The Clarion, 24 February 2026

In this edition, we pitch a TV show for the county's politicians, celebrate an award-winning midwife and an award-winning wine merchant, tackle the City's budget shenanigans, meet VIP pets, and bring you the best dirt from Vale of White Horse. Welcome to the midweek Clarion, always newsy, sometimes whimsical.

This week’s long reads

Who among us doesn’t sneak a quick look at house prices now and then? But beneath the headline of “number go up” is a more complex tale of how Oxfordshire is developing. We look at the latest figures.

House prices in Oxfordshire 2025

Who among us doesn’t sneak a quick look at house prices now and then – whether it’s to eye up your dream home or just to find out what’s happening where you currently live? Where to live, where to work, where to shop and where the kids go

Oxford ClarionOxford Clarion

This week’s top stories

Oxford City Council has passed its 2026 budget – and the minority Labour administration got it through unamended after the opposition parties blinked first. Amendments put forward by the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and Independent Oxford Alliance were all voted down, before Labour’s budget passed thanks to Green abstentions.

We ran through the budget proposals earlier this month. City Council deputy leader and finance cabinet member Ed Turner was in the hot seat for much of the meeting, choosing to highlight the abolition of the bulky waste disposal charge; gritting cycle paths around the city; and support for live music. Pointing to the relatively minor nature of the opposition amendments, he said they reflected “a great deal of consensus around this chamber” – though the subsequent debate suggested not all his colleagues got the memo.

Green group leader Chris Jarvis also called their amendments “small but significant”. But after both the Green and LibDem proposals were voted down, a compromise amendment – which would have redirected twin town funding to community centres and parks – fell in the face of unwavering Labour and (non-aligned) independent opposition. LibDem group leader Chris Smowton asked: “Are we going to let a minority pretend it’s a majority? We have a minority administration in front of us which is fronting it out. If we come together, there’s a lot of good ideas that have been put on the table.”

Labour’s answer was seemingly “yes, we are”, with Ed Turner closing with a barnstormer of a speech that got the benches behind him roaring. The LibDems voted against, but the Greens abstained – and that made the final vote tally 21 for, 13 against, 8 abstentions. A difficult trick to pull off two years in a row, though? We’ll find out in 2027.

Kidlington, for many years proudly among the largest villages in England, has voted to become a town. Parish councillors voted unanimously for the change as a reaction to the “threats” of being absorbed into a Greater Oxford council and of further development in the Green Belt.

The council’s rationale argues that it is “more difficult for Oxford to absorb us if we are a town: the current proposal only involves surrounding villages”. They also say that new Green Belt guidance speaks of retaining separation between towns, but not villages.

Cllr Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, countered: “Our local government reorganisation proposal would ensure a future Kidlington Town Council had a louder voice working in partnership with a new Greater Oxford Council than it would have under two unitaries or a single mega-council.”

Around the city

• Crowds gathered in Radcliffe Square on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Attendees were greeted by Deputy Lord Mayor Mike Rowley, who said Oxford stood in solidarity with Ukraine.
       Speeches struck a sombre tone. Justin Robinson, who organised the rally, said that the response of the West towards the conflict had been a disappointment, apologising to Ukrainians present. Dasha Nepochatova, who took a week to drive out of Kyiv under fire, pointed out that Ukraine was fighting not just for peace, but for its country and intellectual heritage, saying the British school curriculum conflates Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. Jaroslav, from Oxford Brookes Ukrainian Society, whose father has been injured defending Ukraine, said that ordinary people have become soldiers to defend themselves and Europe – yet life continues in Ukraine because the country wants not just to survive, but to live free and enjoy living.
       Emma from St Michael’s Church in Summertown, which has been the focus for Ukrainians for four years, said: “We wish there was no need to continue. Our guests are now friends, and we greatly admire your gifts and talents. We stand with you as long as you need us.” Among the many flags flown at the rally was the banned flag of the Democratic Republic of Belarus; flying the flag in Belarus risks arrest. Towards the end, a minute’s silence was held for those who lost their lives in the war.
• Summertown wine merchant, Grape Minds, has been crowned Independent Wine Retailer of the Year 2026 at the prestigious Drinks Retailing Awards, recognising outstanding customer service, wine knowledge, and community engagement. Grape Minds say they have "always aimed to make wine approachable, enjoyable, and personal. This is a hugely special award for us and a real milestone in our journey. We’re incredibly proud of our team and very grateful to our customers for their continued support.”
• A man from Uffington has been jailed for firearms offences in Cowley. A standard check from the Roads Policing Unit on suspicion of a cloned numberplate led to a vehicle search which turned up a car full of weapons including two machetes, a sawn-off shotgun, ammunition and a wooden sling shot. TVP Oxford commented: “Pro tip: if you’re heading out to the shops in a car that’s marked as a suspected clone, maybe don’t leave a stash of illegal firearms inside.”
• Thames Valley Police are investigating a racially aggravated assault by a group of individuals holding Union flags in the Westgate shopping centre. They say: “A 42-year-old man was sitting alone on a bench when he felt liquid fall onto him. He saw a group of young white males on the upper level near JD Sports, some of whom were waving Union flags. The victim believed they had deliberately thrown drink on him due to his ethnicity.” The group have been identified since a public appeal was issued.
• A midwife at Oxford University Hospitals has been recognised with a DAISY award celebrating exceptional care, after her actions enabled a mother and her children to escape long‑term domestic abuse. Pregnancy is a high‑risk period for abuse, and OUH teams are trained to recognise early warning signs. The midwife said: “I'm incredibly honoured, but the real achievement is that the mother felt safe enough to speak. I’m proud of how our maternity safeguarding team came together to support her and her children when they needed it most.”
• The Oxford Mail’s print circulation has dropped 8% year-on-year to 3,468, according to new figures. Print distribution is commonly cited as the reason for ‘public notice’ adverts taken out by councils. The overall total was boosted by a further 2,973 digital copies, typically offered at £5 for five months.
• A packed Town Hall celebrated Chinese New Year in Oxford on Sunday. Acts from dance to acrobatics celebrated traditional Chinese culture, to welcome in the Year of the Horse, which began on 17 February. In attendance were Mike Rowley, Deputy Lord Mayor; Mark Lygo, Chair of Oxfordshire County Council; and the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, John May. Oxford's Chinese community has held an annual celebration (excepting the pandemic) in the Town Hall since 1992.

Around the county

• South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils are giving away free compost at two events in Wallingford and Abingdon in March. Residents should bring their own bags and a spade and may collect up to three bags of compost each. (Literally bringing you dirt from the district councils here. You're welcome.)
• Oxfordshire thinktank POETS has called for a rethink on the Government’s plan for new mayoralties, in which Oxfordshire would become part of a Thames Valley authority. Chris Cousins said the proposals had the air of being “half-baked and that it is making things up as it goes along”. He added: “The Government says that it is simplifying things by abolishing existing county and district councils and replacing them with unitary councils. However, it is proposing to replace one two-tier system with another – by introducing new, larger so-called mayoral authorities.” POETS, a group of former Oxfordshire planners and researchers, argues that the county should not be drawn closer together with Swindon or West Berkshire: “There seems to be very little evidence to support the choice of areas.”
• Abingdon Air & Country Show will not include an air show this year due to rising costs. Its countryside venue, Dalton Barracks, is also set to be redeveloped for housing in the coming years. However, organisers say that civilian aircraft and helicopters will land through the day for static display. Organisers blame “the costs of air display aircraft and the insurance for air displays and road closures”. Events taking place include a model and craft show, dog show, classic vehicle show, tank rides and axe throwing. (Thank you to the Clarion follower who suggested these should take place together in one magnificent event – it’s this sort of thinking that makes Oxfordshire great.) The event takes place on Saturday 13 June.
• A decision on the proposed Puy du Fou theme park near Bicester could be delayed to late spring or later, after transport authorities raised objections. Both National Highways, which runs the M40 and A34, and Oxfordshire County Council say the traffic plans do not yet have enough detail. National Highways have requested no decision before 27 March while they review traffic modelling, crucially including the impact on M40 junction 10 (A43) – recently named “one of the worst junctions on the motorway network”. Oxfordshire County Council, meanwhile, write: “It is not possible to conclude that the cumulative impacts on the road network would not be severe… the assessment needs to consider the worst case.” Nearby events centre Bicester Motion agreed: “As presented, this is not a robust travel plan.” A coalition of parish councils say: “Local roads and the Strategic Road Network are already at breaking point and the applicant offers no credible plan to address the surge in vehicles. 50% arriving by public transport is unrealistic.” The application is being considered by Cherwell District Council.
• On the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Didcot Power Station, Thames Valley Police says its investigation is nearing completion. The families of the four men who died – Michael Collings, Ken Cresswell, Christopher Huxtable and John Shaw – have issued statements today remembering their lives. Sandra Huxtable, Christopher’s mother, said: “This has been the hardest ten years of my life. No mother expects to lose a child. Finally we will get justice so Christopher can rest in peace with his brother Jonathan.”

Oxfordshire politics

Parliament was in recess last week, so while we hope our MPs got some sort of a break, this week you may see MPs on their travels, or out and about in the constituency.

• Banbury MP Sean Woodcock gave a speech for Lent in Charlbury, where he talks about what motivated him to stand, and to continue to fight for what he believes in: if you want to know about your MP, a guy from Banbury doing “the job he has always wanted”, it's essential reading. A really interesting pie chart shows the types of casework he's been tackling. He took part in a seminar on the Oxford–Cambridge Growth Corridor; he's fighting for Banbury to get some of the inward investment coming to the area. And apparently it was ‘Love Your Pet Day’, which is a good excuse to post pictures of his cats. (Are we overdoing the cat thing? Never.)

• Bicester & Woodstock MP Calum Miller visited Israel and Palestine in his role as his party's Foreign Affairs spokesperson: “We had robust discussions about aid access, tackling corruption, settlement expansion, overcoming terrorism, and delivering accountability." In Parliament, he asked for a meeting with the Minister to work on ensuring large-scale solar farms (i.e. Botley West) are delivered “with, not against communities”; the Minister responded that the recently published Local Power Plan would do this. Otherwise he's had a car-centric week: he visited the Heritage Skills Academy in Bicester to see their apprenticeship scheme for young mechanics, which trains on behalf of 160 world-class employers including Bentley, Aston Martin, and Morgan. At the other end of the vehicular scale, he visited Mercedes Benz-owned Oxford University spinout YASA, who are working on axial flux e-motors for electric and hybrid vehicles. (Is it just us or does Bicester & Woodstock increasingly have shades of Hill Valley? See also here.)
• Witney MP Charlie Maynard filmed a video from the roof of the Marriott's Walk car park, not in an attempt to re-enact the Beatles’ ‘Get Back’ but, rather, to point out there were plenty of empty parking spaces. (West Oxfordshire District Council’s plan to build 72 new social rent homes on Woodford Way car park over the road has aroused some local opposition, because while #oxfordneedshomes, Witney appears to be another planet.) Sticking with the road theme, he met with the County Council highways team on the subject of, you guessed it, potholes. It looks like he quit Twitter in January, leaving Calum Miller as the final Oxfordshire LibDem MP still on the platform, together with the county’s two Labour MPs.

• Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds has been campaigning in Wales and Scotland. (We included the “chips and gravy” photo to make you all feel as hungry as it did us.) She celebrated the scrapping of the 2016 Trade Union Act, saying: “Now our unions can get on with representing members and fighting for better pay and conditions.” Locally she visited Donnington Doorstep, but there were no chips and gravy. She is very unhappy at the curtailing of the 3A bus, and is campaigning for its reinstatement. (We could write a long read about that bus route alone, but there are more developments to come…)
• Oxford West & Abingdon MP Layla Moran highlighted LGBT+ History Month, saying: “Progress happens when people speak up, support one another, and choose inclusion.”

• Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover has written a think-piece for Rail magazine on why the UK lags behind most European countries on urban rail transport. He argues that big decisions are taken in London by people with limited experience of (often inferior) public transport outside the capital, but says new mayors could become louder champions of local and regional investment. He met hotel staff at Milton Hill House to discuss the challenges for the tourism sector ahead of English Tourism Week in March. Here is his round-up of the week.
• Henley & Thame MP Freddie van Mierlo spoke to Radio 5 on the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, urging Parliament to remove him from the line of succession. He spoke to The i Paper on chatbots, saying: “Anyone who spends time with parents knows how worried they are about the promotion of eating disorder material through social media and AI chatbots. The Government has been far too slow to respond to this new threat to children.” In Parliament, he spoke on healthy relationships, highlighting SEND funding and saying “the UK paternity offer is the lowest in Europe”. (The debate also namechecked influencers and specifically the appalling Andrew Tate, which makes us wonder about a cable version of Big Brother featuring Oxfordshire’s MPs and the occasional councillor. Anyway…)

• Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber would also do well on Big Brother, we reckon – though he has agreed new CCTV across the county, so maybe he is Big Brother? Less whimsically, he has free tool marking kits for tradespeople across the Thames Valley. He's been campaigning in Stanford ahead of the district by-election. Here's his weekly round-up, including joining the Roads Policing Unit on an operation, and working on the changes needed to improve how the police share information on domestic abuse with schools (Operation Encompass). For funsies, we include the header to his most recent newsletter with a classic “politician with a puppy” shot! (Tell us you're running for Thames Valley Mayor without telling us you're running for Thames Valley Mayor.)

University and research

• Oxford Brookes University is considering the closure of its Marston Road site. The Oxford School of Nursing & Midwifery would move to the main Gipsy Lane campus. Brookes has already ended teaching at Harcourt Hill and Wheatley as part of its Oxford Campus Vision.
• An Oxford scientist is leading a pioneering trial to improve the lives of those with Lewy body dementia – the under-researched condition that had rarely hit the headlines until comedian Robin Williams was diagnosed. Dr Ashwini Oswal’s research is exploring whether low-intensity focused ultrasound could slow the rapid decline of cognitive function. The work is co-funded by charity Race Against Dementia, founded by former Formula 1 driver Jackie Stewart following his wife’s diagnosis. (This one is close to our hearts at Team Clarion. Godspeed.)
• Louise Taylor, Professor of Education and Student Experience at Oxford Brookes University, has published a guide on how schools and universities can take a more inclusive approach to education during Ramadan.
  She was motivated to write the guide after being struck by how little institutional guidance or awareness there was around Ramadan, despite its significance for many students, when a student admitted struggling to concentrate during an afternoon session while fasting.
• A new imaging technique developed by Oxford scientists could improve future rechargeable batteries. They tag the polymer binder in batteries with tiny amounts of bromine or silver, and track it with X-ray spectroscopy or electron microcroscopy to see how it is dispersed. The results allow battery designers to optimise battery construction for charging efficiency and lifetime, and to avoid failures that cause battery failures. Dr Stanislaw Zankowski from Oxford’s Department of Materials said: “This staining technique opens up an entirely new toolbox for understanding how modern binders behave during electrode manufacturing.” If you want to charge up your knowledge, you can read the full paper in Nature Communications.

• Early books in Arabic script have been donated to St John's College Library. Emeritus Professor Julia Bray has collected and catalogued the books in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu over several decades. These are everyday books reflecting everyday usage. The college libraries at St John's officially reopened in 2024 after a long redevelopment. Elsewhere in Oxford, the Bodleian has 5,000 manuscripts in Arabic script, Hertford College holds manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, and Hindi/Urdu, and Wadham College has a dedicated Persian library.
• Researchers at Oxford University Hospitals have discovered how to use existing medical equipment to detect fake liquid medical products. The World Health Organization estimates 10.5% of medicines in low- & middle-income countries are fake and fail to treat the indicated diseases. Study co-lead Professor Tim James said: “We can select from a range of simple, highly reproducible, routine methods from the instruments’ repertoire to meet any given testing scenario thereby providing flexibility.”
• Safer pregnancy news: Researchers from the University of Oxford have found that receiving the Covid-19 vaccine reduces the risk of pre-eclampsia in pregnant women. Covid infection during pregnancy was associated with a 45% increased risk of pre-eclampsia, which rose to 78% among unvaccinated women. Vaccination reduced the overall odds of pre-eclampsia amongst women receiving a booster dose by 33%, statistically significant. Pre-eclampsia affects up to 8% of pregnancies worldwide, and is a leading cause of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Its origins are unknown.

Trains and buses

• Bus passengers in Oxford no longer have the option of buying return tickets. From Sunday, Oxford Bus Company has followed Stagecoach in discontinuing return tickets within the SmartZone area (which includes the town of Kidlington), except for Park & Ride journeys.
• A plan to run trains from Nottingham to Bristol via Oxford has been withdrawn. Midland Central & Western Railway had proposed to use former East Midlands trains on a new route via the East-West line from Milton Keynes to Oxford. Rail infrastructure operator Network Rail said the proposed timetable had 983 conflicts with other services, and that only one slot is available for new services between Didcot and Swindon. GWR’s proposed Oxford–Bristol direct services would also use this section and have fewer identified conflicts. The Nottingham–Bristol application on the Office for Rail & Road website is now shown as “application withdrawn”; a decision is awaited on GWR’s plan for Oxford–Bristol trains.
• West Oxfordshire’s rural buses are going electric with the acquisition of 11 Electroliner buses for Pulhams Coaches, the Cotswolds operation of Oxford Bus Company. The buses have been built by Wrightbus, owned by JCB heir Jo Bamford who is building a mansion in Charlbury. Wrightbus built Oxford Bus Company’s existing electric fleet. Pulhams’ routes include Witney–Swindon, Wantage–Faringdon, Witney–Chipping Norton, and soon, Oxford–Cheltenham, operating from a base just over the Gloucestershire border in Bourton-on-the-Water.
• Oxford Tube operator Stagecoach is increasing the discount for customers buying using their app to 20%. The standard return ticket will be £22.50 on the app, £28 on the coach. (Current prices are £24 in-app, £25.50 on the coach.) The company has also confirmed its March timetable changes. The journeys to Bicester Village introduced in 2024 will be cancelled; weekend services introduced for Witney and Carterton; the Baker Street stop dropped except for two morning journeys; and a new Acton Main Line stop introduced for the Elizabeth Line.

Ozymandias update

An occasional update from Magdalen's favourite furry fellow to cheer your week. And this week, for canine balance, a correspondent met the Vice Chancellor's dog, Geoffrey Biscuit, in St Giles' churchyard. (Also the VC, but our correspondent was more interested in the dog.) We are reliably informed the name comes from her young son's mispronunciation of ‘digestive biscuit’ which had become a family word.

Notes from Clarion HQ

This week in “we’ll try anything once” corner (we’ll omit the usual coda in deference to our folk-dancing readers): we experimented with leaving comments on for a recent story on our Facebook page. About potholes. This may or may not have been a smart idea. Apparently to report local news we need data scientists, cartoonists, and now, social community moderators. The things we do to appease the gods of the algorithms… Thank you to the small army of people who contribute on a daily basis now. We appreciate you.

The mild weather might have come too late for half-term, but with tomorrow set to hit the balmy heights of 16° in Oxford, maybe things are looking up. See you on Friday.