On BBC Radio Oxford this morning, Brian Durham a member of the Hinksey and Osney Environment Group, said that the inspector had recorded a lot of important testimony, but intriguingly none of it made it through to her conclusions.
He noted that people are talking about challenging the report, or the planning process that runs in parallel.
In the sessions the inspector seemed to be in touch with the arguments she was hearing. If this is the report she submitted thirteen months ago, then it is not clear why it was kept back in this time of climate change and with high river levels again in January.
As to next steps,
Inside this steamroller approach is a racing car, a means to deliver the needed flood protection much faster and with less expense than the OFAS scheme. We note that the £167 million pound budget was set seven years ago would now be £217 million, an increase of 33%. We have been feeding this to the authorities since it became clear the report was being held back.
When the planning permission appears, it will have many reasonable conditions. We are adding five more which will halve the cost, halve the delivery time, protect the railway and the meadows, and whose performance will be indistinguishable OFAS steamroller version.
Government Press Release on OFAS scheme here