The authority has earmarked affordable housing as one of its key priorities but it is being criticised by former city councillor and Oxford East MP candidate Jabu Nala-Hartley for failing to spend money which was provided to it by the government.
This comes after then-minister of state for Housing and Planning Lucy Frazer wrote to heads of the Oxfordshire Growth Board in December 2022 – the six councils in the county responsible for administering the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal.
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A funding pot of £215m had been provided to help deliver 100,000 new homes in the county by 2031 with Ms Frazer saying in her letter that the “affordable housing funding (worth £60million) was not fully utilised”.
Ms Nala-Hartley, who said she had “unearthed” the document, said: “At a time when local government is being starved of funds for essential services by the Tory government, it is utterly shameful that a Labour council failed to spend even that money that was made available to them.
“This was money intended to alleviate the city’s biggest social problem – its housing crisis.
“The council has been justifying the sell-off of valuable community spaces such as East Oxford Games Hall on the grounds that it needs the money for housing.
“But now we know they are failing to spend even the money that has been made available to them for that very purpose. It is a total disgrace.”
The letter from Ms Frazer adds: “My predecessors wholeheartedly supported you in that (the growth deal) agenda. However, progress since that point has not been as positive as we had hoped for.
“Further, I note that the affordable housing funding was not fully utilised and that the Housing for Infrastructure funding requires a significant time extension to be delivered as envisaged.”
City council cabinet member for planning, Louise Upton, suggested the authority had a “fully worked up plan to spend all the allocated money” but that “Covid had delayed things a bit”.
Ms Upton added: “While government clawed back a small proportion of the funding for Oxfordshire as a whole, Oxford was able to make full use of the funds we had available to us and many local people now have new Oxford council houses as a result.”
She also suggested Ms Nala-Hartley’s criticism was “misplaced” due to the programme post-Ms Frazer’s letter “targeting 100 per cent of the original delivery target”.
Ms Upton referred to a growth deal document which stated: “Although the programme officially finished in March 2022, some schemes were incomplete at that point, including some which were yet to secure planning permission and some which had been delayed by the Covid pandemic.
“A bespoke approach to the final schemes was agreed with the Department for Levelling-up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) in order to maximise the number of homes delivered by the scheme.
“Through this approach the programme is aiming to deliver its original target of 1,322 units.”
The delay comes amid disputes with Oxford City Council between the district councils for West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse who do not wish to take on all of Oxford’s housing burden and are reluctant to build more homes on open land.
