Intensification of city, town and district centres

• Commonly encouraged in Local Plans in line with the NPPF but unlikely to be enough to meet needs
• Focus on housing and economy may conflict with other important functions of these centres
• Townscape character may be affected
• There are usually good existing transport links, although they may already be at capacity

Intensification of development within existing suburbs

• Land assembly is challenging with multiple landowners
• Highly disruptive for existing residents
• Focuses development close to, and supports, existing services and connections

Intensification around the edges of larger settlements and strategic extensions

• Can link into existing public transport networks
• Focuses development close to, and supports, existing services and connections
• These locations may be in the Green Belt and development may affect the purposes of the Green Belt

Spoke and hub

(Continue to focus on Oxford and key corridors in to Oxford)

• Concentrates transport along routes that are already at high capacity
• May offer opportunities for funding to enhance strategic corridors
• This would not help 'spread the load' of new development, but would mean improving existing infrastructure, which might be efficient, but much will depend on the potential of existing infrastructure to be improved to take new development

New settlement/s

• Depending on location, it may or may not be close to existing high quality transport corridors
• Would need to be of a sufficient scale to support provision of sufficient new infrastructure.
• May have a negative environmental impacts and but could be designed to deliver environmental gains
• Designing a settlement from scratch provides opportunities for urban design principles to be followed throughout, such as Garden Town principles
• A new settlement would take a long time to be delivered

Dispersal

(This would involve spreading new development evenly across the county, including in smaller settlements)

• Small sites are unlikely to generate infrastructure needs alone, so are unlikely to significantly contribute to improvements to infrastructure
• The character of a smaller settlements might be adversely affected by new development
• Expanding some smaller settlements can support local shops, pubs and bus services
• Smaller sites may improve deliverability rates due to competing developers
• Dispersal is unlikely to meet the employment land needs of the county - larger businesses often need large sites and there are advantages to clustering

'String' settlement / settlement cluster

(Development focused on a number of linked settlements. It could involve new and/or existing/expanded settlements)

• May or may not be close to existing high quality transport corridors
• Relies on there being suitable broad locations available for this type of development
• This may involve promoting development at some existing, currently small, settlements, which may significantly change their character
• A number of smaller settlements could collectively, be of sufficient scale to be served by shared infrastructure

'Wheel' settlement cluster

(Focus on Oxford and the existing larger towns and the key corridors in to Oxford and between the towns)

• This could be a variation on the spoke and hub approach but with the added benefits of stronger links between the towns
• Could take some of the pressure off the corridors into Oxford