AS the new year dawns, Oxford City Council will be given the verdict on its plans for the future of housing in the city.

Final recommendations from two government inspectors on the Oxford Local Plan will be handed over to the council in the form of a report in January.

The report’s findings will be based on a three-week series of hearings which took place between Tuesday, December 3 and Thursday, December 19.

Throughout the three weeks of hearings, planning inspectors from the government considered suggestions Oxford City Council has made for where new homes, businesses and other buildings should be built in the city.

Also read: Domino's Pizza man threatened with knife in two-day crime wave

Inspectors began their inquiry into the Local Plan 2036 by asking if the council’s goal of building 1,400 homes each year is needed.

They also looked at the environmental constraints facing Oxford and the surrounding area.

On December 10, inspectors examined the city council case for re-opening the Oxford Stadium in Cowley.

The stadium was a venue for motorcycle speedway and greyhound racing up until 2012, and also played host to community groups until early 2019.

In November, the city council wrote extra clauses into its local plan which would allow the authority to bring the stadium back into use by acting as a ‘broker’ between its current owner and a new owner.

The council also wants the ability to use a compulsory purchase order to buy the stadium from the current owner, a company called Cowley Investments Ltd, if they do not co-operate with the council’s proposals.

Several sites around the city were also discussed as potential places where new homes can be built throughout the local plan hearings.

These include the recreation grounds of several Oxford University colleges and former playing fields, including one at William Morris Close, where planning permission was granted for 86 homes in late November.

The inspectors, Jonathan Bore and Nick Fagan, will tell the council which parts of the plan they believe are ‘legally sound’.

They do not make suggestions for how the plan could be made better, but do provide amendments the council could make so that the plan complies with the law.

Also read: Carterton Leisure Centre's new trampoline park has opened

These amendments are known as 'main modifications' in planning law.

While the city council awaits the outcome of the examination, South Oxfordshire District Council is also expecting to hear from the new government about the fate of its local plan.

South Oxfordshire District Council’s (SODC) cabinet agreed in October it would urge councillors to write off its current local plan and prepare another.

But the communities secretary took over the plan, taking the council’s decision-making powers about it out of their control.

The government had told SODC and other Oxfordshire authorities that hundreds of millions of pounds of funding for the county would be at risk now and in the future if it was scrapped.

With a new Conservative government re-elected on December 12, Robert Jenrick has continued in his role at the communities secretary, and still holds sway over the SODC local plan.