AN OXFORD charity has accused the Government of wasting taxpayers' money to help bring forward a multi-million pound Oxford University housing development under the guise of the £121m Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme.

The Ferry Hinksey Charitable Trust - due to lose some of its land to the flood channel - said the £6.09m awarded for the Osney Mead Innovation Quarter plan this month amounted to an unlawful benefit to a third party.

Trustee Chris Sugden of North Hinksey made his accusations in a letter to Michael Gove, to which the Environment Secretary is now formulating a formal response.

The £6.09m was awarded to Oxford City Council this month by the Housing Infrastructure Fund that is specifically to help bring forward the 600 homes – all for university staff and students – in the £600m innovation quarter redevelopment.

The city council then revealed it planed to use £4.35m of that grant to plug a long-term funding gap in the Environment Agency's (EA) £121m Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme: a three-mile channel to the west of the city to divert flood waters away from homes and main roads.

The council said cutting the flood risk in the area would be essential to make the development plan viable.

That has allowed the scheme to progress to its next stages, which will see the EA use government Compulsory Purchase Orders to acquire the land it needs.

But Dr Sugden's charity is one of a number of landowners fighting the scheme because they will lose land or because of the threat to rare plants in the area such as endangered creeping marshwort.

He and others have claimed flood risk could be sufficiently reduced by simply dredging streams in the area more regularly, a claim contested by those leading the scheme.

Writing to Mr Gove last week, Dr Sugden claimed the flood scheme would now confer an 'illegal benefit to third parties'.

He told the Environment Secretary: "We now have clear evidence that the reason why the Flood Alleviation Scheme has an exceptionally high specification, is to enable development by Oxford University at the Osney Industrial Estate.

"This proves that the flood alleviation scheme being paid for by tax payers is enabling Third Party Land development at Osney Industrial Estate which is not what the Water Industry Act was set up to do.

"Questions must be asked whether the damage done to the rare flora and fauna found within Oxford’s flood meadows should be damaged for a long period of time, potentially forever, by an over specified flood alleviation project.

"Questions should also be asked whether Compulsory Purchase Powers can and should be used by the Environment Agency for the over specified project when a third party will benefit by millions of pounds.

"This third party, Oxford University, ought to be paying the various landowning parties who are losing land to the flood alleviation works a value equalised around the increase in the value of the land benefitting from development.

"In addition this developer should be paying the cost of the flood alleviation and not the Environment Agency."

Both Michael Gove's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government refused to comment on the specifics of the claim, saying they were responding to Dr Sugden directly.

However, MHCLG did explain it had awarded the cash through the HIF to help get 'much-needed homes' built quicker, adding: "Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme... is required to help unlock the land and capacity for hundreds of new homes."

The Environment Agency also declined to comment, saying it was responding to Dr Sugden directly.

In a statement, the university said that the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme on its own was not enough to protect Osney Mead from flood risk, and said it had already put in a bid for separate cash for specific flood protection measures from the Local Growth Fund – another government funding pot.

It also said the Osney Mead development was 'in line' with the 'joint aspirations' of Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, adding that it did not expect to develop the whole site itself.

The university concluded by saying its proposals included 600 units of 'affordable housing' for university staff and/ or graduate students 'to relieve pressure on the Oxford housing market' and to 'help the university continue to attract and support the staff who deliver world leading research and education, as well as innovation that is vital to the national economy and international development'.

It added: "As well as the housing, it will create up to 140,000 square metres of research and commercial space to help support Oxford's economic growth and development."