The Clarion, 22 September 2026

We’ve waited a long time for this photo. But it’s not all Botley Road this week: we have a secret BBC monitoring station, “spooky action at a distance”, a glorious Cowley Road mural, and the latest from the tinpot republic of Piddington…

This week’s top stories

Botley Road has reopened at the railway bridge after 1,258 days and £237m. Traffic passed under the new bridge for the first time on Sunday morning. It includes cycleways on each side and enough headroom for a full-height double decker to pass. An extra rail span on the western side will give access to a forthcoming Platform 5 at Oxford station. Tim Walden from Network Rail said:

“We know the closure of Botley Road has had a significant impact on residents, businesses and everyone who relies on this route, and we are sorry for the disruption and frustration it has caused. I'd like to thank the local community for their patience while this complex programme of work has been carried out. It will create a better-connected station and support future growth on the railway.”

There were significant queues on Sunday as Westgate-bound traffic chose to use the reopened road rather than Abingdon Road. From next Monday, Botley Road will be the only route to the Westgate car park to avoid Oxford’s traffic filters, which replace the congestion charge.

Several new or changed bus routes began on Sunday (details: Oxford Bus Co, Stagecoach). Martin Gibbon, managing director of Stagecoach West, said “now is a good time” for people who have not travelled by bus in Oxford for a while to give it another try.

“A toxic narrative in the village” is how Stand Up To Racism has described Piddington’s media circus, following the parish council’s attention-seeking referendum in protest against plans for asylum accommodation at MOD Bicester.

At the weekend, far-right agitator ‘Tommy Robinson’ and the Essex-based Pink Ladies group published the address of a Piddington woman who had expressed concern about “the use of fear as a means to rally and activate people” in a Newsnight interview. She says she has since received “violent threats online from a lot of very toxic keyboard warriors”. Parish council chair Tim McNally remains unrepentant, saying that his campaign highlights the “risks faced by local women and children” – a message echoed by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who visited Piddington this week to say that the “women and girls of Piddington deserve to feel safe and protected”.

Meanwhile, the non-political Wrong Plan, Wrong Site campaign says that newly switched-on floodlighting could endanger bats and other nocturnal wildlife. Local resident Claire Brenner reported that “multiple bat species” were present at the site, and suggested that the Home Office had searched the wrong bat database.

Around the city

• Cowley Road's street art has had a glow-up. Local artist Mani has repainted the mural on Stockmore Street with a giant purple ox (or is it a cow?) proclaiming 'Welcome to Cowley Road'. Next to it are words from songs in the many languages of musical collective Starling Sessions. Mani had previously painted the gable end at Stockmore Street in 2017 with a mural for community street band Horns of Plenty. Prior to that, it had hosted a mural of the Buddhist temple Angkor Wat painted by East Oxford illustrator Stig in 2004 for the Cambodian owners of the AK City takeaway.
• Waiting times for bowel clinic appointments in Oxford have been reduced from 54 weeks to between 11 and 14. Oxford University Hospitals says the improvement is thanks to “clearer referral pathways, expanding clinic capacity and improving continuity of care”. Kim Gorissen at OUH explained: "A review found that some patients were being referred before conservative treatments had been fully explored, while others requiring specialist assessment were waiting unnecessarily. A huge amount of multidisciplinary teamwork has gone into redesigning the service.” The total number of patients waiting for a first appointment has dropped from 244 six months ago to 103, with around 80 patients now seen each month.

• The former Lung Wah Chong supermarket on Hythe Bridge Street, described by the owners as “Oxford’s first Oriental supermarket”, has been demolished. The area is being redeveloped as Bridge Labs, marketed as “best-in-class life science and office accommodation”. Lung Wah Chong continue to run a wholesale operation in Osney Mead. The adjacent Boatman's Chapel on Hythe Bridge Street remains standing and will be incorporated into the new development; it was previously occupied by Bangkok House, who have moved over the road.
• Oxford United have apologised for releasing a clothing collection with the slogan ‘United 93’, after the club’s founding date in 1893. United Airlines flight 93 was one of those hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11. OUFC say “we are reviewing our approval processes”.
• The Oxford Maternity Library is looking for volunteers in order to continue operating. It is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit service, loaning good quality pregnancy and breastfeeding-friendly clothing for low cost, running for over ten years at Florence Park Community Centre. The library was created to combat frustration at having to buy pregnancy clothes that people may only wear for a few months. No training is needed and no commitment is too small.

• Give Like Dolly: Oxford charity Peeple is inviting families to dress as Dolly Parton on Friday to celebrate the late country singer's Imagination Library. As the local partner for the project, Peeple delivers free books to children under five in Littlemore, Rose Hill, Blackbird Leys, and Berinsfield, as well as offering evidence-based parenting programmes from its base in Littlemore. The annual cost of providing the books is around £26 per child.

Around the county

• A derelict West Oxfordshire village pub, closed since 2022, is finally proposed for reopening. The Cock Inn, in Combe, will be run by the owners of the Bull gastropub in nearby Charlbury and the Pelican in Notting Hill, Public House Group, who have pledged “enhanced dining experiences”. Billionaire property developer Tony Gallagher bought the pub in 2022 to run as part of his Lionhearth Group, but it remained closed; it was subsequently sold on to Rafic Said, a senior manager at investment firm Blackstone. The new plans, currently with West Oxfordshire District Council for consideration, include a glazed private dining room extension, and a small “deli shop”. (The Bull itself was this month named Britain’s Most Romantic Hotel 2026 by Time Out, who wrote: “A romantic night at The Bull starts at £180, making it one of the more affordable hotels in our guide.”)
• This is dangerously close to p*thole content but here goes: A low carbon approach to road resurfacing is to be piloted on the B4445 in Chinnor by Oxfordshire County Council. The package of low-carbon materials will save over 30 tonnes of CO2 while improving road resilience. Cllr Liz Leffman said: “This project represents an exciting opportunity to bring together several industry-leading innovations and understand how they can help us reduce carbon emissions from highway maintenance. Importantly, the trial is about more than carbon reduction alone: we are also exploring how these technologies can improve durability and reduce future maintenance requirements.”

• Ongoing works to Witney High Street have come under fire as the town’s Chamber of Commerce says that “public realm and beautification elements [have been] removed or substantially reduced”. Oxfordshire County Council’s plans proposed “up to 15 new benches” and “up to 15 new trees”; although construction inflation put the cost beyond the original £2m Government grant, OCC said it had obtained additional funding “to deliver more of what people told us they would like”. However, an email from an OCC officer, published by the Chamber of Commerce, says: “The county council is no longer introducing greening other than the two trees at Welch Way… removing planters from the design formed part of a descoping exercise.” For OCC, Cllr Liz Leffman said she was “quite surprised… I’ve asked officers to give me an update”. Work is due to be completed in November.
• Cherwell District Council is holding a flood preparation event on Thursday in Kidlington. The event will allow residents to meet flood risk management specialists, and local flood professionals to learn more about flood resilience. Cllr Chris Aramini-Brant (LibDem) said: “With changing weather patterns and more extreme rainfall, it is increasingly important that we help residents understand their flood risk and the practical steps they can take to protect their properties." Cherwell’s many watercourses range from brooks and streams to the River Cherwell itself and the Oxford Canal, and multiple flood-prone areas. (On the other side of Oxford, Cllr Nathan Ley from Abingdon this week wrote about ‘What you can actually do about flooding’.)
• The cat burglar of Long Hanborough remains at large – and Thames Valley Police have qualified their previous statement, now saying: “There is no evidence to suggest that cats are being stolen within the local area or elsewhere in Oxfordshire. The spread of misinformation can cause unnecessary fear and distress, as well as lead to the inappropriate use of police resources. We would encourage all pets owners to ensure their pets are microchipped and that their contact details are kept current.” Local residents whose cats are missing, however, are not giving up, writing: “I’m not going to claim we know somebody is taking cats when we don’t have evidence establishing that. But equally, we’re not going to stop looking simply because the police don’t currently have enough evidence.”
• Oxfordshire County Council has formally opposed expansion of Campsfield House. The immigration removal centre, near Kidlington, is set to expand by 240 beds. Cllr Neil Fawcett wrote: “People seeking sanctuary should be treated with dignity and humanity. National policy should focus on safe and legal routes, timely and fair decision making, and appropriate support rather than increased reliance on immigration detention.”
• Council cheese news: Oxfordshire councils have written to Government confirming they still want a Thames Valley mayor, following a request in early August by the new Burnham administration for councils to clarify their position. Previous talks collapsed after the Starmer administration offered only a ‘foundation strategic authority’ with no elected mayor. The next mayoralty announcements could be made later this month.
• Actual cheese news: The Pouget family behind the Oxford Cheese Company in the Covered Market have announced ‘The Reluctant Cheesemonger’ as the name of their new fromagerie in Milton-under-Wychwood, near Burford. Their aim is “radical change in the current processes employed in the dairy industry”. Billing the enterprise as “cheese with a conscience”, they plan to showcase produce from small farms where calves are left to suckle with their mother until weaned. Among these are Hafod Cheddar, Schlossberger from the Emmental Valley, and their own Oxford Blue.
       The shop is at Groves Yard in Milton-under-Wychwood, an artisan market/hardware store, and will be managed by Lou Pouget. Opening times will be 10am–5pm Thursday–Saturday. They promise “the availability to consume cheese plates with our own wine from the Ardeche”.

Rabbit hole of the week

The BBC has submitted a planning application for six satellite dishes at a BBC Receiving Station to South Oxfordshire District Council. A planning application of this small scale would not normally be of huge interest to the Clarion, but we were unaware there was such a station on our patch…

Since the Second World War, Crowsley Park has been the site of a signals-receiving station used by BBC Monitoring, based until May 2018 at Caversham Park, three miles to the south. In WW2 it was used to pick up radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany and other places.

Crowsley Park House is an 18th century mansion house. The mansion and its stable, coach house, and a grotto are grade II listed and now a private residence. Other houses on the estate (North Lodge, Keeper's Cottage and Crowsley Park Lodge) are also privately occupied.

Among Crowsley Park's former owners were the Baskerville family, one of whose members, Henry Baskerville, was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1847. Stories about the family and its association with fierce dogs were among the inspirations for Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. The connection with the Baskervilles is preserved in statues of hellhounds with spears through their mouths, which sit on the stone gateposts at the entrance to the park and atop the front of Crowsley Park House: you can follow a commemorative trail. More recently, it served as a filming location for Dr Who in the Tom Baker era as the fictional Pharos Project radio telescope site.

Back to the planning application: the dishes “incorporate more energy-efficient technology than existing equipment”, which the BBC describes as “a modest enhancement to the existing communications infrastructure within the established operational compounds”.

Oxfordshire politics

Parliament is on recess for conference season, but the MPs are still active. Ruthlessly distilled highlights follow. But first, an outbreak of cross-party county coalescence... (try saying that after a couple of pints of Loose Cannon)

It is Oxfordshire Day on 19 October. Oxfordshire MPs Anneliese Dodds, Sean Woodcock, and Calum Miller met Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to fly the Oxfordshire flag. So far only Woodcock has posted the picture on his social feeds, possibly because it is currently September.

• Banbury MP Sean Woodcock (Lab) spoke in the Water Ownership debate in Westminster Hall, where he had a tightrope to walk given Thames Water is about as popular in his constituency as (checks notes) sewage in the Cherwell. He welcomed the steps the Government has taken through the Water Act 2025, which increased accountability, strengthened sanctions and made pollution cover-ups a criminal offence, but believes that these measures do not go far enough, asking that the Minister listen to people’s frustrations and act with urgency.
• Bicester & Woodstock MP Calum Miller (LibDem) is also walking a tightrope whilst juggling flaming torches. His constituency includes the MOD Bicester site proposed for asylum accommodation, though presumably not the neighbouring village of Piddington now that it’s declared independence. Anyway… Miller has been supporting the ‘Wrong Plan, Wrong Place’ coalition, which has been focusing on a legal challenge to the plans rather than appeals to Elon Musk. All of which he summarised in this update to constituents:

“The Government wants to accommodate up to 1,256 men at a former storage depot that has never provided residential accommodation. Serious questions remain about infrastructure, drainage, access, environmental impacts and value for money. I do not believe these concerns have been adequately addressed.
     “I am also concerned that some individuals and groups from outside the area are seeking to exploit local concerns for their own purposes and to sow division in our community. Our opponent is the Government – not other members of our community or the people who might be housed in the camp. Our campaign is strongest when it remains focused, inclusive and led by the people who live here.”

• Witney MP Charlie Maynard (LibDem) is looking very windswept in his video from the LibDem conference in Brighton, where he spoke on rural education, AI, and the armed forces (not all in one session). Speaking on AI, he said: “We need to move fast on AI security. New, incredibly powerful AI models are being created every few weeks – and they are starting to self-improve, making changes to themselves without any input from humans. The UK currently has no real mechanism to step in if something goes wrong.”

• Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds (Lab) also continues to warn of the risks of AI. She’s asking the Government to use the UK's upcoming G20 presidency to formulate a global response to the emerging threat. Dodds has been a consistent loud voice on this issue for some time now – particularly relevant with so much of the UK's knowledge economy in her constituency.
• Oxford West & Abingdon MP Layla Moran (LibDem) in the Commons raised the issue of staff fatigue within the NHS, asking about progress on the NHS Workforce Plan (it is, apparently, being worked on). Marking the re-opening of the Botley Road, she's written to the National Audit Office to call for an investigation into the project. She is also pushing for follow-up improvements to Oxford station including an additional track and platform and a new western entrance.

• Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover (LibDem) spoke in the same water ownership debate as Woodcock, challenging Thames Water's operational and financial performance, and asking if it was the right organisation for delivery of the proposed Abingdon/White Horse Reservoir when its costs have already increased from £2.7bn to £7.5bn. He was on GB News (not the most natural place for a Lib Dem?) talking up election results, and positioning the LibDems as an alternative to Reform and the Conservatives on issues such as the environment and human rights.

• Henley & Thame MP Freddie van Mierlo (LibDem) raised the issue of fire resilience in Parliament, asking the Government to consider supporting parish councils to ensure fire risks are mitigated at a local level. (That sound you can hear is the ears pricking up of the sizeable chunk of Clarion readers that are parish councillors.) According to the Minister's response, the Government is working on a fire resilience plan including local organisations which will now – as a result of van Mierlo's intervention – include parish councils.

• Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber (Con) evidently decided what Oxfordshire needs right now is more controversy, so he’d use his YouTube channel to air his views on Brexit. Brave. Summarising, he said Brexit was not a mistake but the democratic will of the British people; that there is no significant appetite to rejoin the EU; and that with freedom comes responsibility. He cited VAT on school fees as a policy implemented by the Labour government which wouldn't have been possible under the EU. On a much lighter note, please enjoy a video of some Very Good Police Dog Puppies.

University and research

• An AI company founded by two Oxford alumni is funding researchers at Kellogg College. FLock.io, not to be confused with surveillance camera firm Flock, says it aims to “democratise access to AI development by enabling researchers and organisations to train and improve machine learning models collaboratively” (which all sounded very laudable until we read the word “blockchain” in the next sentence). CEO Jiahao Sun said: “It is a profound honour to give back to our alma mater. We are thrilled to help the next generation of thinkers.”
• Oxford physicists have observed entanglement between two Z-bosons from the decay of a Higgs boson made in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland. Quantum entanglement, dubbed “spooky action at a distance” by Einstein, has been observed before but not in these particles, formed in a violent collision and with very short lives.
       The entanglement was determined by measuring the spin of further products of decay. The scientists note this links collider science with quantum information science, with potential benefits for both. “It has been gratifying to see that the use of particle colliders to test quantum effects has now become a major sub-field in physics, with more than a hundred researchers working on it worldwide,” said lead author Alan Barr. If reading the full paper floats your boson, it's here.
• Chimpanzee mothers sometimes continue to carry their infants after they have died, but up until recently the cause was unknown. Researchers from the University of Oxford found older and therefore more bonded infants were carried for longer. “The large sample means that our findings can be used to make inferences as to the evolution of death related behaviour in humans after we diverged from chimpanzees some 6-8 million years ago,” according to Reece Hammond at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography.
• Sarah Whatmore has been appointed as the new Warden of Keble College, starting on 1 October. A geographer and champion of “the interdependence of human and planetary wellbeing”, she formerly served as head of Social Sciences at Oxford University.
• The name Oxford Polytechnic will be seen on city streets once again, thanks to an alumnus who has launched a line of branded clothing. What is now Oxford Brookes University was proudly Oxford Poly from 1970 until 1992, when all UK polytechnics were granted university status. “What began as a search for a hoodie became a mission to rescue a name that still means a great deal to thousands of people,” says Richard Robinson, who graduated from Oxford Poly in its final year. Brookes has given its official support to the merchandise.

Business and tech

• Prime Minister Andy Burnham and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited the Harwell Campus last week, where Rutte highlighted the “societal dividend” of jobs and economic growth produced by defence investment. The leaders visited RAL Space, the national space laboratory, and met representatives from Harwell-based firms. Rutte went on to deliver the annual lecture of the Ditchley Foundation, the diplomacy talking shop based in Churchill’s wartime retreat near Charlbury.
• Timely news: Cloq, a company started by Oxford University students to make highly accurate quantum clocks, won the top prize at the Reuben Entrepreneurship Forum. Cloq is developing a low cost quantum clock using a nitrogen atom trapped inside a buckminsterfullerine molecule, aka ‘buckyball’. Cloq has been supported by Oxford Edge, a Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation set up by Christ Church and the University of Oxford. Co-founder Joel Klein said: “The opportunity to explore and work on Oxford IP, with the guidance of the amazing, committed mentors at Oxford Edge, has been invaluable. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed developing my skills in such a positive environment and I’m excited to see where we can take Cloq next.”

Trains and buses

• Chiltern Railways entered state ownership on Sunday. The operator runs trains to Marylebone and Birmingham from Oxford, Bicester and Banbury. Led by Oxfordshire resident, the late Adrian Shooter, Chiltern oversaw track redoubling, a new line to Oxford, and new stations including Oxford Parkway. Seen as the exemplary rail company for many years, progress slowed after it became part of bus group Arriva: having ordered the first new trains since privatisation under Shooter’s management, it went to having the oldest fleet on the network. The Government says “Public ownership provides a fresh opportunity to deliver East West Rail and its benefits for passengers”, on which note…

• The RMT union staged a second demonstration outside London Marylebone on Monday to demand guards on trains from Oxford to Milton Keynes. The start of service has been delayed by almost two years due to the dispute between RMT and Chiltern. RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said that the Government-directed plans, which envisage that trains would have a Customer Service Inspector, were unsafe and risked the jobs of the operator’s existing guards: “The actions of Chiltern management to not take these concerns seriously is totally unacceptable.” The union is currently holding a ballot among its existing members on Chiltern, who mostly work the express mainline services as well as local trains north of Banbury. The ballot closes on 29 September.
• Drones have been used to identify wildlife on the Oxford–Cambridge rail corridor. Thermal drone surveys took place this summer to identify ground-nesting birds, allowing work to continue through the peak bird nesting season between March and August. (At last count the drones had identified 148 ground-nesting birds and 0 trains.)

Notes from Clarion HQ

Let joy be unconfined! Botley Road has reopened. Now the hard work begins.

Before you groan, we are exaggerating… a little. But it would be a mistake to think that the task is over. Oxford station still doesn’t have a western entrance, or the desperately needed new platform. Its main building is a ’90s timewarp, and the bridge is unsuited to the number of passengers using it. We’ll be returning to this in a future Clarion to make sense of all the plans (and timelines) for the station.

More urgent, we think, is pedestrian and cyclist access. Reopening Botley Road to cars has made it harder for pedestrians to cross Frideswide Square. The new cycleways under the bridge are good, but as we flagged back in May, the connections on and off at each end really aren’t. We worry that it is only a matter of time before a collision here. There is surely space for clearer, simpler routes for pedestrians and cyclists… and perhaps that means moving cars off Hythe Bridge Street and onto Park End Street? That might even compensate for no longer being able to buy dumplings from the much missed Lung Wah Chong. Have a great week and we’ll see you on Friday.