Issue - meetings
Promoting Rural Exception Sites
Meeting: 10/12/2025 - Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Item 72)
Promoting Rural Exception Sites
Purpose
To receive a verbal update on the Council’s work around promoting rural exception.
Recommendation
That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee resolves to:
1. Note the presentation and agree any recommendations it wishes to submit to the Executive.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Strategic Housing Officer provided a presentation on promoting rural exception sites to deliver affordable housing, including the Council’s policies and recent examples of schemes within the district. The officer highlighted that:
- Planning consent had recently been granted for an affordable housing scheme in Leafield, which had originated from an approach by the landowner. A registered housing provider was looking to take this scheme on, once developed.
- The Council was engaging with Community First, which had a track record of drawing on government funding to support rural affordable housing.
- Conversations were ongoing with a number of parish councils about identifying possible rural exception sites, including Chadlington, Tackley, Enstone, Hailey and Ducklington.
- Work was also going on to engage with Registered Providers who may be interested in managing rural affordable housing schemes. An alternative approach was for schemes to be community-led.
The Committee asked questions and noted that:
- Rural exception sites were those that would be unlikely to be granted consent for open market housing schemes due to their location or other constraints but would be more likely to be considered policy-compliant where they met an identified need for affordable housing.
- The housing need being met by a particular site would depend on its location and which Local Plan policies would be applicable. Within the Cotswold National Landscape area, it would be the identified need within the settlement/area itself. In order areas, it may be the district-wide affordable housing need.
- There was no specific target for affordable housing delivered through rural exception sites. There was an overall identified need of 274 affordable units per year district-wide dating from 2014 and the Council had exceeded that figure in several years. A new affordable housing target would be set as part of the Local Plan process.
The Chair thanked the officers for their presentation.