Partnership Publications

This research by Mattia Troiano looks at how fair access to parks and green spaces in Oxford is influenced by income and community backgrounds. It finds that poorer communities often struggle to have their voices heard in decisions about these spaces, making it harder for them to shape their local environment. Even when efforts are made to include them, a lack of trust and practical barriers can stop them from taking part. Without recognizing these challenges, attempts to improve access and involvement in planning may not work as intended and could even make inequalities worse.

Neighbourhood plans can play an important role in protecting and restoring your local nature. Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership has created this document to help inform thinking about the types of policy that might be developed for a given Neighbourhood Plan (NP). It includes policy examples from existing neighbourhood plans, and guidance on the steps to take when developing a draft neighbourhood plan.

The Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership proposes that Oxfordshire's Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) adopt the principles the working group, which includes representatives from local authority planning departments, have developed for Biodiversity Net Gain implementation. 

The intent of these principles is to ensure that Biodiversity Net Gain is implemented in a way that supports the spirit of the Environment Act 2021 and maximises Biodiversity Net Gain’s potential impact on nature recovery in Oxfordshire. They are designed to facilitate a harmonised approach across all local authority areas, recognising that some local variations may be inevitable and indeed beneficial. Our aspiration is that they will provide a common framework within which local authorities, developers, conservation bodies, farmers and landowners work together to protect and restore our county’s nature.

Analysis shows that Oxfordshire is very nature-deprived compared to the average for England as a whole. In addition, Oxfordshire’s remaining semi-natural habitats face intense pressure from housing and infrastructure development. Further, recent analysis has shown that most biodiversity units are delivered on site, with only around 7% currently being delivered off-site.

Preliminary analysis indicates that a target of 10% BNG would only generate enough off-site biodiversity units to fund a maximum of 11% of the estimated costs of reaching the 30x30 nature recovery target (30% of land protected and managed for nature by 2030).

This paper concludes that the national minimum target of 10% BNG will not be sufficient to reverse the historic losses caused by development in Oxfordshire during the current local plan periods, and play a significant role in delivering the national and local biodiversity targets for 2030. Other councils in similar positions have chosen higher targets (e.g. 20% in Surrey) in order to increase confidence that genuine gains for biodiversity can be delivered.

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The article discusses the financing of local nature recovery in Oxfordshire. The Local Nature Partnership (LNP) aims to radically enhance nature in the county, and the Finance Gap for UK Nature report revealed that £56 billion in investment is needed to meet nature-related outcomes in the next ten years.

This project aimed to investigate the potential revenue that could be generated over the next ten years through purchasing Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) offsets by developers in Oxfordshire, and the extent to which this could contribute to the estimated costs of nature recovery. The project found that the potential revenue from BNG offsets could be significant, and that this could be a valuable source of funding for nature recovery in Oxfordshire.