A GOVERNMENT body which has recommended the building of a controversial road that could carve through the Oxfordshire Green Belt visited Oxford just three times in two years.

The National Infrastructure Commission has also recommended that one million homes are built in the ‘arc’ it has designated between Oxford and Cambridge.

The NIC was designated an executive agency of the Treasury in January 2017.

It supports plans for the £3bn Oxford-Cambridge expressway, which were backed by Chancellor Philip Hammond when he allocated £215m for the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal last November.

But the Oxford Mail can reveal that members made only three official visits to Oxford in preparation for its report Partnering for Prosperity: a new deal for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Arc, over 2016 and 2017.

Its report was published last November, just under a week before Mr Hammond unveiled his Budget.

According to a Freedom of Information request, NIC members made official visits to Oxford on July 5, 2017, July 6, 2017 and on July 21, 2016, as part of a tour which took in the ‘arc’.

The NIC has eight commissioners but just three of those made official trips to Oxford.

In July 2017 its former chairman Lord Adonis was joined by economist Bridget Rosewell for the first day, along with one member of staff.

On the second, he was in the city alone with four other NIC staff .

Lord Adonis, Ms Rosewell and Professor Sadie Morgan visited the city as part of the ‘cross arc’ tour in July 2016.

That trip, which five staff also attended, cost taxpayers £1,113.80.

Michael Tyce, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "Given the whole remit is to consider policies to improve Oxford to Cambridge, it strikes me they have only been three times to Oxford.”

Mr Tyce, a critic of the housing plans for Oxfordshire, added: “On the other hand there is nothing of substance to it at all [in the report].

"Maybe they haven’t done much research, because they haven’t printed fact nor evidence."

According to a document on the NIC’s website, Lord Adonis was paid £85,200 for three days’ work a week as chairman, with his deputy chairman Sir John Armitt receiving £52,431 for eight days’ work a month.

Lord Adonis resigned late last year and was replaced by Sir John as chairman.

Commissioners – including Ms Rosewell – are paid £20,000 a year for two days’ work a month.

NIC spokesman Rob Mallows said: “Our report reflected the wide range of evidence and opinion received during commissioner visits to the region and the many other meetings and calls the team held with stakeholders from across the area, including Oxford.” The NIC visited Aylesbury and Cambridge three times.