Oxford is now the least affordable city for housing in the country, with the average house price having gone up to 16 times the average salary. This is now a major barrier to growing our economy and to the recruitment and retention of staff for our employers, both for skilled workers and managers and those on lower incomes.

Our universities are being held back in the global competition as the next generation of leading researchers are priced out of the city. In our public services the high turnover of teachers who find the city too expensive is undermining our schools’ educational attainment. Our hospitals’ staffing budgets are over-stretched as they depend on agency staff because they cannot recruit permanent staff. With over half the city's workforce travelling into Oxford, the pressure on our infrastructure is not sustainable, even with improvements to roads and public transport.