PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
23 May 2025
OXFORD’S FLOOD ALLEVIATION SCHEME OBJECTORS KEEPING
LEGAL OPTIONS OPEN AFTER COMPUSARY PURCHASE ORDERS ACCEPTED
OBJECTORS to Oxford’s Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS) say they will not give up with their strong opposition, despite the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs approving Compulsory Purchase Orders for environmentally sensitive land to be used following a Public Enquiry held in December 2023 and January 2024.
In a decision conveyed on May 12, campaigners were told Oxfordshire County Council were now free to consider the wider planning implications of the scheme. In addition to environmental concerns, campaigners say the Environment Agency’s (EA) current scheme, estimated at £167-million pounds seven years ago, will now cost £217 million due to inflation. Campaigners had put forward alternative plans backed by expert advice which would save £70 million of public money and which would deliver flood alleviation five years sooner.
Objectors, many of whom have been personally affected by past Oxford floods do not object in principle to a flood alleviation scheme. They do, however, strongly object to the EA’s failure to consider professionally designed alternatives on environmental and financial grounds. Through the Public Enquiry they sought to persuade the Inspector that the EA scheme should be put on hold whilst alternatives be investigated, largely removing the need for CPOs. Only temporary land disturbance would be required.
The EA’s scheme includes creating a 5km long ‘channel’ running from just north of Botley Road, to south of the A423 southern bypass near Kennington, where it would re-join the River Thames. Leading independent ecologists say the dug channel would destroy 13 acres of the rich, rare species of the irreplaceable plant community of Hinksey Meadow. An estimated 4,000 mature trees and miles of hedgerows would also be lost in the West Oxford wildlife corridor and green belt.
Local campaign groups objecting to the scheme include the Ferry Hinksey Trust (FHT) the Oxford Flood and Environmental Group (OFEG) and the Hinksey and Osney Environment Group (HOEG).
In her recommendations to the Environment Secretary on March 28, 2024 [1], Inspector Joanne Burston said: “On the basis of the evidence put before me, I recommend that, in terms of the overall scheme, the public benefits would clearly outweigh the adverse impacts identified. Consequently, I recommend that the OFAS Compulsory Purchase Order 2023 be confirmed with the modifications set out in INQ/6, subject to the consent relating to the Section 19 application being granted and the withdrawal of Network Rail’s objection.”
Responding to the EA enquiry, Brian Durham, a member of the HOEG said: The Inspector had recorded a lot of important testimony, but intriguingly none of it made it through to her conclusions.
“There is a growing consensus amongst campaign groups that we should challenge this report, and/or the planning process that runs in parallel. Throughout the Enquiry the Inspector seemed to be in touch with the arguments she was hearing. If this is the report she submitted 13 months ago to the then Environment Secretary, it’s not clear why it was kept back in this time of climate change and, with high river levels again last year.”
“This whole scheme has taken so long from design, planning and the CPO steps. Inside what has been a steamroller approach is a ‘racing car’, a means to deliver the needed flood protection much faster, and with less expense than the EA scheme. The estimated £167 million pound budget has increased by 33%. We’ve been offering lower-cost alternatives for years - but with no response.”
Campaigners say that when the Planning Permission appears before County Councillors it will have fifty reasonable conditions to which they should add an additional five. These, says Mr Durham, will "halve the cost, halve the delivery time, protect the railway and the meadows and, with performance indistinguishable from the OFAS steamroller version."
In a letter of May 12 from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the deputy director of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Division, Laura Lutkoski [2] acknowledges the Inspector heard representation that the current EA scheme would cause:
- Direct loss of nationally important ecological interest, including irreparable loss and damage to sensitive grassland at Hinksey Meadow, and ….
- Significant greater levels of construction traffic impacts, and other construction impacts affecting the people and the environment and causing stress to locals
Mr Durham added: "We are told that there is a ‘breathing space’ till June 23 for commenting on the Inspector’s 300-page report. The HOEG team is therefore analysing it. We believe there are several factual issues that might yet shift the balance between the EA’s option and our `racing car‘ option. On one of them we are talking to Network Rail about how the railway could use the ’polluter pays' principle, making sure public money is spent wisely.
“The united campaign groups are keeping all legal options open. Once the formal approval of the Oxford County Council’s Planning Committee decision is known, we shall take further legal advice on our options, including a Judicial Review.”
- For full details of the scheme and the work of the objectors, visit www.hinkseyandosney.org
ENDS
For further information/Interview:
Brian Durham 07772 234914 / 01865 241267 brian@oxpot.co.uk
(A member of the HOEG)
Canon Chris Sugden 07808 297043 csugden@ocrpl.org
(Chair – Ferry Hinksey Trust)
Paul Eddy 07923 653781 paul@pauleddy.uk
(Public Relations Consultant to FHT)
Editor’s Notes:
[1] To access the Public Enquiry Inspector’s Report into the CPOs, and ….
[2] To access the letter of May 12, 2025 from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs' deputy director of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Division, visit:
Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme - Welcome - Environment Agency - Citizen Space