AN OXFORDSHIRE council has prepared no formal report over what it thinks Brexit might bring, it can be revealed.

The United Kingdom is pencilled in to leave the European Union on March 29, although MPs again voted against the Government’s strategy on Thursday.

Earlier this year, county council officers told councillors they judged Brexit to be of ‘low risk’ and ‘low impact’ in Oxfordshire.

They revealed crisis managers working for the Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum, based at Thames Valley Police’s headquarters in Kidlington, were working on post-Brexit plans.

It has now emerged West Oxfordshire District Council has no single plan over the potential impacts of Brexit, while two others refused to detail what work had been done so far.

In reply to a Freedom of Information request, a West Oxfordshire District Council officer stated: “The council has considered the impact of Brexit, however, it has not been formalised as part of a Brexit impact assessment.”

Other authorities, such as Birmingham City Council, tried initially to hide results of Brexit assessments, which painted a sometimes gloomy picture of the city’s place in the world. That council revealed it last year.

It said the West Midlands stood to lose its ‘voice’ on the global stage – but that judging Brexit at the time was like a jigsaw with a third of the pieces in place.

Oxford City Council documents sent to the Local Government Association said there were possible boosts to the economy. A ‘more liberal regulatory environment will allow great speed of commercialisation of science,’ it said.

But it also said it was a worry that the Government might need to give ‘active support’ to the biotechnology industry in the event of a ‘hard’ Brexit.

It said Oxford University will also see a ‘dramatic effect’ on the volume of visa-related administration: one in seven of its students are from other EU countries.

Michelle Wells, insight and policy manager at South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils, said she would ‘neither confirm nor deny’ whether the councils had prepared any impact studies.

She said doing so ‘would prejudice or be likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs’.

Oxfordshire County Council and Cherwell District Council should have responded to the FOI request by Thursday. But their formal responses were yet to be received on Friday.