Do Oxford University's colleges own too much land?
Do Oxford University's colleges own too much land?
The city's council is reliant on land sales from the colleges to build houses, this could spell trouble for local democracy
Oxford’s housing market can sometimes feel like it's bursting at the seams. Oxford City Council’s Affordable housing register has a waitlist of 2780 with only 490 homes becoming available each year.
The city has major employers and educators that swell demand for private and public housing. BMW Manufacturing and the city’s universities employ thousands, while the latter institutions educate around 43,600 students.
Within this context of growing demand for housing and limited supply, there is a unique power broker in the city. An employer of over 6000 people, the University of Oxford’s colleges are some of the oldest and wealthiest academic institutions in the UK.
Some of these colleges have become some of the largest landowners in Oxford and its surrounding areas. This is in part thanks to these colleges’ near millennium of existence in some cases.
The UK’s higher education sector is booming, the London School of Economics calculating that in 2021-22 the sector contributed £130 Billion to the UK economy. This has meant many Oxford colleges are leveraging their land ownership to try to keep pace.
Magdalen College sold a £160 million stake in Oxford Science Park to Singapore’s Sovereign wealth fund in 2021. This deal helped grow the College’s total net assets to over £942 million as of July 2022.
It is worth noting that not all Oxford colleges possess this eye-watering wealth, many own solely their accommodation and teaching facilities. It is an illustrious few that rule the roost.
Wealthy colleges’ land ownership has helped keep much of Oxford and the surrounding area green. Christ Church College owns Christ Church’s Meadow and Aston’s Eyot. In recent years, however, greenfield land owned by the colleges has been slated for housing development.
In the area north of Oxford administered by Cherwell District Council, 4400 homes are planned to be built. In the Council’s Local Plan for housing, all new developments are on Oxford’s Green Belt. This is despite a 2017 report commissioned by the same Council where of the land analysed in the report, 70% was deemed to be ‘high’ in terms of harm to the Green Belt with only 0.4% considered ‘low’.
The Green Belt, first established in 1975, exists to “to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas” and “to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment”.
One of the areas that was determined as having a ‘high’ impact on the Green Belt if development were to happen, was the land of North Oxford Golf Club. The club was established in 1907 and can name illustrious landlords, in the University of Oxford, Merton College and Exeter College.
Members of the Golf Club voted to accept £4.3 million from their landlords to leave the site to allow the land to be developed for housing, as part of Cherwell District Council’s home building plans. One member spoke of their sadness about the course’s closure:
As a young person renting in Oxford I understand the difficulties of the housing shortage, but it’s disappointing to see a sporting club make way for this. The club gives many mental enrichment, gets them outside and is a good social scene.
Although a new course has been proposed for nearby Frideswade, the decision to leave the land has been upsetting for many members and the new course could take years to develop.
Local Green councillor Ian Middleton also believes that planned development at this site could cause unnecessary damage to Oxford’s Green Belt:
This particular [area] has an enormous number of trees, about 3000 trees and we are concerned that quite a lot of those are going to be lost as part of the development.
All of the land proposed in Cherwell District Council’s Local Plan for housing, lies in the existing Oxford Green Belt. This is justified in the report by “the urgent and pressing need to provide homes for Oxford including the exceptionally high need for affordable homes.”
Oxford colleges could be seen as being stuck in a bind. On the one hand there is pressure to protect Oxford’s Green Belt, on the other pressure to allow Oxfordshire’s district councils breathing room to develop new housing on their land.
This may be too simple a picture. Councillor Middleton believes that affordable housing needs to be developed but that building on the Green Belt should be a last resort, and options such as building on brownfield sites should be considered first.
Across the road from North Oxford Golf Club at Water Eaton, planning permission has been submitted for 800 homes on land owned by Christ Church College.
Councillor Middleton explained that new developments such as this are seen as a double blow by some locals because they are losing local Green Belt land and as these developments are designed to meet Oxford City’s housing needs they are of little benefit to local people:
The affordable housing element is not going to be available for local families in the Kidlington, Yarnton, Begbroke areas which is one of the major sticking points for local people.
The development of land for housing is a pressing need for Oxford, particularly affordable housing, and the willingness of Oxford colleges to allow their land to be developed could be seen as a positive development.
Critics argue that the power of these institutions to control the destiny of Oxford’s land use is undemocratic. Also, some believe the way developments are being approached could be detrimental to Oxford’s Green Belt and that the supply of affordable housing in these developments is insufficient.
Those who have the ultimate say on land use are Oxfordshire’s district councils. Some local councils are wary of mitigating new developments’ potential environmental impact. Cherwell District Council’s planning committee recently rejected a planning application for 540 homes proposed by Merton College due to flooding fears.
The only certainty amidst all of this is that when more housing development does go ahead in the city and its surrounding area, it is likely one of a handful of wealthy colleges will be benefiting.