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City Centre

The end of Broad Meadow 

We're sad to be saying goodbye to Broad Meadow on Sunday, but we're pleased that elements of it will live on in new homes across the city. 

The planters, seating, plants and turf, which were made locally and using recycled materials where possible, will be removed and re-used by: 

• Blackbird Leys Adventure Playground
• Cowley Children’s Allotment
• Marston Community Gardening
• Oxford Urban Wildlife Group
• St Ebbe’s Primary School
• St Mary Magdalen Church.

Broad Meadow has been one of our largest outdoor public spaces and has helped to promote the safe use of the city centre over the summer. We've enjoyed lunchbreaks amongst the flowers, coffee stops on the benches and the varied programme of weekend events, and hope you have too. 

We will be running public consultation about Broad Meadow until 29 October and would appreciate your feedback. It will inform the development of longer-term options for creating better civic spaces in the city. You can have your say by following this link.

Museum of Oxford reopens on Monday

As we say a fond farewell to Broad Meadow, we also welcome back our treasured Museum of Oxford (MOX) – the only museum dedicated to telling the story of Oxford and its people.

To celebrate this, MOX has launched a re-opening competition. You can submit a piece of art on the theme “The People of Oxford and the History of the City”. There are three categories to enter: individual, family and community groups.

The winning entries will be displayed in an exhibition in the new galleries and will be featured on the Museum website, social media and in publicity.

The museum closed in 2018 for an extensive re-modelling project. Three years later, we're so excited to see the changes. With brand new exhibitions and spaces, this is a museum you don't want to miss.

Housing

Grenoble Road development 

Next week, our cabinet is expected to confirm how we plan to work with Thames Water and Magdalen College on plans to develop an area of land south of Grenoble Road.

The development would include nearly 3,000 new homes, an extension to the Oxford Science Park, new schools, open spaces, community facilities and shops, as well as improvements to sustainable travel into the city centre.

Half of the homes would be affordable, with 35% of these at social rent, 40% affordable rent and 25% low cost home ownership – for example, shared ownership – to provide some of the homes needed to meet demand for affordable housing in Oxford.

In Oxford, social rent is typically around 40% of equivalent private rents, affordable rent is set at up to 80% of an equivalent private rent, and shared ownership gives people the opportunity to buy a share of their home – usually between 25% and 75% – and pay rent on the rest. Shared ownership helps people to get a foot on the property ladder.

We have long held ambitions to develop this site, which sits between the A4074 to the west and Sandford Brake substation to the east, to help meet Oxford’s need for homes so are excited that plans are advancing. 

Iffley Village consultation

Public consultation on the masterplan to build new homes, including new council homes, in Iffley to help tackle the city’s housing crisis has opened and we want your views. 

The development would include at least 12 homes for social rent, which will be genuinely affordable as they will be let at around 40 per cent of private rent levels in Oxford, as well as three homes sold on shared ownership – providing people with a stake in homes they would not otherwise be able to afford – or another affordable tenure.

The proposed homes would be built to Passivhaus-standard, meaning they will be amongst the greenest homes in Oxford.

Oxford has a housing crisis. High demand and scarce availability mean that the city is among the least affordable places for housing in the UK. People are all too often priced out of the housing market and private rents are nearly double the average for England as a whole.

With our housing company, Oxford City Housing Limited (OCHL), we are determined to combat the crisis and are working across the city to build affordable homes for residents. 

Climate Emergency

Leisure centre decarbonisation update 

As we shared in our last edition, four of our public leisure centres are getting a £10.9million investment to cut carbon as part of our plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Work on the four centres – Ferry Leisure, Barton Leisure, Leys Pool and Leisure and Hinksey Outdoor Pool – will begin in the next few weeks and will likely cause some minor disruption to users. 

The work at Hinksey Pool will happen during the usual winter closure and is expected to begin around 18 October. This is a significant project to install heat pumps that transfer solar heat from Hinksey Lake to warm the water in Hinksey Pool, and there will be some local disruption as work progresses.

Installing the water source heat pump will require trenching through the car park and between the heat pump and swimming pool plant room building. The following sites may have short term closures or restrictions on access to enable work to take place:

• Hinksey Park
• Hinksey Step
• Hinksey Park car park and Lake Street car park
• Hinksey Lake

There may also to be some restrictions on the cycle path and pitches, and we're working with our contractor to confirm the exact detail. 

The swimming pool at Ferry Leisure Centre has been closed since August to enable asbestos removal in the boiler plant room. The pool will remain closed for the initial work on installing the heat pumps, but we are hiring temporary external equipment to enable it to reopen around mid-November whilst the decarbonisation works are carried out in the plant room.

We will also hire similar temporary equipment at Barton, to ensure that the construction works at Barton Leisure Centre will not lead to service closures to customers.

Unfortunately, Leys Pool and Leisure Centre will require some closures later this year, as it is not possible to transfer the key heating systems to external machinery. It is expected that the works will mean closing the pool area on 7 November for the pipework alterations to start on the 8 November, and will last approximately seven weeks.

We will keep you up to date as the plans progress. 

Communities 

Support is still available after government schemes end

At the end of last month, the Government's universal credit uplift, furlough and self-employed support schemes came to an end. We know that this has caused a lot of stress and uncertainty to some residents. 

We have been working with charities and our community partners to provide support for those who need it. We can help with essentials like food, fuel and utilities, money and debt management. 

If you are struggling or worried about how you will cope then please get in touch with us. We are here to help you. 

You can call 01865 249 811 or visit the Essential Support Directory and fill in the online form.

A new Bullingdon Community Centre

The existing building has been deteriorating for some years and plans to replace it were well underway before the project was paused due to the pandemic. But now work has started and the old building has been broken down to make space for the much anticipated £1.5m new community centre.

The modern building will provide two community halls, kitchen, toilets, an inviting entrance space, meeting rooms and multi-use spaces that could be used for community meetings or as changing rooms for sports or other events. 

Black History Month 

This month we're celebrating Black History Month and putting the focus on the Black communities’ contributions to Britain. 

As we mentioned above, the Museum of Oxford reopens on 11 October, and exhibitions will include its permanent Windrush Years exhibit, which gives an insight into the Caribbean community of Oxford since the 1950s.

Our Youth Ambition team will be using their regular youth clubs and activities to focus on Black History Month, and including cultural activities and conversations about the experience of young Black people in Oxford.

We will also be reviewing our Anti-Racism Charter, which was launched last October. It is a commitment to challenge racism and the discrimination that is unknowingly built in to the ways many organisations operate.

And we will be using our social media channels to highlight local stories throughout the month, starting with Natty Mark Samuel's African School. Natty Mark provides some of the only non-university African Studies opportunities in the city, aimed at people from all backgrounds with an interest to learn more. You'll be able to find the videos in this playlist as they're published.

Funding to improve safety at night

Oxford has been granted up to £426,000 to introduce measures that aim to prevent violence against women and girls travelling in and out of Oxford at night.

Not only will these measures protect women and girls, but they will also benefit anyone who is vulnerable to violence and other predatory behaviour.

We will be working with the Police Crime Commissioner, Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford Police Area, Oxford University Security Services, and Oxford Brookes University to implement measures. 

Coronavirus 

There has been a jump in Covid cases in Oxford city, and although much of this is in school clusters it reminds us that we all still need to take precautions.

Regular home testing, wearing a mask in crowded places, and self-isolating if you’re unwell are all ways you can help keep cases down. Getting vaccinated is the best protection you can give yourself from the virus, and it will help stop you from passing it on to others too. 

People should stay at home if they are feeling unwell and get a PCR test as soon as possible.

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