Clarion Weekend, 20 February 2026

Have you been watching the Winter Olympics? Or merely doing the Olympic juggle that is half term? Put the kettle on: here is Oxfordshire's best curated news feed. More homes! More labs! More SEND support! More police? Along with a cracking selection of events and perhaps the most eclectic ‘Independent media’ section we’ve ever created. Enjoy.

This week’s top stories

Oxford looks set to gain another 3,000 homes, boosting the size of the city by 5%. A southern extension to Oxford has landed on planners’ desks – the South Oxford Science Village, south of Grenoble Road near the Kassam Stadium and Greater Leys. It would also include more lab space for Oxford Science Park, schools and a new ”local centre”.

The project website calls it “a beautiful, sustainable, new part of Oxford… a calm, green place that links seamlessly into the city”. It includes a survey asking respondents to name their top priorities for the new development.

Property firm Savills have lodged a Screening Request with South Oxfordshire District Council, the first stage in the planning process which seeks to identify environmental issues. They say discussions have already been held with Oxfordshire County Council over traffic issues.

A war of words over potholes has erupted between Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for highways, Andrew Gant, and (checks notes) the Prime Minister, with Gant claiming the PM had made a “disgraceful and untrue statement". Buckle up, this one’s a rough road.

Last week, Olly Glover, LibDem MP for Didcot & Wantage, spoke up in Prime Minister’s Questions asking about a £24m cut in road funding from central Government. The PM responded that funds had been increased and he should ask OCC where the money had gone. Glover requested clarification from Gant.

In a strongly worded letter, Gant pointed out that the Government’s own ratings had scored Oxfordshire “green” for spend on highways, citing top ups and borrowing to make up a shortfall, following a Conservative policy of “managed decline” and real-terms cuts from Whitehall. Gant called the PM’s comment “a slur on the dedication and professionalism of officers and contractors”, saying it shows a “complete lack of understanding of the pressures local government is under”. He invited the PM to visit Oxfordshire “to see how a well run council delivers for residents against ever deepening cuts imposed by his Government”.

It’s Oxford City Council’s budget-setting meeting on Monday. We’ve already covered the draft budget as put forward by the Labour administration, but now the opposition parties’ amendments have been published. Since no single party has a majority on the City Council, it’s likely that at least some parts of these will find favour. Here’s the highlights:

• The city LibDems say their amendments trim back on “nice-to-have giveaways”, principally on waste collection charges, community sports and twin towns. They propose employing two new housing officers, one to help people in temporary accommodation find homes, and another to improve enforcement of rental property standards. They would reinstate free entry to the Museum of Oxford during summer holidays; renovate public toilets and community noticeboards; put £50,000 of developer funding to a Summertown community space; and launch a project to revive public green space, and another to improve National Cycle Network routes within the city.
• The Greens would also reduce subsidy on waste collection charges and choose not to employ two new neighbourhood wardens. They would spend the savings on parks and green space, noticeboards, and community grants. (We can sense a majority coming together on some of these…)
• The Independent Oxford Alliance’s savings would also be on neighbourhood wardens, twin towns and community sports. They would direct music funding specifically to the Cowley Road Carnival, improve the Littlemore Community Centre, and invest in youth centres.
• Independent councillor Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini proposes improving lighting in Gillians Park, Northfield Brook.

Around the city

• 40 affordable homes in Old Marston have been unveiled as Oxford City Council cut the ribbon on a new development on a disused paddock. The scheme was delivered by OX Place (the council’s housing company) and Lucy Developments. Fishers Vale is a fully affordable development with 21 council homes for social rent and 19 shared ownership homes. They are engineered to both cut heating bills for residents and exceed national carbon reduction targets by around 56%. They also feature secure cycle storage and EV charging points.
• Oxford only has 27% of its lab space available for rent, after a record take-up in 2025, according to commercial estate agency Bidwells. The take-up, 35% higher than Cambridge,’s was driven by the Ellison Institute of Technology’s mega-purchase of the 450,000 sq ft Daubeny Project at Oxford Science Park. The agency says availability is expected to rise in the near term as further space is opened, though we should expect more lab demand in the future as the Oxford–Cambridge corridor progresses.
       Oxford City Council estimates in its current Local Plan that it needs to build 32,000 homes by 2031 to meet demand driven by the city's growth. It has can build 10,000 of them inside its city to meet demand, and a further 14,300 have been agreed in neighbouring districts. (We wrote about Oxford’s need for homes in a series of long reads. But perhaps we need to write a further one about the tension between space for labs and space for homes – what do you think?)
• BBC Radio 3 broadcast Choral Evensong for Ash Wednesday live from Merton College. Merton’s choral foundation (an endowment to sustain the choir) dates from only 2008, but has earned an international reputation for the 30-strong student choir. The broadcast is repeated on Sunday and available on BBC Sounds.
• Thames Valley Police are seeking to identify a group of individuals holding Union flags (picture) in connection with what they believe was a racially aggravated assault in the Westgate shopping centre on Sunday 8 February, around 5.30pm, in which a drink was poured on a man sitting on the lower level. Anyone with information is asked to call 101 with reference 43260065234.
• The annual OxClean Spring Clean takes place from 6 to 15 March. Volunteers are particularly sought to litter-pick the Ring Road and Kassam Stadium. OxClean provides litter pickers, high-vis vests and plastic bags, and arranges collection of bags.
• Like an arsonist returning to the scene of the crime, Michael Gove will be in conversation about Brexit 10 years on, at the Holywell Music Room on 27 February. The debate will be hosted by the Pharos Lectures, who bill themselves as “the world's leading academics and statesmen, and the greatest questions of our time”. (And we thought we were meant to have had enough of experts.)

• Oxford has won the annual Varsity Match – for blind wine tasting, that is. Sponsored by Pol Roger champagne, the event saw Oxford and Cambridge teams face off at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. The individual ‘Top Taster’ title went to Oxford’s captain, Pembroke history postgrad Julian Leidy. Writing in industry journal The Drinks Business, judge Patrick Schmitt reports that Cambridge had a strong lead after the whites but Oxford regained first place after sweeping the board on the reds. A Cambridge student called the wines “misleading in a fun way”.
• Cost of living latest: As traditional fish prices climb, an award-winning Botley chip shop has added three cheaper fish to the menu. Harrisons now serves saithe, pollock and hoki for £7, as well as cod and haddock for £10. Fish prices have risen due to overfishing and sanctions on Russian commercial fishing companies; around 40% of fillets used in British fish and chip shops were of Russian origin. (We realise you read this story expecting fishy puns, but, well, there’s a time and a plaice.)
• Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry is celebrating 10 years of being an Eco-Church, the first church of 137 in the Diocese of Oxford to receive this certification. Measures include installing solar panels, a bike rack, a Co-Wheels parking space and weekly eco tips. Rt Revd Mary Gregory congratulated the church for blazing a trail, adding: “Responding to the climate crisis is one of the Diocese of Oxford's key priorities. We continue to work on making a difference to sustainability in all the choices we make, including the spaces we live, work and worship in.”
• Local artists have reinterpreted two Old Masters from the Ashmolean for a new show at the North Wall gallery in Summertown. ‘The Drawing Project’ saw 16 artists given a section of each painting to reproduce and reassemble, along with their own responses.
• A rally is planned in Radcliffe Square this Saturday at midday to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine. Organisers ask residents to attend in numbers. They say the message is to Governments, but also to Ukrainians in freezing cities or at the front – we stand with you.

Around the county

• Another 900 homes are planned for north Witney, bringing the total pending in the town to over 3,500. An early-stages application by Gladman Developments, part of Barratt Homes, proposes the houses for arable land overlooking the Windrush valley close to the village of Crawley. Gladman say the development would include “a small local centre”, sports pitch and allotments, and pedestrian and cycle links through the site. They suggest footpaths on Burford Road could be widened to become cycleways, but do not as yet propose improving cycle links into Witney town centre. (The Clarion greatly misses the isolated Crawley Inn, a biker pub with live music, lethal scrumpy and a barman who we swear might actually have been Hagrid. It closed in 2020 after a fire, but we would like to request it is reinstated as a planning condition.)
• Oxfordshire’s new scheme for supporting children with special educational needs in mainstream schools is to triple in size. Oxfordshire County Council is planning to fund ‘Enhanced Pathways’ in a further 20 schools; these provide a teacher-led space for the most vulnerable pupils.
       The programme aims to “provide specialist support beyond the offer […] typically expected in a mainstream school”, improving outcomes for children and saving the cost of private specialist education. On average, it costs £6,200 per year compared to £70,000 for private provision.
       OCC says it is seeing “rapidly escalating need and demand on specialist services and requests for specialist placements” with a 12.7% increase in one year alone. It estimates that the deficit in SEND funding (the gap between Government grant and what OCC spends) will reach £167m over the next five years. The increased programme is set to be approved at a council meeting next week, with a commitment of three years’ funding for each school. OCC says it will “consider and review opportunities to upscale the Enhanced Pathways programme over the coming years”.
• Site clearance at the illegal Kidlington dump is now not expected to get underway until April. The Environment Agency says: “Continuous rainfall has made it unsuitable for heavy vehicles to operate. We are now planning to import aggregate to improve the saturated ground conditions and enable access for vehicles.” Meanwhile, a traffic management plan is being drawn up to minimise impact on local roads.
• Campaign for proportional representation Make Votes Matter celebrated Valentine's Day by sending a card to each Oxfordshire MP, declaring (for example) ‘Witney loves Democracy’. They are campaigning to add a demand for PR to the Representation of the People Bill going through Parliament.
• Oxford United’s ‘Can We Talk?’ suicide prevention campaign has started to deliver workshops for Oxfordshire schools. In partnership with charity partner Baton of Hope, player Will Vaulks shared his story with students in Woodstock and Abingdon of tragically losing both his grandfathers to suicide. The school programme builds on a recent workshop delivered to staff at the University of Oxford.
• Woodstock’s search for a new GP surgery has settled upon a site on the eastern edge of town at the Owen Mumford premises, recently acquired by the Blenheim Estate. The surgery steering group says: “The timeline for converting this site is both more certain and faster than that of [two] other sites.”
       With several new estates constructed in recent years, the current 1960s building is said to be only 40% of the size it would need to be to accommodate demand. If all proceeds as expected, planning permission could be secured by the end of 2026, with the new surgery opening in 2028.
       Local MP Calum Miller said: “The current premises are not fit for purpose. This limits capacity, makes recruitment harder and leaves people frustrated that something so basic has dragged on for years. It is crucial that Woodstock now secures a long term solution that matches the town’s needs.”
• A plan for 83 apartments in Eynsham has been turned down by West Oxfordshire District Council. Planners said the three-storey blocks at Derrymerrye Farm, opposite the new Park & Ride, would be “overly urban, with little meaningful amenity space” and could lead to “increased delays on the A40 corridor”.

• West Oxfordshire District Council have been sharing the results of their Shop Front Improvement Grant. Tamsin Butler of Lily's Attic said: "My shop was tired, and with overheads increasing, a shop facelift was getting more unachievable. The grant was a lifesaver.” Mark Creed from Idlewild Hair called it “a fantastic opportunity to add some beautiful floral colour and beauty to our salon frontage”.
• Carterton could get a new co-working space. West Oxfordshire District Council are looking for residents' views on what features matter most to the community.
• Thames Valley Police has launched a new Roads Policing Unit, to take an "evidence‑based approach to identifying and addressing areas of greatest risk". Inspector Simon Hills said: “The public should expect to see increased action against those who break the law."
• And if you want to know what else your local police force has been up to this week, on Thursday Thames Valley Police announced they had arrested “a man in his sixties from Norfolk”. The Clarion has reached out to Alan Partridge for comment.

Walking and cycling

• A proposed pedestrian crossing in Cholsey would make walking to the station easier for residents in the east of the village. Consultation is open until 13 March.
• A town centre street in Thame is set to be made one-way, with two-way cycling retained, after concerns about pedestrian safety when motorists mount the pavement. Nelson Street will have a planter at the entry and new signs. Oxfordshire County Council says national guidance recommends allowing contraflow cycling on one-way streets. Officers have drafted an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order, to be considered at next week’s OCC highways meeting.

This weekend

• Snow White Rose Red Brown Bear (£), Sat, Story Museum. New puppet show for ages 4-10.
• Come to the Movies (£), Sat, St Andrew's Church, Linton Road. Afternoon concert celebrating Oxford's twin town Padova, with a programme of Italian film music performed by Filarmonica di Padova and Oxford Youth Choirs.
• Leiden Twinning Gala Concert (£), Sat, Oxford Town Hall. Musicians from Oxford and Leiden will celebrate 80 years of twinning with highlights from La Traviata, Madame Butterfly, Carmen, La Bohème, Otello, and Nabucco, alongside orchestral works by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Elgar.
• No Phone Club Night (£), Sat, The Varsity Club. Get your phone locked at the door.
• TEDx Oxford (£), Sun, Sheldonian Theatre. Enthusiastic talks, independently organised.
• If Music Be the Food of Love ... (£), Sun, Holywell Music Room. Oxford Pro Musica Singers offer a menu from the Feast of the Eucharist to drinking songs.

This week

• Creative Industries Festival, 23–27 Feb, Oxford Brookes. A free week of free discussion on the creative economy.
• Children in the Fire, Mon 23 Feb, St Anne's College. Documentary exploring the wartime experiences of eight Ukrainian children (avoiding graphic scenes). Free, booking required.
• Lubomyr Melnyk (£), 23/24 Feb, The New Space (Mansfield Road). The Ukrainian pianist returns to Oxford with a study of musically altered states of consciousness.
• Cosmic Connections (£), Tue 24 Feb, Jesus College. Keynote by British astronaut Meganne Christian, in partnership with Oxford's Space Store. Age 12+.
• 34 Years of Brain Surgery in Ukraine, Tue 24 Feb, St Antony's College. Henry Marsh from the BBC's Confessions of a Brain Surgeon reflects on his collaborations with Ukrainian medical colleagues.
• A Sustainable Future, Wed 25 Feb, Exeter Cohen Quad (Walton Street). How climate goals are at risk from fragile electricity infrastructure.
• Good Vibrations, Wed 25 Feb, Florence Park Community Centre. What do elephants and spiders have in common? Learn how animals respond to vibrations.
• Noether (£), 25-28 Feb, Mathematical Institute. The life of Emmy Noether, a Jewish mathematician in interwar Germany, told as verbatim theatre.
• William Blake: Holy Thursday (£), Thu 26 Feb, Schwarzman Centre. Oxford Poetry Circle celebrates the visionary poet in support of the campaign to save his Mayfair house.
• Other Than Oxford, Thu 26 Feb, Fusion Arts. Free exhibition of photographic portraits of Oxford University researchers.
• Charm of Finches, Fri 27 Feb, St Mary Magdalen Church. Australian sisters sing folk harmonies.
• Songs from Antiquity, Fri 27 Feb, New College Chapel. Reconstructed music and dance from ancient Greece.
• Attention All Shipping, Fri 27 Feb, The Mill Arts Centre. The Shipping Forecast comes inland to Banbury.

Dates for your diary

A selection of upcoming events for which you might want to book in advance.

• Astronomy on Tap, Wed 4 Mar, James Street Tavern. The international space-in-the-pub event launches its Oxford satellite with stellar talks on SETI, telescopes, space weather, and quantum computing.
• Leading Traditional Institutions Through Change (£), Sat 21 Mar, St Mary’s, Kidlington. Bishop of Oxford Steven Croft and University of Oxford Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey discuss how to haul historic institutions into the 21st century.
• OX5 Run (£), Sun 22 Mar. Five miles through Blenheim Palace grounds to raise money for Oxford Children's Hospital.
• And tickets are already on sale for Christmas at Blenheim Palace, with its illuminated trail, ice rink and, this year, Cinderella-themed exhibit. Just make sure you've left before midnight, princesses!

Oxfordshire’s independent media

• Birmingham University – neither independent nor Oxfordshire, but bear with us – published this wonderful piece about the relationship between former Somerville principal Margery Fry and Rose Sidgwick for LGBTQ+ History Month.
• The Oxford Sausage, for Valentine’s Day, has the somewhat macabre story of a heart in a black marble jar in St Giles' Church.
• Ox in a Box has been exploring restaurants in Gloucester Green, and if you read this you will want pasta immediately. (On the subject of Gloucester Green restaurants, can we recommend Mr Wong's Hotpot? Not first date food, or for the timid eater, but worth a trip. Are we doing restaurant recommendations right?)
• Bitten Oxford went for Sunday roast at the Boxing Hare in Swerford, and even though we had to look Swerford up on a map, we would now probably go for the twice baked cave aged cheddar soufflé alone.
• Nathan Ley, County Councillor for Abingdon, shares his views on why there are so many potholes.
• Independent Oxford meets Oxford artist and gardener Molly Palmrock.
• Oxford Brookes' Hybrid asks “is University worth the price?”
• Cherwell interviews Nico Muhly about his new role as composer-in-residence at Christ Church.
• The Oxford Student writes on sexual harassment: “After the Epstein files, I choose the bear.”
• Oxfordshire County Council has set up a blog with some very helpful explainers on things like potholes and elder care, but bizarrely hasn’t told anyone about it. So we will. It's quite useful. Maybe they're still populating it?

Books

No affiliate links, but as suggested by a few readers (thank you!), we’re experimenting with bookshop.org links which give a cut to your local bookshop.

• Toby and the Pixies: How to be Cool. Can we resist a new comic book from Oxford’s very own Phoenix? We cannot. Toby tries to attain coolness. As usual, “the pixies are keen to help”, and as usual, they don’t.
• Oxford’s Savilian Professors of Astronomy, Robin Wilson & Steven Balbus. Oxford has had an Astronomy professorship for four centuries: this accessible book tells its story. “This volume presumes no background in astronomy and should therefore appeal to the general reader,” says OUP, though we’re not sure the price will appeal quite so much. Ask your library.
• We covered the Varsity Wine-Tasting Competition above. There’s a 2013 book on it: Reds, Whites and Varsity Blues. Out of print, but you can find a copy on (Amazon-owned) AbeBooks.
• And our regular recommendations from Xander at Caper on Magdalen Road:
  • Maintenance of Everything, Stewart Brand. The most brilliant meditation on what it means to maintain, to hold together, to repair, to continue. Expanding our idea of what we mean by maintenance, this is philosophical, quietly radical and fascinating.
  • The Elsewhere Express, Samantha Sotto Yambao. Reads like a little like a Studio Ghibli movie. The Elsewhere Express is a magical train that offers its passengers a sense of purpose, peace, and belonging.
  • The Lions Run, Sara Pennypacker. France, WWII. Thirteen year old orphan Lucas discovers unexpected courage as he becomes involved with the resistance. Page-turning and triumphant. For 8+.

Notes from Clarion HQ

We get a little exasperated at times with grandstanding at City Council meetings, in which opposition groups demand that the council writes to Government on a matter tangentially related to Oxford, demanding that Something Must Be Done. So we were genuinely pleased to read the papers for next week’s budget meeting: a set of thoughtful, costed amendments from three opposition parties and an independent councillor. More of this please!

Your Clarion Weekend newsletter this week has come to you from zoos, ferries and pillow fortresses as we unsteadily navigate our way through half term. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Will the MPs provide us with decent photo-ops? Will Ozymandias be back? Will we have more news on housing developments in West Oxfordshire? Or perhaps celebrities in the Cotswolds and their potholes “for the algorithm”? (Spoiler: no.) See you next week.