Work to prevent any new Oxford United stadium sell-on ongoing, council says
The council's cabinet is set to agree the sale of the Triangle next Tuesday
Work to make sure any new Oxford United stadium could not be sold on like the Kassam Stadium is ongoing, a senior county council officer said.
Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet looks set to agree to sell Green Belt land at the Triangle in Kidlington to the football club next Tuesday.
The club has said it will be unable to play at the Kassam Stadium, which is owned by its former owner Firoz Kassam, from summer 2026 after its licence agreement ends.
Mr Kassam owned Oxford United between 1999 and 2006. When he sold the club, he retained ownership of its stadium and other surrounding land, which his company Firoka still controls.
A senior council officer said yesterday that the authority’s legal team is working “to ensure that the club does remain in control of its own fate” and avoids any repeat of the current saga.
Any new home needs to be in or close to Oxford to meet English Football League rules.
Council officers have recommended the Triangle is sold to the club. They have said it would offer the best value for the authority and limit its financial risk.
But the council would still retain an interest through covenants and could take action against the football club if obligations were not met.
Vic Kurzeja, the council’s director of property services, said: “The legal team is now working to ensure what wording needs to be done within the covenant and potentially the contract if we were to go that way to ensure [the stadium could not be sold on], which is one of the reasons all this work’s been done.
“There’s a lot of detailed work going on there to ensure that the club does remain in control of its own fate going forward.”
Any future deal for the Triangle is “unique” to Oxford United and if any deal fell through the site would not go on the open market, Mr Kurzeja said.
He was responding to a question from Andrew Coles, a member of the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee, who said he was “very keen” for any deal to tie the stadium to the club and “not an individual”.
In May the council’s cabinet agreed seven priorities that it wants Oxford United to meet to “achieve community benefit” if it uses the Triangle.
One of the priorities is to “significantly improve the infrastructure connectivity” and public transport. The club has said it hopes 90% of people who use the stadium would use sustainable travel “over time”.
But a former cabinet member for transport, Yvonne Constance, said that is too vague.
She said: “To achieve 90% sustainable transport modes in due course is just not a sufficient commitment. It’s not identifying how they will do it, where they will do it or any dates, targets or commitment at all.
“I think the transport impact will make a huge difference to both the viability and success of this scheme.”
Kidlington Parish Council, local group the Friends of Stratfield Brake, Sport England and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) have said they are concerned or negative about the plan for the Triangle.
The committee recommended the cabinet should “understand the short, medium and long-term impacts of the covenants proposed” before it makes its final decision.
Police recruitment slow despite record numbers
Thames Valley Police (TVP) is losing too many officers and recruiting replacements is difficult, it has said.
The force, which covers Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, has more officers than ever before following a recruitment programme started by then prime minister Boris Johnson in 2019.
TVP eventually recruited 785 new officers, more than the 609 it had originally planned for.
It employed 5,034 officers at the end of March, when the recruitment programme ended.
But the force said on average it was losing more than an officer a day last year and that it needs to stem the flow of resignations.
About 70% of all departures were resignations or officers moving to a different force.
“The impact of this is a decrease in experienced officers within TVP and indicates that we are potentially not an employer of choice,” Nick Deane, its workforce planning business partner, said.
TVP had the third largest turnover of police constables of 43 police forces across the country, with reasons for departures including the Thames Valley’s high cost of living.
Tighter vetting introduced last year following the convictions of former Met Police officers Wayne Couzens and David Carrick has led to more candidates being rejected by the force.
Mr Deane said courses for new recruits have been running at 83% capacity compared to between 90% and 100% last year.
More than 100 of TVP’s new officers were previously police community support officers (PCSOs) with the same force, which led to vacancies in that area.
“The recruitment labour market remains challenging and we are struggling to attract sufficient numbers and to retain [officers], their skills and experience within the organisation,” the force said.
A pilot that will aim to retain officers will be discussed at a meeting of the Thames Valley’s Police and Crime Panel in Aylesbury tomorrow.
In the last five years, TVP has employed more officers from an ethnic minority background than it ever has before.
Since 2018, it has recruited 169 officers from Asian, Black, mixed or other backgrounds.
Before then, the force had only ever employed 98 officers from those groups in its history.
But people from an ethnic minority background are still underrepresented.
About 6.5% of officers belong to an ethnic minority but nearly 20% of the Thames Valley population does.
The force’s assistant chief constable Dennis Murray said the force is also “acutely aware” that a disproportionate number of officers from an ethnic minority have left.
He said TVP is “actively analysing the data in order to ascertain the contributing factors”.
Liberal Democrats select election candidate
Calum Miller, the county council’s cabinet member for finance, will stand for the Lib Dems in the new Bicester and Woodstock constituency at the next general election.
Cllr Miller is a former senior civil servant and is currently a senior fellow at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. He is an Oxford University graduate.
He has represented Otmoor on the county council since 2021. On Twitter/X, he said he would be a “strong, local voice” if elected.
Rupert Harrison, an economist and former adviser to George Osborne when he was chancellor (and another Oxford graduate), was selected by the Conservatives in June.
The new constituency’s major settlements are Bicester, Woodstock, Eynsham, North Leigh, Long Hanborough, Tackley and Kidlington.