Approved Council Motions 2025/26
Council meeting: Wednesday 10 December 2025
Proposer: Councillor James Seconder: Councillor Dewhurst
Lead officer: Deputy Chief Executive – Place, Head of Development & Corporate Landlord
Private finance in NHS
In October 2025 the local health commissioning body, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (BOB ICB), provided their latest update on delivering a new health centre in Vale of White Horse in Great Western Park on the west side of Didcot*. This health centre is much needed and long overdue in expanding capacity for residents in an area that has seen a great deal of housebuilding and a large population growth in the last 15 years.
The latest block to this Health Centre lies in the private finance delivery of the building. The health centre will be built by a private company with private investment and will then be leased back to the GP practice that will run it. The money for the rent will come largely from the NHS funding which provides the majority of the GP practice’s income. The health centre will not be built until a GP practice signs a lease to commit to paying the rent level set by the private finance company. At the moment, the private company want a higher level of rent than a GP practice may be able to pay.
The financing costs form a significant proportion of the rent being sought by the private finance company. The cost of financing through the private sector is approximately double what it would be were the government to finance such projects through their own borrowing.
Whilst not wishing to jeopardise the GWP project at this late stage, this council believes that the interminable delays to the delivery of the GWP GP surgery are emblematic of the fundamental weaknesses of the private finance model in the delivery of healthcare estate projects across the UK.
* https://www.bucksoxonberksw.icb.nhs.uk/our-places/great-western-park-didcot-gp-services/
This council resolves:
- To write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care with copies to the MP for Didcot and Wantage to:
- Highlight the block in delivering a new health centre for our residents in the Didcot area that has arisen from the involvement of private finance in delivering new health care facilities, asking them to take steps to finally deliver this long-promised health facility in a financially sustainable way.
- Request that the Secretary of State reflects upon current Government policy on private finance in health care and uses the lesson of the GWP health centre in Didcot to improve the delivery of future projects elsewhere.
- Emphasise the clear financial and deliverability advantages of direct Government funding of infrastructure projects of this nature.
- To copy these letters to all MPs representing the Vale of White Horse District asking for their support in contacting ministers likewise.
- Ask Cabinet to consider how we can continue to engage with all parties involved in the delivery of the Great Western Park Health Centre to support delivery of this project and ensure that it is financially viable for a GP surgery to execute a lease.
Council meeting: Wednesday 10 December 2025
Proposer: Councillor Stevens Seconder: Councillor James
Lead officer: Head of Communities
Sanctuary and Fair Treatment for All
Council notes that:
- Vale of White Horse residents have endured successive crises in recent years: Covid, the cost-of-living emergency, underfunding of public services by successive governments. These have left many residents in precarious situations, creating a climate of uncertainty and fear.
- Research shows that rising inequality fuels support for far-right movements, eroding trust in institutions and creating fertile ground for scapegoating and division.
- Against this backdrop, right-wing media and far-right groups have wrongly blamed migrant communities to further their agendas.
- Extensive research, including the Migration Observatory’s 2024 study, finds that migration contributes positively to the UK economy by expanding the labour force, addressing skill shortages, and supporting productivity and growth, with little evidence of wage suppression for native workers. Migrants’ net fiscal impact is generally positive, with greater contributions in taxes than cost to public services.
- Oxfordshire is proud to be the first County Council of Sanctuary, committed to ensuring that everyone who lives here, whether newly arrived or long settled, is treated fairly.
Council therefore resolves to:
1. Recognise the risks to our communities if the disinformation, suspicion, and intolerance it generates go unchallenged, and commit to addressing them wherever they occur.
2. Work with partners to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone in our communities and that racism is confronted wherever it occurs, in schools, workplaces, and on our streets.
3. Request that Cabinet support the co-production of a Community Cohesion Action Plan with key stakeholders and in consultation with councillors, including actions to support community-led dialogue and ensure appropriate resourcing is considered during budget setting.
Council meeting: Wednesday 22 October 2025
Proposer: Councillor Stevens Seconder: Councillor James
Lead officer: Deputy Chief Executive – Partnerships
Council notes that:
● The Thames Water (TW) Water Resources Management Plan 2024 (WRMP24) approved by Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in November 2024 was explicitly an adaptable plan with options, including the South East Strategic Reservoir Option (SESRO) as a preferred option and the Severn Thames Transfer (STT) named as a backup route should SESRO not got ahead.
● Despite TW assuring the Secretary of State in a published and lengthy response in October 2024 assuring that the cost estimates given then were robust and regularly updated, a capital cost increase from the frequently cited £2.2billion to £6.5 billion +/- £1bn in 2023 pounds was suddenly given in summer 2025.
● At a Judicial Review on 25th to 26th June 2025, local campaigners SaferwaterS and CPRE Oxfordshire challenged, unsuccessfully, the decision to approve the Water Resources Management Plan. In court Thames Water maintained that the expected cost to construct the reservoir would be £2.2bn. But in mid August, a mere 7 weeks later, Thames Water announced that the expected cost is now two to three times greater than the cost presented in the Water Resource Management Plan.
● The published October 2024 response also states clearly that the cost increase tipping point between STT and SESRO is at a cost increase for SESRO of “between £669m and £803m.”
● RAPID have advised that the Gate 3 decision for STT is currently scheduled to be significantly later than that for SESRO; this would imply that making a meaningful choice of options in a supposedly adaptable plan would therefore become unworkable.
● Whilst typically a Development Consent Order process does not evaluate the need for a piece of infrastructure, the fact that the perceived approval of SESRO is reliant on the approval of the adaptable TW WRMP necessarily indicates that the choice of option between SESRO and STT should be evaluated, especially given the above.
This Council believes that:
● The emergence of much higher costs after the Judicial Review means that the “best value” case for SESRO has been fundamentally undermined, especially with respect to the STT alternative, and has had no independent review. SESRO will have huge and lasting impacts on our residents.
● It is unacceptable for any private corporation to be given effectively a “blank cheque,” regardless of massive increases in cost which would typically necessitate a re-evaluation of cost-effectiveness between two options.
Council resolves to:
- Ask the Leader to request of the Secretary of State and of RAPID that:
- The Secretary of State directs Thames Water to prepare a new Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP) in the light of the very material change in costs.
- Whether retaining the old WRMP or preparing an updated one, that:
- The RAPID Gate 3 decisions for SESRO and STT should be brought together.
- Any DCO process for SESRO should evaluate the cost-effectiveness and plausible timelines of the strategic water options in the TW WRMP24 (namely SESRO and STT), including up-to-date capital, finance, and operational costs directly associated with each, especially should these have changed since the relevant WRMP was approved.
- That going ahead with STT in place of SESRO should be regarded as a valid outcome of the DCO and RAPID Gate 3 processes, ensuring that TW cannot continue to escalate the costs and/or lengthen the timelines beyond those approved in any WRMP as they belatedly learn essential design elements and major issues.
2. Ask the Leader to write to all MPs representing parts of the Vale of the White Horse to inform them of our actions and to ask them to push the Secretary of State and RAPID for the same.
Update: The Leader sent a Letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which can be viewed here.
Council meeting: Wednesday 16 July 2025
Proposer: Councillor James Seconder: Councillor Foxhall
Lead officer: Head of Policy and Programmes, Head of Planning
Council notes that:
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill currently passing through Parliament. Despite pleas from across the environmental sector and cross-party support for amendments, the Bill continues to include damaging changes to planning rules such that the environmental movement has now come together to call on ministers to ‘scrap part 3’.
For example, our local wildlife trust BBOWT says “In its current form the legislation will not guarantee adequate environmental recovery, and in fact it risks undermining much of the hard-won progress for environmental protection that has been gained over the last 70 years. It could represent the biggest attack on our environmental protections for a generation.”
(https://www.bbowt.org.uk/campaign-for-wildlife/planning-and-infrastructure-bill)
Proposed changes to planning decision making which will reduce the power of councils and councillors to act on behalf of their communities – this even though more than one million homes have been granted planning permission since 2015 but not been built. (https://www.planningportal.co.uk/services/weekly-planning-news/planning-news-29-may-2025)
Council believes:
The combined effect of changes introduced by the government since last July, even when taking in to account the welcome additional funding for the Affordable Homes Programme, will in all likelihood fail to deliver the affordable homes that people need in the Vale of White Horse, damage efforts to recover our natural environment and further erode community trust in decision making.
This Council resolves to:
Request that the Leader of the Council:
1. Writes to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as all MPs representing parts of the Vale of White Horse, expressing these concerns, and calling for the withdrawal of part 3 of the Planning and infrastructure Bill.
2. When writing to our MPs, asks them to oppose measures in part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and, should these remain in the Bill, to vote against at final reading.
3. Shares this resolution with neighbouring councils, local civic groups, nature organisations and the local press, to encourage wider opposition and coordinated advocacy.
Council meeting: Wednesday 16 July 2025
Proposer: Councillor Thompson Seconder: Councillor Hannaby
Lead officer: Head of Policy and Programmes, Head of Planning
Council notes:
Planning committees serve a vital role in local government ensuring that developments and applications throughout the Vale of White Horse are effectively and transparently scrutinized.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill seeks to ensure consistency across the country in terms of what sort of training is provided to councillors, size of committees, and what type of applications can be heard in public by planning committees. Some of these changes are welcome and there will be variation between councillors and officers as to the ideal size of committees and the training needed.
A proper scheme of delegation is vital for ensuing Vale can deliver housing our residents need, and it is right that the vast majority of applications are delegated and determined by officers without coming to planning committee. However, it is a vital principle of democracy and transparency that applications can be called in by ward members in consultation with local stakeholders and with the agreement of elected members, the Chair/Vice-Chair of planning.
The proposed two-tier structure in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would not allow for certain applications (those in Tier A) to come before committee under any circumstances. This undermines faith in the planning process, democratic accountability, and local governance. Those applications in Tier A include, inter alia, all householder developers and minor residential developments for up to 9 dwellings, and reserved matters applications.
Tier A applications are often those that are the most locally contentious and where local knowledge provided by town and parish councils and other stakeholders is particularly relevant. Not allowing planning committees to scrutinize would strip away powers from local communities and make the planning process less transparent and democratic.
As part of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill there is an 8-week technical consultation on how to reform planning committees. This runs until 23 July 2025, which asks whether a two-tier categorization setting out which applications must be delegated is desirable.
Council agrees:
1. To ask Cabinet to ensure that council’s response to the technical consultation on the reform of planning committees emphasizes their importance and centrality as part of local democracy and objects strongly to the two-tiered system of automatic delegation proposed.
2. To ask the Leader of the Council to monitor the outcome of the technical consultation and to write to the Secretary of State objecting to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill if it proceeds with its division of applications into Tier A and Tier B and automatic scheme of delegation.
3. To encourage all stakeholders, officers, and councillors to provide comments as part of the consultation process.
Council meeting: Wednesday 16 July 2025
Proposer: Councillor Foxhall Seconder: Councillor James
Lead officer: Head of Policy and Programmes
This Council notes:
- Vale of White Horse District Council has declared a climate emergency and is committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions in its own operations by 2030 and in the district by 2045.
- The district has significant potential for renewable energy development, particularly solar, which must be harnessed in a way that delivers genuine benefits for local communities.
- Community energy organisations which are active across Oxfordshire, have demonstrated how local people can share in the benefits of renewable projects to help fund local net zero projects and reduce fuel poverty.
- Without such a requirement, local communities risk being excluded from the economic and social benefits of the clean energy transition.
This Council believes:
- That new renewable energy infrastructure has the opportunity to contribute positively to the wellbeing and prosperity of the communities hosting them, and this opportunity should be harnessed.
- That the option for local shared ownership or benefit schemes should be offered by large-scale renewable developments to local communities.
- That Vale of White Horse has an opportunity to lead by example in supporting fair, community-led energy.
This Council therefore resolves to:
- Request that the leader of the Council write to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Minister for Climate, and local MPs to express this Council’s support for clarity on Community Energy benefit options and urge legislative action.
- Encourage all developers of large-scale renewable energy schemes in Vale of White Horse District to work with community energy groups to maximise opportunities for Community Energy benefits options for local communities.
- Work with Oxfordshire County Council, neighbouring authorities and Community Energy Organisations to promote community-led energy and maximise local benefit from future renewable energy projects.
