Warneford Meadow, Headington
The Warneford Meadow on Sunday 19 March 2006
To get to the Warneford Meadow, walk down Roosevelt Drive (opposite Gipsy Lane). Go past the main entrance to the Warneford Hospital, and then turn right at the mini-roundabout opposite Demesne Furze. The entrance to the meadow is near the Headington Care Home. There is a footpath (shown above) that leads through the meadow to Hill Top Road.
The photographs below show the meadow on 6 June 2006.
The next picture shows the view looking back to the Headington Care Home:
The next picture looks towards the Churchill, where more building work is well under way.
The development of the meadow is permitted under the present Local Plan, and the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Mental Healthcare Trust put in five outline planning applications early in 2006:
- 06/01540/OUT
Hospital playing field
150 residential units of assisted housing - 06/01559/OUT ENV RRW
Warneford Meadow
Student accommodation and/or key worker residential accommodation not exceeding 685 student units (reduced from 1,950) or 300 residential units - 06/01560/OUT ENV RRW
Warneford Meadow
Healthcare and/or medical research and/or administration and/or academic floorspace, not exceeding 24,500sq.m of floorspace - 06/01561/OUT
Park Hospital
Student accommodation and/or key worker residential accommodation not exceeding 400 student units or 60 residential units - 06/01562/OUT
Park Hospital
Healthcare and/or medical research and/or administration and/or academic floorspace, not exceeding 4500sq.m.
In answer to a parliamentary question about NHS assets, Liam Byrne revealed that the Department of Health's land at the Warneford is worth £30,900,000, making it the NHS's sixth most valuable immovable fixed asset.
The University of Oxford has already been granted planning permission to build a new research building on separate playing fields next to the Warneford Hospital.
Links
- Friends of Warneford Meadow
- Hill Top Road Residents' Association
- Warneford Meadow: Wikipedia entry
- History of the Warneford Hospital
Oxford Times/Mail articles on the Meadow
- 7 December 2007: "NHS Trust drops meadow from plans"
- 16 November 2007: "Warneford Meadow safe, for now"
- 2 October 2007: "Ready to fight over meadows"
- 30 August 2007: "Fight looms over meadow housing"
- 10 May 2007: "Trust to appeal over Warneford Meadow"
- 26 April 2007: "Warneford Meadow decision deferred"
- Sunday Times, 29 April 2007: "Hands off our green"
- 25 January 2007: "Councillors opposing city's student village"
- 9 January 2007: "Backing for new student village in Oxford"
- 12 January 2007: "Opposition grows to 'student village' plan
- 29 December 2006: "NHS dilutes its 'student village' plan"
- 12 October 2006: "Campaign group aims to stop student village on Warneford Meadow"
- 31 March 2006: "Fears 'new town' will be built within city"
- 4 March 2006: "Scanner to be built on field despite protests"
Latest situation: 2008
Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (OBMH) decided in 2007 not to pursue its appeals with the Planning Inspectorate for the "non-determination of its outline planning applications" by the city council's Strategic Development Control Committee on 25 April 2007.
This is because the appeals were due to be heard before the decision in January 2008 on whether Warneford Meadow should be registered as a Town Green. Paul de Luce, supported by the Friends of Warneford Meadow, submitted the Town Green application to Oxfordshire County Council to save the Meadow from present and future development, and a public inquiry commenced in the Town Hall in October 2007 with QC Vivian Chapman. The application was opposed by the NHS, who own the meadow, and a Mr Whitmey.
OBMH (now the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust) will return with fresh proposals, but these will exclude the meadow and focus on the Warneford playing field and the land around the Park Hospital.
The Warneford Meadow Town Green Public Inquiry at the Town Hall concluded after another four days on Thursday 22 May 2008. The legal costs of this long drawn-out application are likely to total £44,000 (£37,000 of which has so far been raised by local residents).