General New Stadium Plans - The Triangle - Land Deal

[OnlyOneUnited]

Funny you mention elections. His Cherwell seat is up this year. Looking back to the last election, he won his seat by 73 votes. Turnout was 38.24%. With even a half-decent organized campaign against him, he is very vulnerable. Last election only 1 in 7 people eligible voted for him. Hopefully we can come together so Kidlington gets better representation and an obstacle from CDC planning committee can be removed.

I would encourage everyone to have a read of this thread and get involved!

Cherwell District Council (CDC) Elections 4 May 2023

With the CDC elections coming up soon, I think now is the time to mobilise and make sure we are in the best position to win any planning permission vote if/when the time comes. I imagine the club, and perhaps even organisations like Oxvox, will not want to be seen to be targeting local politics...

yellowsforum.co.uk

 

[bazzer9461]

perhaps the very rare rattius neutralus impartialus middletonus will be found, lurking at the apex of the triangle after crossbreeding with those shrews

Aren’t they on the TB cull list?

 

[Sarge]

Aren’t they on the TB cull list?

dunno about TB, rabid more like (IMO)

 

[chrisk]

I would encourage everyone to have a read of this thread and get involved!

Cherwell District Council (CDC) Elections 4 May 2023

With the CDC elections coming up soon, I think now is the time to mobilise and make sure we are in the best position to win any planning permission vote if/when the time comes. I imagine the club, and perhaps even organisations like Oxvox, will not want to be seen to be targeting local politics...

yellowsforum.co.uk

I hadn’t seen that thread! Thanks!

 

[Followtheox1]

Not supposed to be accessible, but I have a sneaky feeling that in the dark of the night, as the wind is howling, IM and SM might quietly sneak in there with a shrew or two, or at least a protected species of some sort.

The mysterious species have never materialised in all the time the fencing company have been there, but have a feeling they might suddenly and mysteriously appear one day in the future!

Ha, funnily enough I thought the same thing. A pond will emerge with rare newts.

 

[MJB]

So it was funny for someone else to do it.

Sorry, hadn’t seen that someone else had done it in the same way.

Would politely ask that @holdsteady also delete their message in which they have changed my original message when quoting me.

Again, I just don’t think it’s helpful to give opponents ammunition as we know they will reshare things we say at any opportunity.

 

[DannyW]

Funny you mention elections. His Cherwell seat is up this year. Looking back to the last election, he won his seat by 73 votes. Turnout was 38.24%. With even a half-decent organized campaign against him, he is very vulnerable. Last election only 1 in 7 people eligible voted for him. Hopefully we can come together so Kidlington gets better representation and an obstacle from CDC planning committee can be removed.

There were some dubious tactics used in that election Cllr Prestige Facebook page from that period makes interesting reading

 

[Oldman159]

Re: elections to remove a cautiously impartial green candidate.

Good luck will be needed, for sure. The next biggest ‘party’ the Torys generally are not really covering themselves with glory right now. Not an attractive alternative methinks

 

[Orkney Islands Yellow]

Getting ahead here but here's the Cherwell DC planning committee:

 

[LowerSouth]

Getting ahead here but here's the Cherwell DC planning committee:

View attachment 11909View attachment 11910

Good to know.
For use at the appropriate juncture in the planning process .

 

[Bicester Yellow]

An open goal that even Hoban couldn’t miss.

(Provided he were allowed a couple of touches first of course).

Tried his best with that goal in the league vs Luton all those years ago though

 

[Bicester Yellow]

The man is absolutely obsessed. He should consider a hobby. Perhaps he should take up walking football?

I wouldn’t recommend that if I was him, he scores enough own goals as it is..

 

[OUFCwaffle]

Would someone who knows how the system works mind detailing the step by step process that we need to follow from initial proposal to bums on seats? And approximate timescales for each?

 

[willybum]

Would someone who knows how the system works mind detailing the step by step process that we need to follow from initial proposal to bums on seats? And approximate timescales for each?

I have witnessed things like this go through the processes at Local Authorities a few times. I think this is a reasonable summary of the process, although my timescales are very, very rough estimates. The first part of it, securing the lease somewhat depends on how committed to this process the county council is and high a priority they put on it. The senior officers who would be part of these negotiations will have lots of other things to do as well, so their time and availability is limited, which inevitably slows things down. But if they massively prioritise it, it could be quicker.

Note that all of this is based on things going smoothly and without significant complications like a buried roman villa or a perfectly preserved tyrannosaurus rex being discovered under the land or something, which would be just our luck.

Final caveat is that I don't have direct experience of the two councils involved in this (the county and Cherwell), so their processes might be completely different. I don't work directly in any of these fields, but I've witnessed them from the outside, so there might also be additional steps that I'm not aware of, so take all of this with a healthy pinch of salt.

Negotiations on securing a lease - a guess of 6-8 months, really depends on how similar the club and council's ideas are for how this lease will work and how much it will cost - if both parties are in close agreement from the outset, it might be much quicker

• County council officers draw up draft lease (probably several weeks)
• Club reviews and then negotiates aspects of the terms with officers - this can take several months. I've seen negotiating meetings that take two weeks to organise spend an hour going through one aspect of the terms, and then people have to go away and discuss the outcomes with their bosses/the senior councillors.
• When club and officers are happy it would have to go through the council's internal sign off process before being put to Cabinet - this alone could take a month or two

Architecture and planning application submission, about 6 months perhaps - I've only seen this process when the public sector is planning a building, it is probably much quicker in the private sector

• Presumably the club already has started the background work on this - they already have Ridge on board as they did some of the background reporting on developing Stratfield Brake - and they're starting fan engagement next week on what we want to see at the stadium, meaning they're probably going to go all in and draw up the plans so that when the lease has been secured they can submit the planning application immediately.

Planning permission - Probably about a year or so (assuming it is approved first time)

• In this regard, we're much better off with the smaller site. All the additional stuff around the stadium at Stratfield Brake would have significantly increased the time it would take for planning officers to review and draw up recommendations. I've never seen a planning application of this scale go through a local authority, but with a single stadium and associated infrastructure it would take a long time. Things like the access roads etc have to get past the county council's highways people (one would assume a slip road of Frieze Way would be relatively simple, but there are things like the pedestrian bridge from the station to consider too), plus countryside and ecology officers will have a say (which might require the club to draw up additional mitigation measures or whatever) etc. etc. etc.
• If it's not approved first time, the club is free to go away and make amends to the application to address their concerns, although if their concerns are a fundamental objection to the building in the Green Belt in the first place, there's very little the club could do. One set of amends would have to be assessed by planning officers again, and go before the Planning Committee again - this would take 3-4 months at the very least, probably longer.

Appeals/Judicial Reviews etc - several months

• If any of the objectors have deep pockets, they could try to appeal the decision via a Planning Inspector. One would assume the grounds would be there for an appeal, given that it's a decision in the Green Belt, but I'm not entirely sure if that would prevent the club from proceeding in the meantime.
• They could also try a Judicial Review, but that would have to be on the basis that the process Cherwell DC used to assess and approve the planning permission was in of itself flawed (rather than saying it's bad to have a building here or whatever), which I doubt would have any chance of success, but if they're wealthy enough they might try it just out of spite. Again I don't know if that would stop the club from proceeding until the process was finished or not.

Construction - a complete and total guess of somewhere between 1 and 2 years

 

[willybum]

Key decision points are:

• County Council's Cabinet deciding whether or not to approve the agreed lease. At a guess this will be in the autumn or winter of this year, all being well. It might be that it's rejected and the Cabinet requests that changes are made. This could lengthen the process by a few months. However, I think the county will be careful to ensure they don't take it to Cabinet until it's likely to be approved.
• The Cherwell District Council planning officer's recommendation. This is key. If they recommend for approval, it means they're happy that on purely planning grounds, it's an acceptable proposal. That means the Planning Committee will mainly be considering wider aspects, like the impact on local people, the principle of building on the green belt, the wider contribution the club will make to the local community etc. If the planning officer recommends for rejection, it's difficult to see it being approved by anything other than an incredibly pro-OUFC Planning Committee. At a guess, the planning officer's recommendation will be known late 2024, early 2025.
• The Planning Committee will take place about a week after the planning officer's recommendation is published, so probably early 2025.

 

[GeneralLee]

If it helps, a close family member is quite senior within local government and works closely with someone from the council who is heavily invested in this stadium project.

I'm told there is a lot of pressure (understandably) to get this right. This is outside of the normal scope/experience of most involved so some do feel out of their depth. Yet there is a determination to make this happen. That being said, those involved are worried about getting it wrong, not wishing to put a foot wrong and offending anyone! A crumb of comfort is that they are very much aware of what is at stake for OUFC. My takeaway is that this will proceed but it might be a slightly slower process as a result.

Don't shoot the messenger

 

[bazzer9461]

Key decision points are:

• County Council's Cabinet deciding whether or not to approve the agreed lease. At a guess this will be in the autumn or winter of this year, all being well. It might be that it's rejected and the Cabinet requests that changes are made. This could lengthen the process by a few months. However, I think the county will be careful to ensure they don't take it to Cabinet until it's likely to be approved.
• The Cherwell District Council planning officer's recommendation. This is key. If they recommend for approval, it means they're happy that on purely planning grounds, it's an acceptable proposal. That means the Planning Committee will mainly be considering wider aspects, like the impact on local people, the principle of building on the green belt, the wider contribution the club will make to the local community etc. If the planning officer recommends for rejection, it's difficult to see it being approved by anything other than an incredibly pro-OUFC Planning Committee. At a guess, the planning officer's recommendation will be known late 2024, early 2025.
• The Planning Committee will take place about a week after the planning officer's recommendation is published, so probably early 2025.

That will be very tight to get the ground built and ready for use in 2026.
Hate to say it appeals? They will cause major delays.

 

[Oxymoron]

Appeals/Judicial Reviews etc - several months

• If any of the objectors have deep pockets, they could try to appeal the decision via a Planning Inspector. One would assume the grounds would be there for an appeal, given that it's a decision in the Green Belt, but I'm not entirely sure if that would prevent the club from proceeding in the meantime.

If CDC approve the plans, there are no third party rights of appeal. If CDC refuse the plans, we (that is the applicant) can lodge an appeal which in my experience (see other posts), invariably is upheld and planning permission granted.

 

[Oxymoron]

Key decision points are:

• County Council's Cabinet deciding whether or not to approve the agreed lease. At a guess this will be in the autumn or winter of this year, all being well. It might be that it's rejected and the Cabinet requests that changes are made. This could lengthen the process by a few months. However, I think the county will be careful to ensure they don't take it to Cabinet until it's likely to be approved.

In my view, the decision to enter into negotiations is a green light - we've got a lease, we're just arguing about the cost. Planning can be submitted while these discussions take place.

 

[willybum]

If CDC approve the plans, there are no third party rights of appeal. If CDC refuse the plans, we (that is the applicant) can lodge an appeal which in my experience (see other posts), invariably is upheld and planning permission granted.

Ah ok. That's good to know.