green belt

  • The Battle for the Green Belt

    The first of three debates celebrating 50 years of OCS

    18 April 2019

    In a crowded Town Hall Assembly Room on Thursday, the first of three debates organised by the Oxford Civic Society took place. To mark the Society’s 50th anniversary, key topics of concern to Oxford’s residents and workers are being debated with much audience participation. In this first debate, the subject was Oxford’s Green Belt: positive or negative? Speakers Bob Price, recent Leader of Oxford City Council, and Mike Tyce of the Campaign to Protect Rural England crossed swords with strong argument and information.

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  • Response on Green Belt release

    Letter to the 'Sunday Times'

    10 September 2014

    Eleanor Mills threw a welcome spotlight on the ideas which deservedly won URBED the 2014 Wolfson Economics Prize (News Review 7th September), but I feel I must pick her up on one point. Oxford Civic Society has been arguing for properly-coordinated, consistent and integrated planning and transport policy, not "green-belt release".

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  • Reviewing the Green Belt – disaster or distraction

    The debate about the Green Belt is distracting us from the real issues.

    22 July 2014

    Many of us involved in planning issues believe that we are in something of a Titanic situation in Oxfordshire. The course we have been following for the past few decades is heading for a number of environmental icebergs. These include energy availability and cost, climate change, air pollution, health issues, traffic congestion, social inequality and despoliation of the landscape we hold so dear. To confine the debate to the arrangement of the deck chairs when what is desperately needed is a change of course, seems naive and complacent.

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