Clarion Weekly, 11 April 2025

This week’s top stories

It’s election season! This week, we published our run-down of ten questions to ask canvassers seeking your vote for the County Council. All the big issues, from special educational needs and adult social care to (this is the Clarion, after all) cycling infrastructure. Dive in here.

The top election news this week is, of course, the campaign launch by Oxfordshire’s only Monster Raving Loony candidate. James Bonner, standing in Watlington & Rotherfield, says “No Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate has stood in Oxfordshire for quite some years”. His programme is:

• Putting pot plants in potholes so the council fix them
• Solving homelessness by giving everybody a home
• Making politicians wear jackets with their donors on so we know who owns them

A new party has launched in Oxford, the Oxford Community Socialists. They are supporting Jabu Nala-Hartley, who resigned from Labour in 2023 over the national party’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, in the Barton, Sandhills & Risinghurst division. Her platform includes “Freedom for Palestine, pay rises for the many, a Green New Deal, housing for all, and tax the rich to save the NHS.”

Reform UK have suspended their county council candidate for Banbury Hardwick, Stephen Hartley, after a series of tweets supporting Jimmy Saville and Vladimir Putin were unearthed. The suspension comes after close of nominations, meaning Hartley will still be listed for Reform on the ballot paper.

Today is the deadline for registering to vote. If you’ve moved recently and no poll card has arrived on your doorstep yet, head over to gov.uk to register.

Around the city

• A new splash park and mini-wheels track has opened at Hinksey Park, with five-year-old Felix from St Ebbe‘s Primary School pressing the activation button to start the play fountains and jets for the first time. The splash park is free to use and will be open every day until the end of the summer. Alongside the splash play area is a children's 'learn and play' balance bike and scooter track. The project was jointly funded by a grant from FCC Communities Foundation and Oxford City Council.
• The future of Oxford’s Post Office on St Aldate’s is uncertain following an announcement that all the PO’s “directly managed branches” will be put out to franchise operation. The company says Post Office services will be available “either at, or near to, the same location”. In other cities where Post Offices have closed, a replacement counter has often been provided at WH Smith – but that in turn has an unclear future following the divestment of its high street operations to become ‘TG Jones’.
• HMV on Cornmarket has announced it will close on 22 April. The music/film retailer is situated in the Clarendon Centre site which is being redeveloped. An announcement reads “Stay tuned for details of our new location.”
• Late night revellers looking for an after-midnight Big Mac could be told “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” after the alternative burger chain applied to extend its Magdalen Street opening hours until 2am on Thu–Sat. McDonalds now closes at midnight following noise concerns.
• A 21-year old has been charged with grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon in connection with a stabbing in Blackbird Leys Park on Sunday. Michael Oluyitan of Headington appeared at Oxford Magistrates’ Court this week. An 18-year old remains in custody.
• Campaigners against the new Oxpens pedestrian and cycle bridge say they are “more than three-quarters of the way” towards raising £32,000 for a further legal challenge. The Friends of Grandpont Nature Park lost a judicial review in March and is now preparing an appeal against that decision, for which they are raising funds. (We looked at the arguments for and against the bridge this time last year.)

Around the county

• Salt Cross, the new garden village to be built near Eynsham, is pushing forward with its Net Zero requirement. An on-off saga has seen West Oxfordshire District Council’s plan to build all houses to net zero standards refused by planning inspectors, reinstated on appeal, then banned by Government. WODC now says it will push forward with the Net Zero approach following other decisions around the UK. Chief executive Giles Hughes said: “Our evidence demonstrates that it is not only financially viable and technically deliverable, but has clear advantages over an alternative low carbon approach.” The plan will be resubmitted to the national Planning Inspectorate. “Importantly, we are now seeing more and more proposals like ours approved in other areas of the country which is welcome news. We hope the Inspector agrees with our position so we can progress with the garden village.”
• An “all age autism strategy” has been drawn up by Oxfordshire County Council, aiming “to address the diverse needs of autistic people and their families living in the county”. It covers education, health, social care, and individual support. OCC says it will “encourage organisations to make autism-friendly adjustments to the physical environment”, and make efforts to “support autistic children that currently fall outside of the SEND remit or only need small adjustments”. Consultation is open until 8 May.
• Oxfordshire has again been named the best county in England for recycling. At recycling centres, 57.6% of household waste was recycled in 2023-24, up from 57.2% the previous year. South Oxfordshire was the best in England for kerbside recycling (62.9%).
• The Abbey Cinema in Abingdon reopens today in the main auditorium at Abbey Hall. It was closed for six months while contractors dealt with problem RAAC (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) on behalf of building owners Abingdon Town Council. Opening day films are Snow White and SIX - The Musical live!. Cinema-goers can again enjoy the reopened kitchen serving nachos, pizzas and locally brewed Abingdon Bridge beer alongside regular cinema favourites.
• Meanwhile in Wantage, the Beacon arts centre will see its café reopened on 25 April after a five-year absence. Volunteers from Wantage Literary Festival, who will be staffing the café, say “It is wonderful to see local people come together over a love of literature.”
• Plans to bypass the South Oxfordshire village of Cuxham have been dropped. Homes England was proposing a bypass as part of its plan to build 3,400 homes at nearby Chalgrove Airfield. It now says traffic calming and a cycle path to the north of the village will suffice. The cycle route would run behind houses north of the village and would not connect with routes on either side, though Homes England says “it could connect with other potential cycle routes that might be planned in the future”. A bypass of Stadhampton and Chiselhampton is still planned.

University and research

• Mansfield College plans to demolish its 1960s south range in order to provide 200 student rooms in a new low-carbon building. Mansfield has the highest proportion of state school students of any Oxford college, and one of the smallest endowments. The college says “we have long since outgrown our current space”, and that existing buildings on the south range are “space-inefficient and environmentally poor”. It believes there is a “once in a lifetime opportunity to take a holistic look at the challenges of our physical estate”. The new rooms would enable Mansfield to accommodate all undergraduates and visiting students in college accommodation. The plans would also improve the college entrance by replacing the car park with a “public pocket park”; Mansfield is unusual in not having a traditional Porter’s Lodge entrance.
• The Boat Race eligibility row rumbles on, as one of Wednesday’s trial races was called off when Oxford claimed two of Cambridge’s rowers were PGCE (education) students and therefore not eligible. Of the trials that did take place, Cambridge won all three.
• An Oxford University team is investigating creating a net zero power grid from “millions of additional grid-edge devices including electric vehicles, heat pumps, and home/community batteries”, which they say could replace several major power plants. The millions of devices would be too complex for a traditional control system, so the Oxford research will explore an AI approach to “help devices make smart, local decisions while working together”. A key aspect of the brief is to develop “rigorous safety specifications”.

Trains and buses

• A bid has been lodged for a new direct rail service between Bristol, Oxford and Nottingham. The plans by rail consultancy SLC would see eight trains a day in each direction, running via the new East-West line to Bletchley and Bedford before heading north to Leicester and Nottingham. This would be an “open access” service (not run by an existing Government-subsidised operator), run with five-coach Voyager trains of the type used by CrossCountry. The Office of Rail & Road weighs up competing open access applications for their impact on other services and on railway congestion.
• GWR and track operator Network Rail are to form a single ‘Control’ team in a bid to tackle train delays in Oxfordshire and the West. Control makes decisions on train running and cancellations, additional stops, rescheduling and so on. Previously GWR and Network Rail had their own separate teams. GWR’s Daryn McCombe said “By working together more closely as one team we will be in a stronger position to manage our performance; tackle disruption; make swift decisions and bring a safe, reliable and seamless railway experience to our passengers and customers.”
• Family and friend groups can travel for less on the buses in April. Oxford Bus Company has introduced a £15 ticket for unlimited bus travel for one day, covering up to five people. Validity extends out to Bicester, Newbury, Henley, Chipping Norton, and even Swindon on Oxford Bus/Thames Travel/Pulhams services.
• A new theme park near Bedford could bring a boost to East-West Rail. Universal Studios has confirmed it will build its own version of Disneyland on the south side of the town, with its own railway station likely to be served by direct trains from Oxford.

Walking and cycling

• A new community project for mountain bikers, OX Trails, aims to create “a network of sanctioned trails and tracks accessible from our doorstep”. The founders say “Oxfordshire is a blank spot on the map when it comes to bike trails” and believe there is an opportunity to build new trails for MTBers. Initial projects include the National Trust-owned Badbury Clump site, which they call “a mountain bike gem in the county”, and working with Vale of White Horse District Council to renovate South Abingdon BMX track. The group can be contacted via their website.
• The Thames Path’s missing link at Marsh Lock, Henley, is a step closer to repair after a three-year closure. The Environment Agency has earmarked £500,000 for design work after the bridge across the lock and weir was closed for safety reasons in May 2022. Local MP Freddie van Mierlo said: “This is really welcome news and I’m pleased that the Environment Agency’s Area Director and her team have recognised the importance of this bridge to the community here and more widely. I will continue to hold the EA’s feet to the fire on this, and work constructively with all relevant stakeholders and interested parties.” He highlighted the campaign of local nine-year old Claudia Fennell, who will be presenting a petition to Downing Street this month.
• Footpaths and bridleways around Oxfordshire are lined up for upgrades in the county council’s Rights of Way Improvement Plan. The ROWIP is revised every 10 years and consultation is now underway on the next version for 2025-35; an initial survey is available online.

Oxfordshire politics

Oxfordshire’s MPs of all (both) stripes have been out on the doorsteps, returning the favour for county council candidates who last year were door-knocking for the would-be MPs.

Oxfordshire’s LibDem MPs are releasing joint press releases again. This week they launched a ‘Buy British’ campaign to support local businesses in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariffs. Layla Moran, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said that we should “rally round” local businesses and protect Oxfordshire’s producers – particularly farmers, with the Times reporting that tariffs on US beef, chicken and pork could all be slashed in a proposed agreement between Trump and the UK. The five MPs said: ”Oxfordshire’s farmers and manufacturers are the backbone of our rural and regional economy. They’ve already been hit by Labour’s taxes on jobs, and attacked on family farms. The last thing they need now is to be caught in the crossfire of Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs.”

• Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds was out campaigning in the Runcorn by-election. Locally she’s been taking on the cause of Oxford’s ever erratic postal service, which Royal Mail says is partly due to difficulties filling vacancies: she shared this vacancy for “postperson with driving”. She attended the third Community Iftar event organised by the Oxford Dialogue Society, “a special evening of cultural exchange and shared values”. Together with Sean Woodcock, she endorsed Oxford Labour’s plan to divide the county up into three unitary councils, saying “the plan would be financially robust and provide the right balance of voices for Oxfordshire on a new Strategic Authority Mayoral Board”. (And we worry that we’re too geeky about this stuff.)
• Calum Miller’s Bicester & Woodstock constituency doesn’t include BMW Plant Cowley, but many of his constituents work there. This week, with the LibDems cementing their niche as the anti-Trump party, he was all over the airwaves decrying the “Trump Tariffs” that will make Minis more expensive in the States. Together with the county’s other LibDem MPs, he met with the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust in Parliament, discussing how to integrate nature into new housing developments.
• Banbury MP Sean Woodcock called out the new US tariffs, asking Banbury area businesses to “share their challenges and concerns”. He welcomed the Labour government’s plans for the hospitality sector, including reform of licensing laws (potentially meaning more alfresco dining spots, as well as later opening hours for pubs and clubs) and hospitality training for prison leavers: “Banbury already has a fantastic array of local cafes and pubs, but these plans will allow local businesses to grow and thrive.” The Oxfordshire chapter of Make Votes Matter, which campaigns for a proportional system for Britain’s elections, met with him and praised his commitment to making “more citizens feel their votes matter”.
• Layla Moran in Oxford West & Abingdon spoke on tariffs, asking Keir Starmer to take the NHS off the table in any trade negotiations with the US. We don’t often quote the Daily Mail but their sketchwriter Quentin Letts thought she was the Commons committee’s most effective interrogator of the PM. She also decried Israel’s decision to refuse entry to two British MPs and called on Foreign Secretary David Lammy to act.
• Charlie Maynard in Witney spoke in Parliament about a policy of “managed decline” on county roads, but that’s getting dangerously close to potholes so we won’t go there. He also spoke on Thames Water, saying that its debt rating meant it was failing its financial viability requirements as a utility company: “By allowing Thames Water to breach that rule, we introduce moral hazard into the water sector and all other regulated sectors. Other water companies take note that there has been no material sanction of Thames Water and realise that they can also likely get away with it. Customers are being royally stuffed.”
• Freddie van Mierlo in Henley & Thame was out on the river at Marsh Lock (see above). In Thame he met with the local Sharing Life Trust charity, which runs a foodbank in the town as well as supporting endeavours in Africa and India. He spoke to students at Wheatley Park Secondary School, planted a tree at MP Cricket Academy in Thame (MP in this case standing for cricketer Manoj Parmar rather than an elected representative), and visited Lucy Electric, a Thame-based subsidiary of Oxford’s long-established canalside Lucy Group.
• Olly Glover in Didcot & Wantage has been working with neighbouring MPs Olivia Bailey (Reading West, Labour) and Lee Dillon (Newbury, LibDem) to highlight safety issues on the A34. He wrote to the Government highlighting difficulties that motor neurone disease sufferers are having accessing the “breakthrough drug” tofersen.

Dates for your diary

• The amazing Earth Trust has Little Acorns for 2-6 year olds on Mon 14/Tue 15 April, as well as Family Nature Day on Wednesday 16 at Wittenham Clumps.
• Light on Darkness: A free concert of sacred music to launch a new book on the history of religious rituals. Christ Church Cathedral, Thursday 24 April.
• Magical, fantastical and mysterious: Gareth Brown & Anne Corlett in conversation with Chris Sugden. Join two award-winning and bestselling authors of the magical, fantastical and mysterious, as they discuss their latest novels with local, Sunday Times bestselling author Chris Sugden. Caper Bookshop, Magdalen Road, Wednesday 16 April, 7.30pm.
• Museum of the Moon at Harwell. A giant illuminated moon will rise over Harwell Science Campus from 21 May to 6 June. Luke Jerram's ‘Moon’ installation previously came to the University Church in Oxford in 2022.
• Dance Dance Party Party. Tuesday 15 April. A new regular dance night in Oxford “for women and people of marginalized genders to dance like no one is watching” at Florence Park Community Centre.
• Abingdon Beer Festival. Friday 25–27 April, promising “the very best of Oxfordshire beers”.
• Oxfordshire Real Ale Trail. Saturday 26 April. The best real ale pubs in rural Oxfordshire. On a bus. Sometimes we just spot things and think “Clarion readers will love this”.
• Witney Beer Festival. Saturday 3 May, St Mary’s Church, Witney. Beer. In a church. With Tolkien references. Sometimes we just spot things and think…

(Looking for more ideas for places to go over the Easter break? Check out Oxford Rocks for family-friendly activities, places to eat from Bitten Oxford, local shops from Independent Oxford, this handy list from City Sightseeing, and, of course, Daily Info.)

This weekend

• It’s the Boat Race on Sunday. This is the one time in the year we’ll allow ourselves to list a London event.
• Palm Sunday procession: A donkey will lead a procession along St Aldate's into Christ Church Cathedral for the first day of Holy Week. Gather at 10.45am, starting at the gate to Christ Church Meadow from St Aldate's, before the service at 11.05am (which finishes with a blistering Bach organ piece – just listen to the growl from that pedal line). Why not stay on in Oxford, and then move on to…
• Drum & bass on the bike: Cycling DJ Dom Whiting will lead a musical ride through Oxford on Sunday. He started pedalling and playing dance music during the Covid lockdown. Sunday starting at 2pm, Clarendon Building, Broad Street.
• Oxford Folk Festival: Or for something less amplified, it’s the city’s annual folk weekend – “the little city festival with a big heart”. A whole lotta ceilidhs and acoustic gigs from national and local artists. A film on folksong collector George Butterworth looks particularly fascinating.
• Oxford Bookshop Crawl: Spend Saturday perusing the city’s bookshops. From 1pm to 5pm, booking required. Or pay as much as you like to get the self-guided tour instructions.

Easter music

In November we were delighted to highlight some of the choral highlights of the Christmas season; after all, everyone loves a good carol. But Easter has its own carols – ‘This Joyful Eastertide’ et al – as well as some heartrending choral works and some fabulously joyful instrumental music. It may be outside university term, but many college choristers and the young trebles are back in residence for Holy Week. There will be a lot of Bach, starting with…

• Oxford Bach Soloists, Fürchte dich nicht: this Saturday at SJE Arts, 2.30pm–4pm. “Orphaned aged ten and father to twenty children, only ten of whom survived to adulthood, Bach’s life was deeply affected by loss. This programme explores both Bach’s personal relationship with death, and music which delves into the Lutheran idea of the ars moriendi, the art of dying.”
• Bach’s St John Passion: Holy Week wouldn’t be Holy Week without this meisterwerk. Saturday 12, Chipping Norton Choral Society in Deddington; Sunday 13, Merton College Choir at the University Church; Thursday 17, Oxford Bach Soloists at SJE Arts.
• Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri: Dietrich Buxtehude was perhaps Bach’s greatest influence, and his intricate Passiontide song cycle is a delicious marriage of Baroque polyphony and medieval texts. Christ Church Cathedral Choir will be singing it on Tuesday 15 at 7.30pm – “offered as an act of worship; it is therefore free to attend, and no booking is required”.
• Consone Quartet, Haydn Seven Last Words from the Cross: Dare we venture away from Bach for a minute? Little Islip (just 10 minutes from Oxford on the train) has a remarkable musical reputation. This period instrument string quartet are playing Haydn’s meditative reflections at the village church. Sunday 13 at 5pm, booking recommended.
• Any Easter Sunday service around Oxford, whether morning communion or Evensong, traditional choral or guitars+vocals, is almost guaranteed to have fantastic music. A few years ago your Clarion musical editor cycled to ChCh for Easter evensong which concluded with this riotous postlude… with added percussion. Take a lucky dip this year.
• Ascension Day is Wednesday 7 May and – yes! – there will be Bach. Only four Bach manuscripts are housed in the UK. One of them is Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein at the Bodleian, and New College Choir will be singing it with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. More here.
• There will also be Messiaen on Ascension Day. If you know, you know.

Oxfordshire’s independent media

• Oxford Brookes' Hybrid Magazine explores nightclimbing the dreaming spires of Oxford.
• The Oxford Sausage looks for snake head fritillaries; the county flower.
• Bitten Oxford shares a guide to Easter food.
• Ox in a Box reckons Cowley Road's Dosa Darlings may be the best value lunch in Oxford.
• Muddy Stilettos has 5 fabulous Easter egg hunts.
• Daily Info reviews the performance art event of Home from Home at Cowley Workers’ Social Club.
• Cherwell reports that less than one in 10 Oxford professors are Black or Minority Ethnic.

Notes from Clarion HQ

When your Clarion editor started out in this trade, many years ago, phone calls to press officers were often how you asked the awkward questions. Interesting stories emerged from the space between “what we want to ask” and “what they want to tell us”. Sometimes a hanging “So… anything else going on?” at the end of the call would turn up a story.

In 2000 the Government introduced the Freedom of Information Act, and everything changed. You could submit a written request to any council or other governmental body, and within certain boundaries (chiefly, the request has to be for information that already exists), they had to respond. Immediately the relationship between journalist and press officer was reframed, with an implicit threat of “if you don’t tell me, I’ll just FOI it”.

Since then, as both local and national papers have cut staff, journalists have increasingly cut out the middleman and just sent an FOI request without asking the press officer. The well-known site WhatDoTheyKnow automates FOI requests and lets you read what others have asked, but most journalists don’t use it, preferring to ask privately lest someone else picks up on their scoop.

Browsing through WDTK is both fascinating and terrifying. Fascinating because it turns up all sorts of council minutiae; terrifying because one inquirer with a hobbyhorse and a slightly detached view of reality can generate an enormous amount of work for council officers which, of course, we all have to pay for. Oxford City Council wryly notes that “We receive nearly a thousand information requests per year, but most of the information is sent to just one requester.” So kudos to the City Council for publishing all the FOI requests it receives, together with their answers, in a “disclosure log”; we’d like to see Oxfordshire’s other councils do the same.

(Our eyebrows were raised this week by the coincidence of this FOI request and this rather silly Oxford Mail story. The OM asked the County Council how much it spent on social media advertising; the answer was £127,000, which seems fairly cost-effective to us as a way to reach your residents. Someone also asked the same question of the City Council. Their response was that they spent £67,000 on social media over six years – but also £87,000 on traditional media advertising, almost half of which went to the Oxford Mail and its sister titles. We await the outraged story on that one…)