessment that is legally required whenever a development forms an integral part of a wider project.

Our other comments follow below:

Council claim: “The bridge will improve the choice of routes for people accessing the area.”

Our response: Yes the bridge will give people the choice of the excellent and wide existing cycle and foot bridge, which meets the current width standards for shared-use paths (at least 4 wide); or use the substandard 3.5m wide new bridge 30 seconds cycle away. Why people would need a ‘choice’ of bridges to the same location within a two minute walk of each other is never explained.

Council claim: “The scheme will deliver a net biodiversity gain.”

Our response: The small woodland which will be destroyed to make way for the bridge is one of the most biodiverse parts of the Grandpont nature reserve, and its construction will result in irreversible biodiversity loss on the site. The Council’s own guidelines specify that such losses must be avoided altogether wherever possible, and replaced on site where not. It states that biodiversity ‘offsetting’ schemes should only be used, in their own words, “as a last resort.” This is for the very good reason that such schemes are increasingly well understood to be a disingenuous con. Needless to say, this is the option the Council have gone for with their bridge. Even under this dubious scheme, however, they do not bother to meet the new legal requirements for 10% net biodiversity gain. This is because they submitted the application in the nick of time just before these new requirements were introduced, claiming they are therefore only legally required to meet the old 5% target. God forbid the Council do anything for the environment beyond the absolute legal minimum!

Council claim: “officers have followed the proper process.”

Our response: It is telling that the Council do not address a single one of our substantive allegations in their bland statement that assessments were made and “the scheme was reviewed before finalisation.” That facts are that:

-          The officers report falsely claimed that Grandpont Nature Park is an ‘Area of Change’ in the local plan, when their own policies map clearly shows it is not. This had the effect of convincing Councillors that the plan had a democratic mandate it did not actually have. 

-          Councillors who, as Cabinet members, had approved millions of pounds of spending on the new bridge, were allowed to vote on the planning committee, whilst councillors who considered meeting with local residents opposed the bridge were told they should consider recusing themselves if they did so.

-          The feasibility study on refurbishing the existing bridge, which concluded it was perfectly feasible for a fraction of the cost of the new bridge, was kept from the planning committee

-          Council officers falsely claimed that they did not require a Forestry Commission to clear fell the site without planning permission and had to be stopped by local residents for a week before the Forestry Commission came to the site to verify that they did.

-          These are just a few of the fifteen breaches of process we have identified in the granting of planning permission for the bridge.

Council claim: “The FRA [Flood Risk Assessment] has been reviewed by the Environment Agency, which is satisfied there is no added flood risk.”

Our response: There is an added flood risk from the bridge but the scheme proposes to mitigate this by creating additional floodwater storage capacity to compensate. We would suggest that if it is possible to add floodwater storage capacity at an area like Grandpont and Osney, which already sees homes frequently ruined by fooding, that capacity should be used to defend against these existing floods, rather than be used up to take the additional flooding caused by an unnecessary new bridge.

Council claim: Public consultation on the proposed development was undertaken before submission of the planning application

Our response: Not a single residents group in Grandpont have been consullted over the bridge, not even the residents' association of the retirement home on the edge of the Nature Park. Many of Grandpont's elderly residents depend on the Nature Park as the closest thing to countryside they can access. The one-day open public consultation meeting on the bridge in 2022, held in Oxford ice rink, was held on the hottest day on record, when the official government advice was that people should not leave their homes.  Many residents were given less than 24 hours notice of the meeting. Repeated requests for it to be held again were ignored.

County Council leader Liz Leffman to meet Friends of Grandpont Nature Park to discuss concerns over Oxpens River Bridge

9/7/24

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park addressed a meeting of the full County Council this morning to demand the Council pull their support for the wasteful, destructive and unnecessary Oxpens River Bridge. 

The bridge would link Oxpens Meadow and Grandpont Nature Park, two sites which are already linked by an existing bridge less than two minutes walk from the proposed site of the new one. The bridge would entail the destruction of the only wooded section of the main path through the Nature Park, and would destroy its tranquil character by transforming the current footpath into a 4.5metre cycle highway. It is set to cost over £10million of public money from a pot intended to facilitate affordable housing. 

Oxfordshire County Council have effectively commissioned Oxford City Council to build the bridge for them. They are the administrators of the Growth Deal fund which would finance the bridge, and, as the Highways Authority, would ‘adopt’ and maintain the bridge if it is built. 

The collaboration agreement for the bridge, signed by both Councils in 2020 states that the County may, “at its discretion,” withdraw their cooperation and require the funds to be repaid if the City Council has made ‘untrue or misleading representations’ or undertaken activities which could bring the OCC into disrepute.

The City Council have indeed made such ‘untrue representations.’ One example is the claim (made throughout the planning officers report - eg p.16) that Grandpont Nature Park is an ‘Area of Change’ in the local plan, when their own policies map clearly shows it is not. This claim suggested that the destruction of the Nature Park already had a democratic mandate when it most certainly did not. The committee ultimately passed the bridge by just one vote (5-4). 

At the end of his speech to the County, Dan Glazebrook from Friends of Grandpont Nature Park noted that not a single residents group in Grandpont have ever been consulted over the bridge and requested County Council leader Liz Leffman meet with the group, whose petition now has over 1500 supporters, to discuss their concerns. Councillor Leffman agreed and a meeting will be arranged in due course. 

Several County Councillors, including a number of Cabinet members, are opposed to the bridge and one County Councillor walked out of the meeting in protest against the 90-second time limit placed on members of the public presenting petitions at the meeting. 

Full speech to today’s County Council meeting 

Thank you Councillors. In the short time I have available, I just want to emphasise three things: 

1. Grandpont nature park is a beautiful and much-loved piece of countryside, essential to the health and wellbeing of thousands of local residents. Yet not a single residents’ group in Grandpont has been consulted about the bridge and the urbanisation of the reserve entailed by the destruction of the current footpath and its replacement by a 4.5m cycle highway.

2. We believe the use of over £10million of Growth Deal and Housing Infrastructure funds for the bridge to be tantamount to fraud. These funds are supposed to ‘unlock’ housing yet this bridge will do no such thing. 

3. The bridge is completely unnecessary as the two sites to be linked by the bridge, the nature park and Oxpens meadow, are already linked by an excellent bridge less than two minutes walk from the proposed site of the new one. 

• Councillors, this is just as much a County Council project as it is a City Council one. 

• You are paying for it - and, as the highways authority, you are going to ‘adopt’ it once it is built 

• You are essentially paying the City Council to build it FOR you 

The collaboration agreement between the two councils states that the County can pull out and demand return of the funds if the City has made untrue or misleading representations concerning the bridge. And the City Council has indeed been lying repeatedly to get this bridge passed. A full outline of how this is so will be emailed to you this afternoon. 

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park march to demand County Council withdraw support for Oxpens River Bridge

18/6/24

Around 50 people marched from Grandpont Nature Park to County Hall today to demand the County Council pull out of the wasteful and destructive Oxpens River Bridge. The marchers gathered outside the Hall and held a ‘speak-out’ for members of the local community to voice their concerns over the plans (something neither Council has ever done!) before handing in their petition, which reached 1500 signatures today (1362 online and 140 on paper!). 

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park member Dan Glazebrook had been allotted three minutes to address the County Council Cabinet on the bridge earlier in the day (his speech is attached). 

Plans for the bridge involve the destruction of the only woodland on the main path through the Nature Park, which is used by an estimated 1000 people per day according to a recent survey conducted by the group. The group claims the bridge is unnecessary as the two sites to be linked by the new bridge - Grandpont Nature Park and Oxpens Meadow - are already linked by a well-used pedestrian and cycle bridge less than two minutes walk from the proposed site of the new one. 

The bridge is supposedly necessary to link Oxford University’s two planned new commercial developments at Oxpens and Osney Mead. But rather than landing at either of these sites, the bridge will take land from adjacent publicly-owned green spaces, Oxpens Meadow and Grandpont Nature park, despite these two sites already being linked by a well-used pedestrian and cycle bridge. 

The Council’s own report (hidden from the planning committee) into refurbishing the existing bridge concluded it would be perfectly viable, for 1/15th of the cost, and the only downside is that it would not provide a new structure visible from the Oxpens development! 

It is to be financed with over £10milllion of public money from funds that are supposed to facilitate affordable housing.  

Plans for the bridge were approved by the City Council’s planning committee by just one vote in April, but have not yet been approved by the County Council, who are also in charge of the £10million funding for the bridge. 

Comments from the community speak-out 

Bruce Hugman commented: “For me the fundamental thing is that this [Grandpont Nature Park] is a precious and beautiful resource for all of us. It is irrecoverable if they start felling trees and digging up woodland, and would be lost forever to Oxford and to generations in the future. This is a precious and unique resource and we must protect it.” 

Roo Glazebrook - “I don’t think the majority of people realise the huge destruction and damage that will be done to Grandpont Nature Park [if this bridge goes ahead]. They say ‘oh well it’s only 10% of the land’ - but it’s the most used part because it’s the footpath between Grandpont and Osney, and it’s part of many people’s daily walk. They’re not just building a bridge, they’re destroying all the paths, concreting all the edges, and digging up the hill because they don’t think the cyclists can go up a hill. The devastation would be appalling and I don’t think people realise this. And we need to tell them.” 

Jamie Walker - “This is money that could be used to unlock housing elsewhere. Using this money here is also a foregone opportunity to use it elsewhere to actually alleviate the housing crisis.” 

Lois Muddiman - “I just want to reiterate what a reckless and irresponsible use of public money this is at a time when there is so little public money.  And to spend £10million on a brand new bridge when it would cost less than £1million to refurbish and repurpose and improve the access to the existing bridge which is just moments away, is a really irresponsible use of public money.” 

Jabu Nala-Hartley - “On the way here today, I was just thinking about the difference between living and just existing. By us coming here to protect our nature, to protect our buildings, to protect our bridges, we are showing that we are not just existing but we are trying to live. But also we’re trying to amplify our voices so that they may not be extinguished when politicians are trying to take us for granted. I participated a lot in the campaign to save the greenbelt in Sandhills. It was enormously satisfying for people to have managed to stop that being driven through.  I came here to show my solidarity and to say to you that what you are doing is really important, especially for the next generations.”

Anne-Marie Sweeney - “I just wanted to say how really important it is to challenge the notion of ‘biodiversity gain’. There’s no such thing. The complexity of what nature is doing on site can’t just be replicated elsewhere. It’s a real poisoned chalice and you must combat it wherever possible because it’s total greenwashing.” 

Dot Clay - “We concentrate on the human needs and costs but I also think about the hedgehogs and the foxes and the other wildlife and some very endangered wildlife like the butterflies, the bees and the other insects that rely on those trees and natural flowers. I think it’s very important that we remember that there are other lives that will be affected by this - and putting that enormous cycle track in the way is going to block and disorientate and confuse all the wildlife that are already there. It’s going to split their habitat into smaller pockets and that’s going to have a big impact on generations of animals to come.” 

Dan Glazebrook - “If Oxford University want a bridge to link their new developments they should use their own land and their own money. If I want to build an extension, I can’t just build it in my neighbour’s garden. This is our land, this is public green land, and the research is very clear on the fundamental importance for mental health of access to green space. For many of the elderly residents here, this is the closest thing to countryside a lot of people can reach. And the whole rural, tranquil character of the Nature Park will be completely destroyed if it’s turned into this 4.5 metre cycle super-highway with pedal and post and all kinds of electric vehicles. It won’t feel like countryside anymore - and that will be just such a devastating loss to the community.” 

Footage 

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/Td1kW8KihkxewmQ6/?mibextid=UalRPS 

Comments from petition signatories

Supporter comments · Save Grandpont Nature Park from unnecessary destruction · Change.org

The new pedestrian and cycle bridge is supposedly necessary to link two planned new commercial University developments at Oxpens and Osney Mead. But rather than landing at either of these sites, the bridge will take land from adjacent publicly-owned green spaces, Oxpens Meadow and Grandpont Nature Park, despite these two sites already being linked by a well-used pedestrian and cycle bridge. It is to be financed with over £10million of public money from two funds - the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal and the Housing Infrastructure Fund - that are supposed to facilitate affordable housing. 

The bridge was approved by the City Council’s planning review committee on 18th April after the original planning decision was ‘called-in’ by 17 councillors. It eventually passed by just one vote (5-4) after Chris Smowton, who is married to the Cabinet’s leading proponent of the bridge, was brought in at the last minute to replace Liberal Democrat committee member Roz Smith.

However, planning permission is conditional on an S106 agreement between the County and City Councils over the details of the scheme, and this agreement has not yet been signed off. An earlier collaboration agreement between County and City has already been broken and the County Council should now therefore withdraw its cooperation and pull funding for the bridge. 

The collaboration agreement between the two authorities, signed in 2020, states that the County Council may withdraw its support and require the funds to be repaid if the CIty Council “undertakes activities that are likely to bring the reputation or name of the OCC into disrepute” or “makes any representation … that is incorrect, incomplete, untrue or misleading.” 

The Labour City Council has consistently met both of these thresholds in relation to Oxpens River Bridge. The attempt to illegally fell the trees in the nature reserve in February, with neither planning permission nor a Forestry Commission licence, brought serious reputational damage to both the City Council and the whole bridge project. Furthermore, the City Council breached its legal duty to consult properly over the bridge, failing to contact a single local residents group in Grandpont, not even the elderly residents of Pegasus Grange just a few hundred metres from the nature reserve. And the City Council repeatedly made untrue statements to the planning committee, including falsely claiming that Grandpont Nature Park is in an ‘Area of Change’ in the local plan, in order to push councillors into approving the bridge on the false pretense that it had a pre-existing mandate. 

Clearly it would be supremely foolish for the County Council to now attach itself to such wanton vandalism and lawbreaking. 

We urge all those who cherish the nature reserve and support democracy to join us to demand that the County Council put a stop to this destructive and wasteful misuse of public money. 

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park 

Savegnp.org 

gnptrees@gmail.com 

Oxpens River Bridge consultation now open - 

please register your objections!

The City Council has already granted itself planning permission for its bridge BUT this must be approved by the County. They are obliged to conduct a six-week consultation where people can register objections before they do this. 

This is our last chance to use official channels to stop the bridge going ahead this side of a judicial review. Please write in with your objections!

Deadline: 14th June 2024 

NATIONALCASEWORK@dft.gov.uk

Quote the name of the scheme (Oxpens River Thames Bridge Scheme) on all correspondence.

More details here: Oxpens (River Thames) bridge consultation | Let's Talk Oxfordshire 

Stop Press! 

We have just found out that the river will be closed for at least some of the construction period (scheduled for one year, but these things generally overrun) 

This is the email we finally received yesterday from the City Council in response to our question: Will the river be closed during the construction of the bridge? 

"The short answer is yes, it is likely but only for limited periods of time. There is still work going on looking at the practicalities of craning the bridge sections and finishing the bridge. Currently looking at a range of measures including night working and partial closure but don't yet have a detailed proposal." 

Oxford City Council's 'Climate Awards:' hypocritical greenwashing! 

The environmental hypocrisy of the Labour City Council seems to know no bounds. 

The Oxpens River Bridge, on which they are planning to spend £10million of public money from a pot which is supposed to alleviate the housing crisis, will be an ecological disaster. 

The wooded glade which will be destroyed for the bridge is one of the most biodiverse parts of the Grandpont nature reserve, and its construction will result in irreversible biodiversity loss on the site. The Council’s own guidelines for developers specify that such losses must be avoided wherever possible, and should be replaced onsite if not. Biodiversity ‘offsetting’ schemes should only be used, in their own words, “as a last resort.” This is for the very good reason that such schemes are increasingly well understood to be a disingenuous con. Needless to say, this is the option the Council have gone for with their bridge. Even under this dubious scheme, however, they do not bother to meet the new legal requirements for 10% net biodiversity gain. This is because they submitted the application in the nick of time just before these new requirements were introduced early this year, claiming they are therefore only legally required to meet the old 5% target. God forbid the Council do anything for the environment beyond the absolute legal minimum! 

On top of that, the Council have failed to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment for the site, falsely claiming that the bridge ‘stands alone’ from the forthcoming University developments it is supposed to link, and is therefore too small to require one. Nor have they bothered to assess the carbon footprint of the construction, which uses two of the most carbon-heavy materials available, steel and concrete. Once again, their own policies require such an assessment - but they have avoided it by claiming the development falls under the 1000m2 threshold. Once again, this claim is very likely to be false once the surrounding footpaths and landscaping that are part of the planning application are taken into account. 

All this, whilst the bridge is being justified as part of the Council’s commitment to ‘reducing its carbon footprint’ by promoting cycle routes - despite the fact that they cannot point to a single car journey that will be saved by the bridge, which simply replicates an existing cycle route. 

Now we are told that the City Council will be hosting their own ‘climate awards.’ They should certainly award themselves first prize for greenwashing. 

PRESS RELEASE: FoI request reveals gasworks refurb IS viable 

- and at 1/15th of the cost of new bridge!

The Labour-led City Council continue to claim that a new £10million bridge between Grandpont Nature Park and Oxpens Meadow is essential, despite the fact that an existing bridge linking the two areas already exists less than two minute walk from the site of the proposed new one. When Councillors charged with assessing the plans have asked planning officers about the existing bridge, they have been repeatedly told that refurbishing the bridge is not viable, without a scrap of evidence being provided. 

Last week, however, we obtained a copy of a report commissioned by the County Council in 2016, which showed that the existing gasworks bridge COULD be brought up to modern standards to function as a main cycle route, and for a fraction of the cost. The recommended option would have cost just under £400,000 (£680,000 today, adjusted for inflation). We were given this report on the day of the planning review committee, past the 48-hour deadline for us to submit it to that committee, and were silenced by the chair when we tried to raise it on the day. 

The report looks at two options, both of which involve a boardwalk across Oxpens Meadow, as also proposed by the Oxpens River Bridge. The report proposes “recycled plastic lumber” which would “offer an extremely durable, strong and sustainable option and is an ideal material to use for areas subject to flooding.”  This is clearly far preferable, environmentally, than the Oxpens River Bridge, which proposes to use the most carbon-intensive materials available, steel and concrete. The report concludes that “the overall construction cost for Route B is £397,960.94. This is the designers’ preferred option, which offers increased resilience against flooding and [is] the most cost effective to the client.” 

Amongst the advantages of the proposed gasworks refurbishment noted in the report were that it “upgraded existing facilities for cyclists and pedestrians to make [the] route more appealing,” and that the “route through Oxpens meadow does not interfere with the flood storage volume proposed in the City Council’s mitigation scheme” - again, in sharp contrast to the deep piling required by the Oxpens River Bridge which would increase flood risk and require further mitigation measures. The single disadvantage of the refurbishment noted in the report was that it “does not deliver a new bridge structure in the visible landscape of the new Oxpens development.” This raises questions as to whether the real reason for the Oxpens River Bridge is, as we have always claimed, not to provide a new sustainable travel route, but to provide a ‘free gift,’ funded by public money and built on public woodland and meadows, to the University, to augment their forthcoming commercial developments in neighbouring Oxpens and Osney Mead. 

The existence of an alternative, more sustainable and cost effective option, puts the Council’s pursuit of the new bridge in breach of the law. The National Policy Planning Framework (paragraph 32), to which all planning applications must conform, notes that “significant adverse impacts….should be avoided and, wherever possible, alternative options which reduce or eliminate such impacts should be pursued.” It also puts it in breach of the laws regulating building on the flood plain, which likewise forbid development except where viable alternative options are not available. 

And the fact that this report was hidden from Councillors tasked with scrutinising proposals for the bridge, and given a false picture of its conclusions, invalidates the decisions made at those committees, which were taken on the basis of misleading information.  

The report also indicates that the City Council have been allowing the gasworks bridge to fall into disrepair, despite it being listed as an official heritage asset on the Council’s own register.  The report states that “The existing Gasworks Railway Bridge structure is the responsibility of Oxford City Council to inspect and maintain. The bridge deck is currently suffering from localised corrosion to both the transverse and longitudinal girders. The bridge requires a full Principal Inspection and Assessment to determine the extent and impact of the corrosion that has occurred.” Eight years on, it is unclear whether this assessment and follow-up repair works have yet been undertaken. 

Friends of Grandpont Nature Park, 23/4/24

Savegnp.org

Oxford City Council: Don't do anything foolish now!

Oxpens River Bridge was pushed through the planning review committee last week (by just one vote). Yet Oxford City Council have not undertaken the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) they are legally obliged to carry out in relation to this bridge. This is because Council planning officers wrongly characterised it as a stand-alone development and therefore too small to require an EIA. 

The Court of Appeal last year ruled that a development cannot be classified as stand-alone where it is “an integral part of a wider project.” The first words uttered in support of the bridge at the original planning committee which looked at the bridge was that “the bridge is integral to the wider plan for the West End of Oxford.” These are the words of the lead planner of the Oxpens development, Paul Comerford, and he is correct. The bridge has always been presented as integral to the wider Osney Mead and West End development, that is how it is presented in the local plan, and its funding was procured solely on that basis. 

The case will likely be coming before judicial review and it is clear that there is no way the Council can win. We urge the Council, therefore, not to commit reckless and irreversible damage to the Grandpont Nature Park woodland when they know it is only a matter of time before it is ruled unlawful. . 

Published in the Oxford Mail, 24/4/24

CoHSAT members’ view on the proposed Oxpens River bridge

18th April 2024

Dear Members of the Planning Review Committee,

CoHSAT is a group of voluntary and campaigning organisations working across Oxfordshire to create attractive, accessible and people-friendly streets.

We support investment in improving active travel infrastructure, but several of our members are concerned that the proposed new pedestrian-cycle bridge across the Thames to Grandpont Nature park is poor value for money, about its directness and onward connections, and that the alternatives have not been fully assessed.

Its landing point on the north side is not convenient for onward travel, joining Thames street in a hostile place for cycling, and the immediate northward route via Norfolk Street is intimidating. If this approach is chosen, it needs safe connections to Frideswide Square and to New Road and/or Bonn Square.

In addition, we are concerned that the current plan for the bridge is too narrow, and does not meet current design standards, LTN 1/20. This may result in Active Travel England intervening in the scheme.

In terms of alternatives we think that a useful portfolio to assess would be:

·         Improving access to the adjacent Gasworks Bridge. This is wide, sturdy and well-used, landing in good locations on both sides. It is already used by Pedal & Post, by almost all of their cycles, including their trikes and EAV 4-wheeled ‘cab’ cycles (but not their articulated ‘pallet’ cycles). It requires the access paths resurfacing and widening, and in particular widening of the dropped kerb onto Friars Wharf, but this could be achieved at a small fraction of the bridge’s cost.

·         Improving the ramps on the Pipe Bridge to inclusive access standards. The Pipe Bridge has been out of operation for too long, but will soon return to providing a direct link from south Oxford to the centre.

·         A bridge near Osney Lock to better enable active travel to/from the west (e.g. linking South Street to Barrett Street) with a route on the north bank and/or an improved bridge to Osney Lane.

We hope that in your review, you will be able to consider whether the alternatives have been properly considered, and whether access for walking, wheeling and cycling between the new development, west Oxford and south Oxford – and the centre of Oxford, will be achieved.

Yours faithfully,
CoHSAT Members

Zuhura Plummer

Co-Chair, CoHSAT, Campaigns Director, Oxfordshire Liveable Streets

Robin Tucker

Co-Chair, CoHSAT, Chair, Oxfordshire Cycling Network

Sushila Dhall

Chair, Oxford Pedestrians Association

Alison Hill

Chair, Cyclox

Christine Hickman

Chair, Bicester Bicycle Users Group

Christine Collin

BikeSafe

Paul Bonsor

Banbury Active Travel Supporters

Council flouts procedure in order to push bridge through planning review! 

19/4/24

As expected, the planning review committee last night upheld the previous month’s decision to grant planning permission for the bridge. But it was a much closer margin (5-4) than we had expected. 

The decision itself was pretty much a foregone conclusion from the moment we heard that Liberal Democrat Councillor Roz Smith was going to be replaced by Chris Smowton, the husband of Anna Railton, the Labour Cabinet member who has been leading the public defence of the bridge. The four Labour councillors were never realistically going to oppose their own party’s prized vanity project either, but we did manage to win all four of the remaining councillors - Socialist Independent Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini, Independent Amar Latif, Green Lucy Pegg, and Lib Dem Stephen Goddard. Respect is due to these councillors for standing up to the planning officers’ attempts to drive them into submission. 

The governing minority Labour Council have clearly been rattled by the opposition to their foolish bridge. All usual procedure has been thrown out of the window in order to make sure our arguments were not heard. 

First, in the week before the committee meeting, Councillors were told by Council officers that they must reject our invite to show them round Grandpont Nature Park, and that anyone who took up our offer would be barred from attending the committee. Unsurprisingly, none of them came. It is, we believe, crazy that Councillors are not obligated to visit the sites they will be requested to destroy! 

Next, they were falsely told that any Councillor who supported the ‘call-in’ of the original planning decision should consider recusing themselves from the review committee - when hitherto calling in a decision has always been seen as a neutral position.  

Then to the meeting itself. In the ridiculously short six minutes which were alloted to opponents to put forward the case against the bridge, we mainly emphasised two things: the erroneous classification of the bridge as a ‘stand-alone’ project to circumvent their legal obligation to carry out an environmental impact assessment; and the irrational classification of the bridge as “essential infrastructure” in order to circumvent the ban on building on floodzone 3b (land classified as the highest flood risk, and in which a large part of the new bridge will fall). 

On the first, we pointed to last year’s Court of Appeal ruling that a development cannot be considered ‘stand-alone’ where “the proposed development is an integral part of a wider project.” We pointed out that the bridge has always been presented as part of the wider West End and Osney Mead development, that is where it falls in the local plan, and indeed funding was procured for the bridge solely on the basis that it would “unlock” the Osney Mead development. Indeed, the very first words uttered in support of the planning application at the previous committee, by no less a figure than the lead planner for Oxpens were: “The bridge is integral to the wider plan for the West End of Oxford” - that is, the exact terminology used by the Court of Appeal to define a project that cannot lawfully be classified as stand-alone! 

On our second point, we emphasised that if their claim that the bridge constitutes “essential infrastructure” rests on it being a “flood evacuation route” for future residents of Osney Mead (a rationale for the bridge given by the County Council’s senior transport officer Robert Freshwater), then, again, it cannot be simultaneously be presented as a ‘stand-alone’ project that does not require an environmental impact assessment! But if it is NOT to be such a route, and is merely a stand-alone additional route for pedestrians and cyclists, to replicate the existing one, it can hardly be classified as ‘essential’ and therefore building it on floodzone 3b would be illegal. 

We had, in fact, identified twelve separate breaches of law and planning policies in the briefing document we produced for Councillors, but of course could not go through them all in the six minutes provided, let alone go into the enormous local opposition (nearly 1000 signatures on our petition now, as well as CohSAT, representing an alliance of cycling and walking groups, now coming out against the bridge). Instead, we hoped that we could explore these other issues during the question and answer session that normally follows. 

That was when the first hints of monkey business came! After supporters of the bridge gave their presentation (also six minutes, but this was of course on top of the opening 15-minute presentation in support of the bridge as well as the unlimited time given to planning officers to push the case for the bridge throughout the entire meeting), we were invited back to the committee table to sit alongside those supporters for the Q and A session. Normally, Councillors are then given an opportunity to ask questions to the supporters and opponents of the bridge, after which follows a separate session for discussion, during which planning officers can also be asked questions. Last night, however, in a breach from all precedent and procedural norm, Labour chair James Fry instructed Councillors they were not allowed to ask questions to objectors; instead, all questions were to be put solely to him, and he would decide who got to answer them! In the event, he directed every single one of the Councillors’ questions to planning officers supporting the bridge and we were not allowed to answer a single question. 

After this, we identified no less than seven other breaches of procedure, lies or wrongful advice given at the meeting to ensure the bridge was pushed through: 

1. ⁠Planning officers informed Councillors that the financial risk of the applicant launching a legal challenge to planning permission being refused IS a material consideration they should take into account when deciding how to vote (even though the applicant is in this case, the Council, who would therefore have to be appealing their own decision - a very unlikely, not to mention ridiculous, possibility), but the financial risk of objectors launching a legal challenge if it is granted should not be taken into consideration! 

2. ⁠Planning officers told Councillors that whether or not an application is proceeding illegally due to lack of an environmental impact assessment is essentially none of their business and should not be a consideration. 

3. ⁠Cllr Snowton failed to declare an interest in that his wife is the Cabinet’s leading public proponent of the scheme and has a huge stake in its continuation. 

4. ⁠Cllr Rowley failed to recuse himself despite having been a cabinet member supporting key decisions pushing forward the bridge. 

5. Planning officers ⁠failed to correct misinformation from the document supporting their application circulated to Councillors - namely a) repeatedly and falsely claiming that Grandpont Nature Park is in an officially-designated “Area of Change” in the local plan, when their own local plan policies map clearly shows that it is not, in order to falsely claim the bridge is mandated by the local plan; and b) similarly claiming that the local plan policies map mandates new cycle path construction through the Nature Park when it, again, very clearly does not. 

6. Councillors were incorrectly informed that the gasworks bridge is a “non-designated heritage asset” (whatever that is!) when in fact it is clearly registered as a heritage asset on the heritage assets register, meaning that a heritage assessment impact assessment (a HIA) should have been carried out (an HIA must be carried out whenever the “significance” of a heritage asset would be affected by a new development, which it clearly would be were the gasworks bridge to be replaced as the main pedestrian and cycle route into town by the new bridge). 

7. The planning lawyer misquoted Justice Lang's list of potentially relevant criteria in determining whether various constructions should be considered as a single project for the purposes of EIA screening as "whether the sites are owned by the same person" (which in this case they are not) when the actual quote reads "whether the sites are owned OR PROMOTED by the same person" (which in this case they are - Oxford City Council!) 

These kinds of things are only to be expected when the same body (the Labour Council) is both applicant and ‘neutral judge’ of an application. But in the end, given that the 5-4 result was the best we were ever going to get, these lies, failures and breaches were great gifts, giving us yet more ammunition to add to the ever-growing stockpile for the judicial review. Bring it on!  

Sign the petition! 

https://chng.it/vKhQcBbqwc

A much-loved section of the Grandpont Nature Park is under threat from a totally pointless £10million cycle and pedestrian bridge less than two minutes walk from an existing and perfectly functional one. We believe the bridge to be unwise, unnecessary, and undemocratic. Join us in opposing this gratuitous sacrifice of a much-loved community woodland for the sake of a costly white elephant for which there is neither need nor demand. 

What you can do 

1. Get involved in our campaign to save the nature park from this destructive and unnecessary bridge: email us at gnptrees@gmail.com 

2. Write to the Councillors on the planning review committee to express your opposition to the bridge: see https://mycouncil.oxford.gov.uk/mgCommitteeMailingList.aspx?ID=147 for emails. 

3. Write to the local papers with your concerns: oxfordmail.letters@nqo.com; letters@oxfordtimes.co.uk

4. Write to the local MPs voicing your concerns: layla.moran.mp@parliament.uk; anneliese.dodds.mp@parliament.uk 

5. Write to the Council planning department to express your opposition (reference planning application 23/02506/CT3): planning@oxford.gov.uk