Oxford City Council has faced criticism for exempting a massive car firm from paying hundreds of thousands of pounds while allegedly not showing the same consideration for "small and independent ethnic retailers and businesses".
The BMW Mini Plant in Cowley was bailed out by officials from an £800,000 planning application Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) in March despite the existence of an ongoing "car reduction policy" for the city.
This comes after the company was granted planning permission for a new factory which attracted the CIL.
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Alongside this, controversial Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) plans will also not affect the plant as it lies just outside Oxford’s ring road.
Oxfordshire County Council plans to roll out a Workplace Parking Levy in the city which will charge medium-large businesses for staff parking places at their premises.
The county council continues to say WPL proposals are at an early stage and no concrete decisions have been taken.
Speaking out at the meeting, Chaka Artwell, a previous city council councillor candidate and regular speaker at council meetings, said the £800,000 exemption had "created a precedent".
He suggested other rate considerations should be given to smaller businesses in light of the CIL concession for BMW Mini.
CIL is applied to many approved applications that create new buildings/floorspace of 100m2 or more within the city.
He added: "A precedent and policy which is more galling considering BMW's £54bn public valuation.
"Will Oxford City Council's elected officers support councillor Upton displaying the same consideration to Oxford's small and independent ethnic retailers and businesses on the Cowley road along with the publicans?
"Oxford City Council's anti-car policies are pushing a significant number into insolvency."
At the time of the exemption, Louise Upton, cabinet member for planning, had said: "It is a very large sum – a lot of money for us to forego.
"But weighing up the small chance they would choose to not come here against absolutely catastrophic consequences of deciding not to means we should grant this exemption.
"It is very good news that BMW has decided to base their new production for the electric version of the Mini here in Oxford."
In 2022, more than 50 per cent of all fully electric vehicles manufactured in the UK came from the Oxford plant and there are aims to put the Cowley site on a path to all-electric production by 2030.
BMW Mini's future in Oxford was further secured in September 2023 with a £600 million investment pot following additional central government grant funding.
Responding to Mr Artwell in the meeting, Ms Upton said: "Put simply - without the support from the public purse, the electric Mini would not be developed in Oxford but would be built elsewhere in Europe instead resulting in the loss of many jobs from Oxford.
"You may have been happy to risk losing those jobs from Oxford but we were not".
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Artwell said: "I felt the decision granted BMW an undue precedent, which I feel would not be offered to other businesses.
"Fear from councillors and parliamentarians of large multinational corporations, are the reason why global corporations can escape local taxation, which is applied with threats against small and independent businesses.
"Have our global corporations become the master, able to escape local taxation?"
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About the author
Noor is the Local Democracy Reporter for Oxfordshire who covers political stories from across the county.
She began working as a journalist in Oxford in September 2023 having graduated from the University of Oxford.
Noor was trained at the News Associates journalism school and can be found on X through the handle @NoorJQurashi
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