The two new councils in focus
The ‘Oxford & Shires’ council would be made up of the existing districts of Cherwell and West Oxfordshire along with the City of Oxford.
​The ‘Ridgeway’ council would be made up of the existing district councils of South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse and West Berkshire Council, which is already a unitary council.
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There's more information on each of them below.
Oxford & Shires Council
Benefits of our geography
Oxford & Shires Council will be well-placed to work with the regional strategic authority to build on the international brand of Oxford and drive economic growth across key towns while also protecting, supporting and growing the rural communities in the area.
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It will be able to ensure that growth, affordable housing and infrastructure can be proactively planned and delivered in a way that best uses the skills, businesses and communities in ambitious towns like Banbury, Bicester, Carterton and Witney.
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It can also consider how those towns and the wider rural areas support and complement Oxford’s growth. It will build on the links we already share while respecting the culture and heritage of our communities.
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Tourism is also a major strength, with many of the key visitor attractions across the area and the Cotswolds contained in the new boundary. The council will be able to build on this strength, enhancing the visitor economy and managing tourism.
Growing our economy and communities
The new council has the potential to bring real economic growth to Oxford and the wider area, providing further rewarding opportunities for residents and businesses in Oxford and all our towns, including the likes of Banbury, Bicester, Carterton and Witney.
This could bring significant benefits to Oxford and all the surrounding geography with more jobs, better growth and better infrastructure. The council will represent the whole area at the national level, building on the Oxford brand and taking advantage of our many other unique assets, including the largest active military base in the UK, destinations such as Blenheim Palace and Bicester Village, an innovative and growing knowledge and technology corridor and longstanding strengths in motoring and logistics.
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New Local Neighbourhood Areas will be put in place in Oxford and key towns to focus on the individual needs of those urban areas and help support their growth. They will enable the council to ensure communities have the support they need in both urban and rural areas. Villages and agricultural areas would be well represented by a council of this size, making sure their needs are heard and the rural economy is supported to grow and flourish.
A positive and sustainable future for Oxford
Oxford City Council’s Housing Revenue Account and Ox-Place would be used as anchors for a bigger, more capable housing function. This accelerates delivery of affordable homes and expands access to land, funding and development mechanisms. Local identity and community voice in Oxford would be protected and strengthened.
Oxford city is currently largely unparished but creating its own Local Neighbourhood Areas would enable more direct neighbourhood governance. This would give Oxford’s communities a meaningful voice. The civic functions of Oxford would also be protected.
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With this proposal, Oxford avoids both extremes: not swallowed by a mega-council, not fragmented into a too-small unitary. A single Oxfordshire unitary would be too large and too remote, while a “Greater Oxford” mini-unitary would be too small and financially weaker. The two-unitary model avoids both pitfalls, keeping Oxford at the right scale to shape regional decisions.
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Oxford & Shires footprint sits along the key economic corridors (rail routes and the A34, A40, A44, M40). This allows planning, transport and industrial strategy to be designed around a wider economic geography while keeping a focus for the city. It protects Oxford’s culture and character while allowing mutually beneficial growth across the wider area.
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A locality-based model allows Oxford’s urban issues - homelessness, deprivation, high demand for supported housing - to be tackled with dedicated teams and targeted policies.
Ridgeway Council
Historic ties and local identity
If our proposal is chosen by government the ‘Ridgeway Council’ would cover the current council areas of West Berkshire, South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse.
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West Berkshire, South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse already share deep historical, economic and geographic ties, symbolised by the working title of our proposed new council, named after the famous 5,000-year-old footpath that travels through the heart of our council areas.
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A Ridgeway Council provides the opportunity to maintain a sense of local identity and deliver good local services that protect our most vulnerable residents and provide value for money. The new council will be well-placed to maintain and enhance the unique character of our market towns and rural areas.
Growing our economy and communities
The areas are already linked by innovative businesses and ambitions for thriving towns and villages. The new Ridgeway Council has the potential to bring real economic growth to the area, enhance financial sustainability, provide value for money services and lay a strong and effective foundation for the future.
The new council will be well-placed to do all this while maintaining and enhancing the unique character of our market towns and rural areas - a key driver for our local economy.
The council will also retain a good number of elected representatives, meaning the new council will keep enough local councillors to represent the views of their areas.
South Oxfordshire is home to one of the world’s leading fusion energy research projects at Culham Science Centre. Vale of White Horse is home to Harwell Campus – where the world-famous Rutherford Appleton Laboratory sits alongside the particle accelerator at Diamond Light Source, the European Space Agency and other cutting-edge science and technology businesses.
Vale of White Horse is also home to Milton Park, a vibrant science, business and technology park, where over 270 companies operate.
West Berkshire has a very strong economy – together these areas and businesses, with their supply chain and support organisations, will benefit the economy across the Ridgeway Council area and will work in partnership with and complement the economy in Oxford & Shires through the unique historic links between our two council areas.
Why Oxfordshire and West Berkshire?
Including West Berkshire in the two-unitary model with Oxfordshire creates a more coherent, financially resilient and strategically powerful geography than an Oxfordshire-only reorganisation could. West Berkshire complements Oxfordshire economically, demographically and structurally — and leaving it out will weaken regional growth, financial sustainability and the future Mayoral Strategic Authority.
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An assessment of the risks around future financial resilience based on the current financial baseline against the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Financial Resilience Index, concludes that the two unitary model represents the lowest risk option to secure financial resilience when considering the full geographical area covered by this proposal.
West Berkshire and Oxfordshire together also create a natural, functional economic geography connected by key transport corridors (rail routes and the A34, M4, A40, A420, M40) and shared industry clusters such as science, engineering, logistics, research and rural enterprise. Rather than splitting these interdependent economies, the proposal brings them into a single system that supports innovation, housing, skills and investment at scale.
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Oxford & Shires and Ridgeway councils create strong building blocks for the Thames Valley Mayoral Strategic Authority with multiple authorities all at the governments target population size. They are the right size to deliver meaningful change while remaining locally responsive. Excluding West Berkshire would leave the region fragmented; including it creates a solid, balanced platform for securing investment, transport upgrades, skills funding and strategic housing deals.
West Berkshire’s strong GVA performance, rural economy and health indicators complement Oxfordshire’s innovation, education and research base. The combined approach enables shared expertise, better service resilience and improved outcomes in adult and children’s services, whereas smaller councils can struggle without scale.
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Including West Berkshire in the two unitary proposal enables us to avoid the temptation to push ahead with the status quo, which our communities have told us clearly does not work. This model and including West Berkshire is the key to unlocking improvement across the whole area. The two new councils will be large enough to modernise the services but remain close to their communities. Transformation in care services, prevention, locality models and digital delivery becomes more achievable with balanced, similarly sized councils.