Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy and a fellow of New College, cited calculations by Aurora Energy Consultancy, which predict that Britain’s surplus energy capacity will be close to zero in 2015-16, leading to a very high risk of blackouts.

Helm attributes this risk to ministers’ failure to replace power stations that have been closed down and the unprecedented rate of economic growth. He said, “We know what the calculations are on the supply side because no new kit [power plants] will be built before 2015-16, but on the supply side all official estimates have underestimated GDP [gross domestic product] growth and therefore energy demand.

“The government must be praying for another recession,” he added, saying that Britain needed to divert resources immediately into ensuring that Britain’s energy capacity was as high as it could be – a “Spitfire moment”. He recommended that ‘mothballed’ gas stations, closed down largely because of their inefficiency, be re-opened to meet the unprecedented command.

Sir John Armitt, who is currently advising the Labour Party on Britain’s infrastructure needs, said, “In harsh political terms [blackouts] would be the best possible thing that could happen because this country is extremely good in a crisis.”

He added, “The Central Electricity Generating Board used the say that a resilient network operated on a 25% capacity surplus. We’re down to 4% because we’ve gone slower than we should have done on nuclear.”

The National Grid, while acknowledging the need for further investment in infrastructure, has dismissed claims that Britain is in danger of blackouts. A spokesperson said, “Margins are tighter this year than in previous years, but our view is that the market has the capability to meet electricity and gas demand this winter. We successfully managed similar levels back in 2008/9. We will continue to keep a watchful eye on the situation and take the necessary actions to keep the lights on.”

A spokesperson from the Department of Energy & Climate Change was similarly confident about Britain’s capacity, saying, “We have legislated through the Energy Act 2013 to bring on the investment in new energy infrastructure that we need to replace power stations that are closing down.” This act includes the Electricity Market Reform (EMR) package, which aims to attract £110 billion of investment to replace outdated power plants and prevent the risk of blackouts.

Oxford students were generally supportive of Helm’s statements. Ryan Hoyle, a first-year medic, said, “Blackouts wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing. As long as important services aren’t affected, it wouldn’t have a meaningful impact on people’s quality of life. If anything, it would force people to face up to the fact that energy isn’t unlimited and force us to think about our consumption.”

Adam Ismail, a first-year engineer, said, “The current government refused to spend for ideological reasons. Now they’re finally realising that they can’t get away with it, and are proving Labour right. This Energy Act is too little, too late, and goes to show how shallow the environmental policy is of a prime minister who dismissed it as ‘green crap’”.

Planning minister Nick Boles has called Oxford University’s Castle Mill development a “disgrace” and requested an apology from Oxford City Council and the University of Oxford.

After visiting campaigners in Oxford yesterday, Boles, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Planning, said in an interview with the Oxford Mail, “I think this is a really disgraceful process, that these are disgraceful buildings, and both the university and the council have a responsibility to the community of Oxford to do something about it to lessen the impact of these buildings and to make sure that the process in the future never allows something like this to happen again.”

He added, “Consultation was wholly inadequate, borderline totally absent. I think that this design is possibly one of the worst designs I’ve seen of any set of new buildings to go up in the last ten years. Frankly, it reminds me of the Maze prison. What we can all see, looking at these buildings, is that the colour of them is obtrusive, that the materials are obtrusive, and the scale of them is obtrusive.”

In addition, the Save Port Meadow Campaign has asked the City Council and Oxford University to apologise for their “lack of public consultation” regarding the Castle Mill development near Port Meadow. Their bid for an apology has been backed by Boles, who said, “I also think that they [Oxford City Council and Oxford University] owe an apology to the people of Jericho, the people of Wolvercote, and indeed anybody who knows Oxford, who lives in Oxford and who loves Oxford.”

The student accommodation, which houses 439 graduate students, opened last term after the High Court ruled against establishing a judicial review on the decision to grant planning permission for the flats.

The Save Port Meadow Campaign has staged a number of demonstrations against Castle Mill, and claim on their website that, “the buildings vandalise the views of the Dreaming Spires and ruin the tranquil experience of Port Meadow.”

In an email sent to Peter Sloman, Chief Executive of the Oxford City Council, the Save Port Meadow Campaign asked the City Council to issue, “the full and unreserved apology to local communities in Oxford that they deserve.”

They said that press releases from the City Council and the Save Port Meadow Campaign, “perpetuat[ed] entirely false claims that there had been a substantive consultation with local communities.” They also alleged, “inaccurate and misleading press statements [have] now [been] confirmed as amplifying serious and fundamental falsehoods made by Oxford University and the Council’s Planning Department.

The email also claimed, “We said repeatedly over half a year or more that press claims about “extensive local consultation” were false and insulting, and totally contradicted by hundreds and hundreds of comments from angry members of the public on the petition site.”

It added, “That the public were telling the truth about the consultation exercise, and that Council and University were not, has now been confirmed beyond all doubt. Yet, neither institution has yet had the decency or sense of public accountability to have issued an apology. Really?”

Furthermore, an independent review by Oxford City Council’s west area planning committee, which was published last Tuesday, found that the consultation on the plans for the buildings was “inadequate” but confirmed that the council had fulfilled its statutory obligations effectively.

Fifteen years after one of his paintings was stolen from the museum, the Ashmolean is opening a new exhibition displaying the work of French artist, Paul Cézanne.

The oil painting, ‘Near Auvers-sur-Oise’, worth £3m was stolen from the Ashmolean on New Years day in 1999 and has not yet been recovered. It is thought that burglars had entered through the museum’s glass roof and stolen the painting in the early hours of the morning.

However, the Ashmolean will once again display Cézanne’s work in their first exhibition of 2014, ‘Cézanne and the Modern’. The exhibition is the first European display of the Pearlman Collection, which has until recently been on long term loan to the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey.

It features fifty works from various impressionist and post-impressionist artists, including 24 paintings and watercolours by Cézanne.

Director of the Ashmolean, Professor Christopher Brown CBE, commented that: “The Ashmolean is honoured to be the first European venue to show the world-renowned Pearlman Collection.

“We are also very pleased to be working with another great university museum – the Princeton University Art Museum – and hope that this landmark exhibition will establish links with colleagues in Princeton for the future.”

Senior Curator of European Art, Mr Colin Harrison, said that: “Cézanne and the Modern offers visitors the opportunity to see extraordinary masterpieces by some of the most famous artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements.

Apart from the amazing paintings and watercolours by Cézanne, it includes wonderful works by artists who are little known in England.”

The exhibition will run from the 13 March-22 June 2014.

Oxford received 17,480 applications for undergraduate places this year, the “largest number of applications ever received”, a slight increase on last year when there were 17,216 applications. 

Meanwhile, University applications by UK students numbered 263,460 this December, a 1 per cent fall compared with this time last year, when there were 264,860 domestic applications.

This year’s UCAS deadline was on Wednesday and there is still a possibility that last minute applications will have boosted the final total.

The latest figures are in line with a trend since of Oxbridge applications continuing to rise despite a fall in overall UK applications despite the £9,000 fees introduced in 2012.

Although part of this continued increase is due to growing numbers of international students, the University emphasized its ongoing outreach work and its “contact with 78% of all schools offering post-16 education – virtually all schools with students capable of making a competitive application to Oxford”.

Specific attention was called to the Moritz-Heyman Scholarships which were introduced for the first time this year. Using a £300m donation received in 2012, the scholarships waive some or all tuition and living costs for lower-income Oxford students.

Cherwell asked two students about possible reasons for Oxford bucking the trend. A second year historian, who went to a North London academy school and was the first person there to go to Oxbridge, said that living expenses in Oxford were “the crux of the issue” and the University’s bursaries greatly helped her.  She believed they “made Oxford both more appealing” and contributed to the applications increase.

However, she highlighted that Oxford’s global reputation is why so many continue to apply, “The fact is, when education is more expensive, you are more likely to try to make the best of it. I was always going to apply to university, whether the fees were increased or not, as I was informed enough to understand them. Many who were put off were either uninformed or looking for an excuse to not bother.”

“I don’t think it’s radical to say that the stigma of 9k has been over-estimated.”

Nikita Hayward, a Moritz-Heyman scholar at Worcester, agreed, highlighting that, “In schools that have less history of sending students to top universities correct information isn’t passed on to students as clearly as it could be.”

Although she felt Oxford applicants were motivated regardless, she said realising Oxford’s financial support “was definitely another factor which made me prefer Oxford to my other UCAS choices”.

With several universities charging the full £9,000, she said Oxford offered “the most for their money in terms of access to academic resources, study grants, travel grants, and paid internship opportunities”.

Alfie Allen, a bursary recipient and mathematician at St Anne’s, agreed that applicants were now more ambitious. “With repaying the loan looming over the rest of your life, more people are going to want to feel like their degree will guarantee them something.”

He added, “I’d be surprised if Oxford’s financial support didn’t at some point factor into the thinking of an average applicant who would receive it, but I’m not convinced that it would be the reason they’d choose here. If we’re talking about the average Oxford applicant, I’d be surprised if it factored in.”

Their spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills stated, “Students will rightly want to make sure that they are making the best choices and consider carefully the information available to them. The Government has been very clear about the importance of widening participation and improving fair access in higher education.”

Students at Brasenose received a mass e-mail Thursday evening advising them of an ongoing police investigation concerning “a recent incident involving an Oxford University student”.

The message, which was sent to members of both the JCR and HCR with the subject “Important Security Notice”, did not include any details about the investigation or the nature of the incident, but warned students to take extra precautions in Oxford after dark.

“We would advise all students returning to their accommodation late at night to not walk alone but with a friend. For those students living out, please do not answer your door at night without first checking who the person is,” the e-mail read.

Signatories included Brasenose’s head porter Andy Talbot, JCR president Henry Zeffman, and HCR president Jovi Wong.

The e-mail did not specify whether or not the student involved in the incident was a member of Brasenose. Brasenose Porters’ Lodge declined to comment.

Students who received the e-mail were encouraged to save Oxford University Security Services’s emergency number in their mobile contacts to ring if they felt “unsafe” whilst walking alone. They were told that the University Security Services could monitor their locations whilst on the line for their safety.

Students were urged to dial 999 if they felt in “imminent danger” whilst walking by themselves late at night.

Neither the Oxford University Security Services nor the Thames Valley Police could not be reached for comment.

MERTON has announced plans for hundreds of new student rooms, after ending a court dispute with Oxford City Council. The buildings, announced in collaboration with McLaren Property, are to be reviewed at two public consultation events scheduled for later this month.

The development comes after a High Court legal challenge last year in which Merton and McLaren led several other colleges in opposition to Oxford City Council’s social housing charge. The court case was brought after a proposed development to provide accommodation for a further 298 Merton students at Manor Place was deemed not viable by the college due to the scale of the charge. The Council’s policy of demanding a financial contribution for social housing, in return for permission to build new student accommodation, meant that the building project would cost £1 million more than planned.

Stuart Black, the Development Manager of McLaren, had criticized the policy stating, “The plan would stop dead student accommodation in Oxford that is done on a commercial basis”.

However, new proposals announce that “both partners have now withdrawn legal action and have stated their intention to work with the Council and local stakeholders to devise a scheme which fully complies with current planning policy and meets local need for student accommodation”.

Stuart Black of McLaren Property said, “McLaren has made a commercial decision to proceed with a revised plan which reflects the requirements of Oxford’s planning policy and helps to meet the growing local need for new student accommodation in the city.

“It is very important for us to create a scheme which meets local needs while respecting the rich heritage of the local area and the comfort of residents neighbouring the site.”

There have been further instances of disputes between the University and Oxford City Council over planning, most notably over the £20 million Castle Mill development. The University was recently found at fault by an inquiry which criticised them for not providing adequate public consultations.

The controversty over Merton’s plans follows the news that St Cross College’s attempts to enlarge the West Quadrangle were rejected after being recommended to the council for acceptance. 

Nevertheless, this issue seems to be of more interest to lawyers than student. One commented, “I honestly could not give less of a toss. Merton’s loaded, they’ve got the money to cover these extra costs and I don’t see why they need more accommodation anyway. I’m pleased they’ve stopped sniping in the courts and are just getting on with it”. 

Another criticised the focus on planning in Oxford, “Ever since Port Meadow, it feels like the University and colleges have been at odds with the council over so many building projects. I’m glad they’ve got it sorted out”.

An Oxford councillor has admitted to taking over £100,000 from Mrs Beryl gittens account in installments between March 2005 and January 2012. Gittens, an alzheimer’s sufferer was 92 years old when she died in 2012.

Michael roques QC for the prosecution told Oxford Crown Court that Morgan had stolen nearly £80,000 in cash and £75,000 through transfers into his bank account.

“There were a number of cash withdrawals, including some in las Vegas while the defendant was on holiday there,” he said.

“A number of withdrawals were made at motorway service stations and it transpires that these have £500 jackpot fruit machines at them.

“There was money going on casino slot machines and it became apparent that Morgan was using Beryl gittens’ money for gambling.”

The court was also told how John Morgan met Mrs. gittens and her late husband Bill at a pub they owned in hermitage, Berkshire, where Morgan was a regular.

She wrote a will in 2004 that granted Morgan and roger gittens, who lives in australia, power of attorney and specified that Morgan would get £5,000 from her estate as thanks for his friendship.

Mrs gittens moved into a care home in Wantage, Oxfordshire on the advice of doctors in the September of that year and it is believed that Morgan began siphoning money from her account six months later.

With her husband’s army pension, a State pension, life savings and £137,500 from the sale of her flat, the estate was originally worth nearly £250,000, the court heard.

Although Morgan admitted to taking the money, he denies acting dishonestly. The 75 year old claimed that gittens had asked him to gamble her money away after she died in 2005, in order to prevent her extended family from arguing over her inheritance. he claimed that Mrs gittens had said, “i want you to promise me that when i go, there is but a penny for those buggers to squabble over.”

Mr roques told the jury how “When asked, he said he made sure that all the money was taken out of the account, according to her wishes. he said she would have loved a visit but no family bothered. That is why they didn’t deserve any money.”

In court, Judge Mary Jane Mowat dismissed this point as a result of his gambling addiction, calling him, “a gambling addict with the addict’s capacity for denial and self-deception.”

Mowat went on to describe Morgan’s actions as one of the “biggest breaches of trust possible.”

Despite having taken the large sum of money from Mrs gittens, Morgan asked the council to pay for her funeral, rather than paying for it himself. The council agreed to do so, because her accounts were empty. Mrs gittens’s sister-in-law became suspicious after attending the low-key funeral service, and asked gittens’s son, roger gittens, to examine the accounts. Police were contacted upon the discovery that they were empty.

Det Sgt rachel Jackson who was involved in the case commented after the verdict, “Not only did Morgan defraud a vulnerable and elderly woman of a vast amount of money from the sale of her house, he also used his position on the council to arrange home care for her, lying about the victim’s financial affairs to cover the fact he had stolen all her savings.

“Despite pleading not guilty to the offence, a jury saw through his lies and found him guilty of stealing from the victim who thought he was a family friend and trusted him implicitly.”

Conservative councillor, Fiona roper told the Oxford Mail, “i’m shocked and saddened by what has happened to him.

“But it was a serious breach of trust and they had to make an example of him. it is such a big responsibility to have power of attorney.”

Morgan was the vice-chairman of Vale of White horse District Council’s planning committee, and had 21 years of experience working on various councils with no past record of dishonest behaviour.

Judge Mowat noted that spotless record, telling the court that it, “Stands in strange and startling contrast to the devious and shambolic way you dealt with Beryl gittens’ affairs.”

Morgan stepped down from his role as vice-chairman after admitting to the theft, but is still on the council. he has a 28 day right of appeal, after which he will cease to be a councillor if stripped of the position by a vote at full council.

Exeter student Tristan Mora commented,“it’s amazing what some people think they can get away with.

“It’s good he’s been brought to justice, but it doesn’t change the fact that this poor woman was manipulated for such a long period of time.

“It’s perhaps an awful insight into modern society that with families regularly divided by geography, people are often unable to give their relatives the care and attention that they might wish to, leading to situations such as this one where a vulnerable person was ruthlessly exploited.”

There will be a hearing on the 3rd of april to attempt to recover some of the stolen money from the defendant. The council lost approximately £76,000 towards the care of Mrs gittens in total.

By January 2011, her accounts were already so empty that the council had to pay the bills when she was moved to hungerford Care home.

Vale of White horse District Council declined to comment on the matter.

AN OXFORD STUDENT has been shortlisted for the Mars One mission, a controversial scheme that aims to establish a permanent settlement on Mars by 2025.

Third year University College physicist Ryan MacDonald beat nearly 20,0000 other applicants to gain a place on the 1058-strong shortlist for a one-way trip to colonize the red planet.

MacDonald cited meeting Tim Peake, the UK’s first astronaut, in 2010 as rekindling his childhood dream of going into space. “I saw it as an amazing opportunity to do something remarkable with my life, to truly get to be an explorer in the old fashioned sense,” he told Cherwell. “More than just personal allure, the benefits back home in terms of the potential to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers is something that I can’t turn away from.”

As a physicist, MacDonald believes he would be invaluable to the mission’s surveys. He stressed the importance of putting scientists on the surface on the planet, saying, “If we really want to definitively answer the question of whether there is life on Mars, the rovers alone will never suffice.”

The Mars One project has come under criticism from top scientists, many of whom describe it as unrealistic. Dr Colin Wilson, an Oxford academic involved in the European Space Agency’s 2016 ExoMars project, raised concerns about the project’s “unrealistic” schedule and projected cost.

“I’m happy that Mars One is again raising interest in exploration of space and planets,” Dr Wilson stated. He added, “Mars One has no support from the scientific community: it’s simply that none of us believe it will reach the launch pad, let alone land on Mars, let alone establish a colony. It is science fiction.”

MacDonald defended the project’s scientific integrity, however, referring sceptics to Mars One ambassadors like Nobel Prize-winning scientist Gerard ‘t Hooft.

“I don’t see any obvious problems to proceeding with the mission as laid out,” MacDonald said. “The true hurdle by far is the financial side of the project, which remains to be seen if it will work out as planned.”

“But even if the project fails, I see it as a success because it has got people talking seriously about future human habitation of Mars.” 

Mars One hopefuls, including MacDonald, will now proceed with a reality TV-style selection process. Dr. Wilson voiced concerns with this approach to space exploration, saying that he was “uneasy with the ethics of this project”.

According to Wilson, entertainment company and Big Brother creators Endemol, which will host the TV show, produced a 2005 TV programme called “Space Cadets” which tricked members of the public into thinking they were on a space mission.

“Endemol apparently is quite prepared to grossly mislead contestants,” Wilson said.

Instead, he says, “If Mars One’s proposed astronauts want to get involved in space exploration, there are a great number of opportunities to get involved, from rocket and balloon experiments to involvement in space engineering and research.”

MacDonald is nevertheless focused on contributing to a successful Mars One mission despite the possibility of giving up life on Earth. He said, “I will never be able to make physical contact with my family again, never be able to take a deep breath of fresh air and look at clouds above, never be able to eat chocolate again.

“Taken separately, there are many little things I would miss, but together they add to a big change in my life. I am prepared to give these up in order to make this mission a success.”

The warden of Merton College has apologised for noise caused by Merton Winter Ball.

The ball, which took place on 30th November, may have been a resounding success among attendees, but complaints by local residents about noise levels have dampened the mood of its organisers.

On the night of the ball, residents of Divinity Road, over a mile away from the college, complained of loud music disturbing their sleep. Several complaints were made to St Clement’s Liberal Democrat councillor Dr. Graham Jones, who wrote to Sir Martin Taylor, the Warden of Merton College. Jones explained, “I told him about the noise we get from thoughtless students in East Oxford and asked him to make sure his college gave a good example.”

Sir Martin promptly apologised on behalf of his college. Writing to Dr Jones, he said “It is certainly not my intention to allow Merton College to disrupt by noise or indeed any other fashion, the life of the citizens of Oxford. Certainly for the future we will be looking very carefully at the arrangements for the evening, in particular, sound levels and programming.”

“I do again apologise for the disturbance that the ball caused on this occasion and do hope that this reply will give you the confidence that the college approached the question of the potential sound pollution in a responsible manner.”

The Merton Winter Ball Committee also issued a statement, saying they were very sympathetic to those disturbed, but that they had taken a number of council-approved measures to minimise disruption.

“It is our belief that we took all reasonable steps to avoid such concerns,” said Chairman Tim Foot, though he admitted that there were “forces at work beyond our control”.

Dr. Jones did acknowledge that the noise levels were not entirely down to the college, commenting, “Part of the problem was low cloud – but sound engineers should be experienced enough to realise this and turn down the amps. People a mile away who lost their sleep will welcome Sir Martin’s apology – and hope his promise is heeded when Merton has its 750th anniversary ball later this year.”

However, The director of the production company employed by Merton insisted that, “the sound levels were monitored throughout the night and we worked to our usual levels for Oxford: 85 decibel average”. Sir Martin also claimed that the power output was significantly less than the Trinity and Magdalen summer balls.

Students and members of the college seemed surprised by the complaints. “I don’t remember it being excessively loud, although I don’t remember that much of the ball, to be honest,” said one first year attendee.

Another guest appeared more sympathetic saying, “I’m sure everyone regrets that people were disturbed. It definitely wasn’t anything any of us set out to do”.

One student who lives on Divinity Road questioned Dr Jones’s complaint commenting, “Living on Divinity Road and having to walk into college every day, I can tell you that it’s a bloody mile away and I just can’t believe you could hear the Ball from that far away.”

This is hardly the first time noise levels from student activities have drawn criticism from residents. Oxford City Council promised to investigate Oxford Brookes University after complaints were made in November last year. Oxford student clubs and pubs are also a regular source of noise problems for inhabitants of the city centre. Reports suggest that the elderly are the most likely to ring the police complaining of disturbed sleep.

In the light of its upcoming 750th anniversary and a filled programme of events this year, Merton has vowed to become more conscious of its neighbours. Sir Martin explained that noise pollution policy, telling Dr Jones, “You have my assurance that this will be reviewed very carefully when arrangements are being considered for our next Winter Ball in 2016, as well as for our 750th Anniversary ball in 2014”.

A Merton undergraduate was similarly keen to console those affected. “I’m sorry some families in East Oxford didn’t get much sleep that night, but if it makes them feel any better, I’m not sure any of us did either.”