The Clarion, 10 March 2026

The most dramatic change to Oxford city centre this century broke cover this week. Plus thousands of new homes around Oxfordshire, politics, university news, electric go-karts, and buses. So many buses.

This week’s top stories

Oxford could get a new city centre public square as part of ambitious plans to replace the Clarendon Centre, with a classical-style design by King Charles’ favourite architect Quinlan Terry invoking “associations with place-making and boutique shopping”.

Clarendon Square would have “continuous commercial frontage at ground floor providing shops, restaurants and office entrances”. As well as the entrances from Queen Street and Cornmarket, there would be a new thoroughfare from Carfax, where land was recently acquired by Clarendon owners Goldmoney. The ground and first floors would be retail and hospitality, with offices on the upper floors. Two blocks would have roof terraces for dining.

The new square would be pedestrian-only with a central water feature, and opportunities for Christmas markets, ice skating or open-air concerts. The developers say: “This square will bring new life into the centre… this form of aesthetically pleasing open area does not currently exist in Oxford. It will draw small businesses back into the city and permanently enhance the historic centre.” A planning application is with the City Council.

A 15-year old Oxford United Academy player has died at the football club’s training centre in Horspath. Amelia Aplin collapsed during a game against Fulham at the weekend. The club thanked medical staff and emergency services, sending condolences to Amelia’s family, friends, teammates and coaches. In a statement, the Junior Premier League said:

“Amelia represented everything we hope to see in a young footballer: resilience, passion, and a strong team spirit. As a goalkeeper she played with courage and determination, and was a constant source of encouragement to her teammates. Her presence on the pitch and within the All Stars programme made a lasting impression on those who had the privilege of playing alongside her. Our thoughts are with her family, her friends and her teammates at this unspeakably difficult time.”

Around the city

• Thames Valley Police believe that a fire at a 5G mast in Cutteslowe, which closed the A40 for several hours, was started deliberately. Based on reports from fire services, they believe intruders forced entry and used an unidentified liquid to start the fire at around 8.45pm on Thursday. Recent months have seen a spate of such incidents in the South-East. In 2023, conspiracy theorists marched through Oxford with placards protesting against 15-minute cities, vaccine passports, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and 5G transmitters.
• A new building with retail on the ground floor, and graduate student accommodation above, is proposed to replace Suffolk House in Summertown. The existing building, at the corner of Banbury Road and South Parade, is currently home to Sainsbury’s. The new five-storey building would include student amenity space and a landscaped courtyard. There would be a “café-style colonnade with awnings” at the corner. A consultation website is now live, with a drop-in public exhibition on Wednesday 18 March in advance of submitting a planning application.
• The Oxford Preservation Trust has opened entries for its awards, which celebrate the "very best projects that shape Oxford’s unique character". Last year's winners included the Market Street redevelopment and Hinksey Little Wheels & Wet Play Park. Anna Eavis, CEO of Oxford Preservation Trust, said: “The OPT Awards shine a spotlight on the projects that are helping Oxford evolve thoughtfully and responsibly. We are particularly keen to see entries that demonstrate how heritage, sustainability and community benefit can work hand in hand.”
• The Oxford Climate Choir repurposed K-Pop Demon Hunters hit ‘Golden’ into the alternative, possibly less catchy, ‘We’re Gonna Switch Our Bank’ outside Oxford city centre bank branches on Saturday. The performance aimed to encourage bank customers to switch to banks with more environmentally friendly policies. The action, a collaboration with the youth-led banking campaign Switched, comes in response to growing concerns about the role of financial institutions in supporting industries that contribute to climate change. Jo Gill from the choir explained: “It is a grim reality that many of our banks continue to invest in fossil fuels, while the planet overheats. We’re singing this song to highlight how everyone can make a difference by switching to a more responsible bank or building society.”

• Women Against the Far Right protested at Oxford County Court on Friday at the presence of the group Oxfordshire Patriots. The group say the Oxfordshire Patriots have been racialising sexual violence against women and girls as part of a campaign to whip up racism against migrants and refugees. They call it a brutal hijacking of the real pain and suffering of victims of sexual violence, pointing to the disproportionate number of sexual assaults perpetrated by white British males, and saying everyone charged with such crimes should be tried according to the law. In a statement, the group said: “We stand with the 100 women's rights groups who recently wrote to the Prime Minister calling for urgent action against the weaponisation of violence against women and girls by far-right groups and mainstream politicians to further a racist, anti-migrant agenda. Too many of us have been abused to hand over our power to men who want to lie about our suffering – we are perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves.”

Around the county

• The Environment Agency has shared pictures of mobilisation work underway at the Kidlington illegal waste site. A geotextile layer has been laid on the ground and aggregate placed on top, creating a firm track which waste removal vehicles can use to access the illegal fly-tip.
• 625 houses could be built on the southern edge of Banbury. An early-stages planning application has been lodged for a site between the Salt Way bridleway and Wykham Lane, already identified in Cherwell District Council’s emerging Local Plan. 1300 houses have already been agreed on neighbouring sites, including a new primary school. The application (an Environmental Impact Assessment screening request) has been lodged with Cherwell District Council.
• Plans have been lodged for a 750-home development on the northern edge of Bicester, two miles from the town centre – but the developers claim it is “not possible” for them to provide a safe cycle route along the main road into the town. Instead, they are offering a shared-use path on a minor road. The development, by Barratt subsidiary Gladman, is on the Dymock’s Farm site north of former military housing at Caversfield. Gladman say that although “Caversfield contains little in the way of services… road transport is well supported, with only a 10-minute drive to the centre of Bicester”. Plans envisage a “village green community area” around a traffic-calmed street, a low-density area on the countryside edge, and a new local centre with community facilities and higher density housing. A planning application is with Cherwell District Council, and a website here.
• The developers behind a controversial 340-home scheme in Kidlington have swiftly revised and re-submitted their plans, after Cherwell councillors turned them down in January. HarperCrewe have reduced building heights to preserve views of St Mary’s Church and removed a proposed cricket pavilion. The Land North of the Moors site had been argued to be “grey belt” by the Government’s new designation, but the planning committee was sceptical. HarperCrewe say that councillors “were put under significant pressure by an active group of objectors… this distorted their impression of the proposals”. The firm is also now offering to make a contribution to a new walking and cycling bridge over the canal at Roundham; the current route would be cut off if Network Rail succeeds in closing the existing level crossing. A pedestrian died at the crossing in January after being struck by a train.
• Oxfordshire's newest go-kart track took a step closer as Bicester Motion finished its refurb of the historic RAF Hangar 137, handing it over to Team Sport to create a state-of-the-art two decked, 500 metre electric go-karting track. Team Sport say their newest e-karting centre is an investment in young talent, grassroots and women in motorsport. (We wrote about Bicester Motion in a long read in 2024.)

• A village pub near Banbury, the Bell Inn in Great Bourton, has been saved from redevelopment as housing. Cherwell District Council’s planning committee had originally turned down the application by James Day, who bought the building in May 2024, but he appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. The inspector was scathing about his evidence, voicing “fundamental concerns about the legitimacy of these figures”, and saying that alterations already undertaken “exceed what may typically be required for the effective operation of a public house… I have been provided with neither convincing evidence of the total costs incurred nor justification that works of this extent were necessary to secure the pub’s long-term operation”.
       He found that the Save The Bell group’s plan for a community-owned pub was credible, concluding “it has not been shown that the use of the appeal site as a public house is no longer viable in the long-term”. The campaign group expressed its delight at the decision, saying: “The road to community pub ownership is rarely short or without bumps. But we are on it!”
• But South Oxfordshire District Council has decreed that John Barleycorn must die. The pub in Goring-on-Thames, South Oxfordshire, is to become housing after the district council gave permission for conversion to residential use; it has been closed since 2023. The applicants wrote that “the older users of the pub have dwindled over time with direct impact on the business”, and that Goring had four other pubs (two of them actually over the river in Streatley) and two cafes. Despite CAMRA objections, planners agreed that “the existing public house does not constitute an essential community facility”.
• The Diocese of Oxford has warned against a social media trend in which well-meaning people clean gravestones in churchyards. They say: “Many churchyard monuments and gravestones are made from soft stone such as Portland limestone or Bath stone, which can be easily harmed by harsh cleaning techniques. Though a gravestone may appear cleaner immediately, the real damage becomes visible months later as stone begins to flake, crumble or stain.” The TikTok videos show people scrubbing gravestones with household cleaning products including wire brushes, pressure washers, and bleach. Cleaning monuments in churchyards generally requires formal permission and consultation with the family or heirs; lichens found on memorial stones can also be rare or protected species.
• Campaigners from Oxfordshire, Brain Cancer Justice, have taken a petition to 10 Downing Street calling on the Government to “Turn Terminal into Treatable”. Brain cancer is the UK’s biggest cancer killer of people under 40, claiming thousands of lives each year. The petition, launched just under six months ago, has attracted over 100,000 signatures, compelling Parliament to hold a full debate on the issue; it calls on the Government to increase brain cancer research funding and accelerate access to clinical trials. Georgie Maynard, charity co-founder and glioblastoma patient, said: “Successive UK governments have expressed sympathy, acknowledged the issue but fallen short of meaningful action. Ministers keep making promises to ‘turn the tide’ without providing any concrete details. We need real change.” Witney MP and brother of Georgie, Charlie Maynard, has previously campaigned for the Rare Cancers Bill, signed into law last week. While the campaigners welcome the bill as excellent news for brain cancer patients, they say the government must go further, and debate the 'right to try' off-label drugs, immunotherapy, cancer vaccines and more for patients with life-limiting cancers.

• Oxford’s Damascus Rose Kitchen has appeared as a successful case study in the annual report by the Growth Hub Cluster (short thread), a collaboration between business organisation Enterprise Oxfordshire and similar organisations in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor. Founded by Syrian refugee Nour, Damascus Rose received a £14,000 grant from Enterprise Oxfordshire, which enabled them to buy professional equipment and scale their business.

Oxfordshire politics

The big news in Oxfordshire politics this week is, of course, the announcement that bakery chain Gail's is to open a site in Banbury. The LibDems, in their 2025 election campaign, famously targeted constituencies with a Gail's bakery. Oxfordshire has seven MPs: five are LibDems and two are Labour. Between the news of Gail's and the Gorton & Denton by-election result, which informed this Electoral Calculus projection for Oxford East (spoiler: we trust Electoral Calculus’s methodology about as far as we can throw a Chelsea bun), should our two Labour MPs with ostensibly safe seats be looking over their shoulders? Who knows. Let's see what they've all been up to this week.

• Banbury MP Sean Woodcock had a VIP visit. Alison McGovern, Minister for Local Government & Homelessness, came to see the Banbury Youth Homelessness Project (video). In casework news, he's been trying to resolve a broken lift in retirement housing in Chipping Norton that has left residents trapped in their apartments. He celebrated World Book Day holding a book about football, with the announcement of £10m to support libraries in primary schools in England. Like many MPs this week, he encouraged constituents to take part in the Government consultation on social media usage for under-16s. He was on BBC Two's Politics Live, with formidable debaters Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con) and Baroness Natalie Bennett (Green). Finally, he was out on the doors in Ruscote and Hardwick.

• Bicester & Woodstock MP Calum Miller has, unsurprisingly, had a busy week for his brief as LibDem foreign affairs spokesman. He's not impressed at the US hitting a desalination plant, and says “Badenoch and Farage should hang their heads in shame for their boot-licking unconditional support for Trump’s unlimited war”. He rained fire on former Oxfordshire resident, journalist and partner of Reform deputy leader Richard Tice, Isabel Oakeshott, who moved to Dubai in protest at a tax on school fees: he said tax exiles and influencers who make a living criticising the UK should contribute to the country they still expect to protect them. (Isabel's sister, Veronica Oakeshott, stood as the Labour candidate for Miller's Bicester & Woodstock seat in 2024. The Clarion is all for political diversity but Christmas dinner chez Oakeshott must be interesting…) Closer to home, he attended a roundtable of the Country Land and Business Association, discussing some of the issues facing rural communities. He celebrated World Book Day by standing next to a Book Vending Machine, and spent a lot of time updating constituents in North Leigh and Hanborough affected by the burst water main in Witney. Lastly, he made it to an incredibly grand Iftar celebration, in Blenheim Palace. See how many Oxfordshire politicians you can spot…

• Witney MP Charlie Maynard wins the prize for the most updates posted by one MP on their Facebook page in a week after a burst water main took out water supplies to much of his constituency. He updated on repairs to the main, water stations opening and closing, chivvied Thames Water to open new water stations in different locations, loaded water into cars and posted video updates, liaising with local councillors to cover as much ground as possible. This one from Sunday morning is worth a watch for comedy value alone, we think he may have just woken up – get some sleep now, Charlie! Anyway, his constituents seemed to value them, judging by the comments.

• Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds met with scooter firm Voi to discuss issues related to inconsiderate parking. They said they'd be putting more boots on the ground to resolve issues. She congratulated Aimee McKenzie, the new Chief Operating Officer for OUFC, and welcomed Royal Mail bosses being called to Parliament over letter delivery failures – the East Oxford Delivery Office being something she's campaigned on for a long time. She encouraged people to take part in the Government consultation on social media for children, and she's been out campaigning on Hill Top Road.
• Oxford West & Abingdon MP Layla Moran in this radio interview talked about why she decided, as a teacher, to get into politics (frustration about how Government wasn't investing in the future of children) and is specifically angry at the moment about the problems within SEND.

• Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover continues to campaign for proportional representation, citing a letter from over 50 academics warning of risks in First Past The Post in a multi-party system. He shared this information for British nationals in the Middle East, asking constituents to contact him if they needed support. He paid tribute to the very excellent Earth Trust at Wittenham Clumps. In Parliament he spoke in the Women's Health Strategy debate on endometriosis. His weekly update explains that this fetching picture was taken at Agratas innovation lab in Milton Park to learn about battery manufacturing and its contribution to sustainable transport.

• Henley & Thame MP Freddie van Mierlo railed against building houses without the infrastructure to support them, citing the Watlington Relief Road as an alternative to a road that was previously only used by horse and cart, but is now the main route to the M40. In the Cyber Security & Resilience Bill he tried, unsuccessfully, for Government support for small businesses. He met with Marie Curie to understand the impact and challenges with palliative care. Here’s his February casework update.
• Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber spoke to the BBC about his Retail & Crime strategy that aims to reduce shoplifting. He's been out campaigning in Stanford on the Vale (again). Here's his weekly update, including meeting with the Motorcycle Industry Association to discuss the challenges of illegal bikes, and giving a keynote speech at the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire's conference on young people.

University and research

• Billie Jean King, six-times world No 1 tennis player and founder of the Women’s Tennis Association, has been lined up for an honorary degree at the University of Oxford. She is joined on the list by Shuji Nakumura, inventor of the blue LED, and mRNA vaccine pioneer Katalin Karikó. Also proposed are American literary critic Henry Louis Gates, Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh (aka Lady Danbury), ballet director Carlos Acosta, economist Daron Acemoğlu and former chief executive of pharmaceuticals giant GSK, Emma Walmsley. If approved, the degrees will be conferred on 24 June.
• Oxford University has formally changed its investment policy to rule out companies that produce chemical and biological weapons, incendiary weapons, or blinding laser weapons. In practice, the university already has no investments (direct or indirect) in such companies. The change follows the UK ratifying a UN weapons convention. 500 students and staff engaged in a consultation process by the university.
• Engineers at Culham-based RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) have solved a problem for international particle physics lab CERN by developing AI robot ‘mice’ that can travel 6km autonomously to inspect joints in the beamline of the Large Hadron Collider. Components in Plug-In Modules (PIMs) at the joints can deform as the LHC is cooled to -271°C and warmed again, blocking the beam. The award winning ‘mice’, dubbed PipeINEERS, travel to each PIM, take images, and use on-board AI to detect any problems. At the Clarion, we love this ingenious technical development, although a mouse 20cm long and 3.7cm wide might have us standing on a chair, and the cat might be nervous too. But what type of cheese would it like? Stilectron? Brie-IT? Camemrobot? (When we posted this on Bluesky, a correspondent responded 'Quark', and they may have won the internet for Friday, quite frankly.)

Trains and buses

• Volunteer-run community bus operation First & Last Mile is crowdfunding to support three services in western Oxfordshire, connecting Stanton Harcourt, Faringdon, Witney and Wantage – replacing a previous operator which closed in early February. FLM hopes to raise £12,000 to develop the ‘lifeline’ services to the point that they are more viable and can be taken on by other operators. They say their aim is that all rural residents have access to at least one bus per week.
• 13 new Mercedes coaches are being introduced to the Oxford Airline service, from the city to Heathrow and Gatwick. Oxford Bus Company’s MD Luke Marion described the £4m fleet as “the most modern and luxurious coaches in the UK”. The coaches run on diesel but have an ultra-low Euro 6 rating.
• Meanwhile, 15 electric buses have entered service with another arm of Oxford Bus Co, Cotswold operator Pulhams. The company runs local services in West Oxfordshire and will take over the Oxford–Cheltenham service at the end of March. The fleet are Pulhams’ first electric vehicles.
• The new Oxford Tube timetable started this week, with a new stop near Acton Main Line for the Elizabeth Line, fewer Baker Street stops, and a weekend service from Witney and Carterton. A new livery has been unveiled which “gives Oxford and Tube equal billing… the circular shape represents movement, travel and connection” (in other words, the wheels on the bus go round and round).
• Stagecoach has confirmed that the S2X express service from Carterton to Oxford is now operated by a bus rather than a coach. Two Carterton-Oxford journeys in the morning still operate with two returns in the evening, but ‘contra-peak’ services have been dropped.
• New drop-off spaces at Banbury station are out to consultation following local campaigning.
• This weekend saw the Abingdon Model Railway Show. If you like little trains, but didn't make it there, Abingdon Blog has a delightful write-up.

Notes from Clarion HQ

This was looking like a quiet news week… until the secretive new owners of the Clarendon Centre lodged their plans for a new public square, opened-up streets, and a route through from Carfax.

Easily the biggest change to Oxford’s streetscape proposed so far this century, it is, of course, a long way from completion. Writing a planning application is one thing. Getting it approved is another. Then comes funding the build, dealing with unexpected archaeological finds, attracting retailers.

No doubt there will be ‘movement studies’ and retail impact assessments. But perhaps the intangibles are harder to assess: how this will change perceptions of Oxford, how it will tilt the uneasy balance between world-leading research city, manufacturing town, tourist destination, and simply, the place where we live. Our first thoughts are that it makes Oxford a little more Bath, a little more York… and yes, a little more Bridgerton.

We are fortunate to have the Oxford Civic Society and Oxford Preservation Trust as tireless champions of what makes Oxford ‘Oxford’. In 2009, their counterpart in the Other Place, the Cambridge Preservation Society, renamed themselves Cambridge Past, Present & Future. The name might be somewhat Blaircore, but placing ‘Past’ and ‘Future’ on an equal footing asserts that the city is not, and cannot be, frozen in aspic. Is this new/old, classical Clarendon a sign to Oxford’s future, or a throwback to the past?

See you on Friday.