Sign in Subscribe

Clarion guest contributor

J.D. Vance has taken over my village. Send help

J.D. Vance has taken over my village. Send help

The tiny Oxfordshire village of Dean has an unexpected visitor – US vice-president J.D. Vance on his summer holidays. Local resident Jonathan Mazower writes from inside Fortress Dean. What to do when J.D. Vance comes to stay? This wasn’t a question I’d ever considered, but it was

Climate-proofing your garden

Climate-proofing your garden

Is your garden suffering in this uncommonly hot summer? Oxford horticulturist Amandine Lepers-Thornton explains how to future-proof your planting in the age of climate change. Imagine a typical British garden. Lush green grass, shrubs and trees looking full and beds bursting at the seams with green leaves and spires of

Abingdon Reservoir: how much will it cost?

Abingdon Reservoir: how much will it cost?

The proposed reservoir will be Oxfordshire’s most expensive infrastructure project ever. In the last part of his personal look at the project, Andy Cooke asks if costs will be kept under control. For a moment, let’s ignore issues raised in the last two articles and assume it is

Abingdon Reservoir: what are the risks?

Abingdon Reservoir: what are the risks?

In part two of a personal look at the case for and against a new reservoir near Abingdon, Andy Cooke asks if a 150-billion litre ‘bunded’ reservoir is too risky. In 2010, a public inquiry into Thames Water’s then proposals found that a 100-billion litre reservoir was unjustifiable – but

Abingdon Reservoir: is there an alternative?

Abingdon Reservoir: is there an alternative?

Few projects in Oxfordshire have excited as many column inches as Thames Water’s proposed Abingdon Reservoir. Is it a simple NIMBY battle – or are the issues more complicated than that? Andy Cooke, local councillor and water champion for Vale of White Horse District Council, thinks it deserves more thought

Oxford’s traffic emergency needs a bold approach – Luke Marion on the congestion charge

Oxford’s traffic emergency needs a bold approach – Luke Marion on the congestion charge

A temporary congestion charge could be introduced to Oxford this autumn to get the city’s streets moving again. Among its main aims is speeding up bus journey times, currently suffering from queues on the main routes into the city. We asked Luke Marion, Managing Director of Oxford Bus Company,

There’s only one Oxfordshire – Matthew Barber on council reorganisation

There’s only one Oxfordshire – Matthew Barber on council reorganisation

In what is set to be Oxfordshire’s greatest political upheaval in a generation, the organisational map of the country is set to be redrawn. We wrote about the challenges of doing this in December. The change is so significant it deserves both open and wide debate. Today we open