Blog Page 2

Botley Road reopens after three and a half years

Orla McMahon
-
0
Botley Road reopens after three and a half years

Botley Road, which has been closed since April 2023 to accommodate expansions to Oxford railway station, reopened to the public this week. 

Originally scheduled for August, the reopening was pushed back to 20th September due to repairs to the gas network under the road. The road is now open to both pedestrians and vehicles. The reopening also brings improved bus services, a new walkway and a cycleway that runs under the rail bridge.

The road serves as a main passage into the city centre. It spans from Botley, which sits on the A34 to the west of the city, to Frideswide Square, near Oxford railway station and next to the Said Business School. 

These developments form part of the Oxfordshire Connect programme. According to an information pamphlet provided by Network Rail, this infrastructure project seeks to build “a bigger, better station for everyone” and add “additional rail capacity for the future”. Plans include a new line linking Oxford and Cambridge and the reopening of the Cowley branch line. Network Rail estimates that the total cost of this scheme so far is £237.4 million, well above the initial estimate of £161 million.

Oxfordshire Connect justified their decision to close the entire road, rather than just one lane, with the intention to complete construction before the end of 2024. However, construction was delayed multiple times due to unforeseen circumstances, including the discovery of a Victorian brick arch under the road and complications with utility infrastructure. 

Local residents have previously expressed their frustration at these delays. Following the closure of the road in 2023, many local businesses reported that their trade was negatively affected. Layla Moran, MP for West Oxfordshire and Abingdon, took the issue to Parliament and met with Minister of State for Rail Peter Hendy in 2024 to discuss the ongoing closure. 

In response to the reopening, Layla Moran told Cherwell: “Whilst I feel relieved that the Botley road has reopened, it has come at long last after three and a half years of terrible disruption to the lives of my constituents…I promise to push for accountability, having requested that the National Audit Office carry out an investigation into why the cost of the project has now soared to £237.4 million”. 

Network Rail have released a statement upon the road’s reopening which acknowledged that the road closure had a “significant impact” on Oxford residents and that they are “sorry for the disruption and the frustration it has caused”. 

Although no date has been confirmed, the station renovations are expected to resume at a later point.

Traffic filters trial replaces congestion charge in Oxford

Orla McMahon
-
0
Traffic filters trial replaces congestion charge in Oxford

Oxfordshire County Council has introduced a traffic filters trial in Oxford to replace the congestion charge. 

The scheme began on 28th September and can run for up to 18 months. Like the previous congestion charge, it aims to reduce traffic in and around Oxford. 

Drivers will no longer be able to pay the £5 congestion charge when travelling into the city. Instead, any drivers who pass through the traffic filters without a permit will be liable to a fine of up to £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 21 days. For the first six months, drivers will receive a warning without a fine the first time they travel through the filters without a permit. 

The traffic filters only apply to cars and motorhomes. Oxford residents, including students, can apply for permits allowing 100 days of travel through the filter zone, while Oxfordshire residents can apply for a 25-day permit. Some groups, such as blue badge holders or community health and care workers, are exempt from the traffic filters scheme.

Filters have been installed at the same six points across the city as the congestion charge: Hythe Bridge Street (near Said Business School), St Cross Road, St Clements Street, Thames Street, Marston Ferry Road, and Hollow Way. All parts of Oxford can still be reached without passing through a traffic filter, due to the reopening of Botley Road. 

The new scheme will cost £6.56 million and is funded by the government. Under UK law, any money it raises must be invested into local transport initiatives.

Councillor Gareth Epps, Cabinet Member for Transport at Oxfordshire County Council, told Cherwell: “The county council’s transport policies are designed to make it easier for people to travel into and around Oxford and make the county a better place to live, work and do business.” 

To help determine the success of the traffic filter scheme, Oxfordshire County Council has opened a public consultation, and residents can give feedback by completing an online survey. When asked whether the traffic filters will continue after the trial period, Councillor Epps told Cherwell: “The council’s future decisions about traffic filters will be influenced by many factors, including monitoring data, feedback from the six-month public consultation, the costs of operating and maintaining the scheme, legal advice, and relevant local and national policy.” 

“What is a good life?”: The Standard of Living in review 

Eoin Ware
-
0
“What is a good life?”: The Standard of Living in review 

“What is a good life?” This axiological question, asked earnestly in the opening lines of James Graham’s The Standard of Living – playing at Theatre Royal Haymarket until December 12 – is often overlooked by the fractured and hyper-specialised discipline of economics. Yet for John Maynard Keynes, whose ideas motivated the ‘Keynesian revolution’ towards government intervention into the economy during the mid-20th century, it was the core motivation underpinning his life’s work. To Keynes, this so-called ‘good life’ is one replete with art and human connection, wherein the value of work lies in the leisure which it affords. However, Keynes’ dogged refusal to accept the state of the world tells us that, perhaps more fundamentally, a ‘good life’ is one characterised by a radical imagining of what a ‘better life’ might entail, and a tireless striving towards its realisation.  

This ethical framework seizes The Standard of Living, turning what might have become a dull affair about aggregate demand and the death of laissez-faire into a colourful portrait of a remarkable man. The play flits between Keynes’ bohemian life as a member of the Bloomsbury Group, and his attempts to influence the British government to intervene in the economy across two world wars and the Wall Street Crash. Throughout, Keynes’ deployment of economic theory is portrayed as an act of profound artistic expression, akin to the literature of Virginia Woolf or the painting of Vanessa Bell (fellow members of the Bloomsbury Group). Keynes’ affinity to the arts, which saw him found the Arts Council of Great Britain shortly before his death in 1946, is reflected in the incorporation of paintings by Cézanne and Degas into the stage design. Additionally, the frenzied ballet numbers which mark scene transitions foreshadow his marriage to the ballerina Lydia Lopokova (much to the shock of his friends and colleagues, who believed him to be homosexual). 

Rory Kinnear plays a reserved yet charming Keynes, providing glimpses of the charisma which convinced Douglas LePan to describe him as “the most beautiful creature I have ever listened to”. However, Natalia Osipova steals the show, in her theatre debut on sojournment from the Royal Ballet, playing a sharp, witty, and comedically Russian Lydia Lopokova. The highlight of the play is the meeting between Keynes and his great rival, the proto-neoliberal Friedrich Hayek, on the roof of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. The almost unbelievably true encounter sees Keynes and Hayek on fire warden duty during a Nazi bombing raid, still arguing the merits of their respective worldviews. The pair meet again during a feverish tango scene which places Hayek’s “we must tighten our belts” against Keynes’ “buy a new belt”. Other standout performances include Pip Carter’s drippingly sardonic Lytton Strachey, a fellow member of the Bloomsbury Group and a former lover of Keynes, and Laurie Kynaston’s Hayek, whose thin veneer of self-confidence masks both a bitter ideological resentment of Keynes the economist, and a deep personal admiration for Keynes the man. 

Those searching for a deep engagement with the economic arguments for and against government intervention in the free market may find themselves disappointed (much to the relief of the rest of us). Cursory context is provided regarding the debate between Keynes and Hayek, typically followed by a quip from a less economically –minded character about just how complicated it all is, reassuring the audience that the graphs and equations espoused by these characters are not at all the point of the play. Rather, the fundamental tension between Keynes and Hayek is captured in their differing worldviews, which shape the research they produce. Keynes’ good-natured belief in the capacity of governments to influence the world for the better, and the importance he places on leisure and the ‘good life’, stands in stark contrast with the cynical zealotry of Hayek, who draws on his experience of the hyperinflation in 1920s Vienna to justify his distrust of central bank interventions. Therefore, although Graham seemingly writes Keynes to be the ‘hero’ of the story (if there even is such a thing), this should not necessarily be taken as an endorsement of his economic ideas, but rather a simple admiration for his uncompromising style of living, and the way in which it shaped his life’s work. 

Therefore, by highlighting the virtue inherent to Keynes’ radical imagination of a better life for all, influenced by his deep personal engagement with the moral philosophy of fellow Cambridge ‘Apostle’ G.E. Moore, The Standard of Living stands as a philippic against the state of political and economic thought today, implicitly lamenting those who sacrifice ideology and philosophy at the altar of pragmatism and incremental change. Morgan McSweeney’s pragmatism-over-principle may have achieved the largest British electoral victory this century, but it was this same lack of philosophical imagination which doomed Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership from the start. Through his exploration of John Maynard Keynes in The Standard of Living, James Graham implores us to not repeat these mistakes, but rather to learn from the ethos embodied by Keynes. By doing this, we might just be able to imagine a better way to live.  

Antisemitism at UK universities 79% higher than before October 7th attacks

Gavriella Epstein-Lightman
-
0
Antisemitism at UK universities 79% higher than before October 7th attacks

CW: Antisemitism

The University of Oxford was among ten universities to record five or more antisemitic incidents from 2024-2026, a new report on antisemitism at UK universities shows. 

The Community Security Trust (CST), a UK charity which monitors antisemitism in Britain, has published a report tracking recorded antisemitic incidents affecting Jewish students, academics, university staff, and campus organisations between 2024 and 2026. Its executive summary warns that “the 7 October attacks ha[ve] resulted in a baseline level of antisemitism that is significantly higher than before”.

Last year saw 95 reported incidents across UK universities, a 14% increase on previous years. This figure remains below the “unprecedented” 272 incidents recorded during the single academic year of 2023/24 but is 79% higher than the last academic year before the Hamas attacks on 7th October. 

CST’s report shows that the city of Oxford had the joint seventh most incidents of University antisemitism in the UK. Of the five incidents reported in Oxford, the majority occurred online. The report also references an incident in October 2024 where a swastika was drawn on a sign for the David Slager Jewish Students society on George Street. 

A significant proportion of antisemitic incidents concerned Israel, Gaza, Hamas, the October 7 attacks, and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. A reported 62% of incidents “contained such references alongside anti-Jewish language, motivation or targeting” while 55% of incidents “demonstrated explicitly anti-Zionist motivation alongside antisemitism”. References to Hitler, the Nazis, or the Holocaust appeared in 26% of incidents. 

The CST findings follow the Union of Jewish Students’ (UJS) ‘Time for Change’ report, published in March 2026, which found that “antisemitism on campus is normalised”.It urges universities to “make clear the difference between anti Israel speech or activity, and antisemitism – and enforce this difference through disciplinary action when students, staff or societies cross the line”. The charity also suggested that educational institutions “make reporting of incidents accessible and worthwhile” in order to “build trust in university processes”.

In response to the report, a spokesperson for the Oxford Jewish Society told Cherwell that they “value the continued engagement of the University with the Jewish community to resolve issues of antisemitism”. However, they said that “the collegiate structure of the university and the unaffiliated nature of key institutions means that there is a deficit of accountability across the University”.

“Jewish students should not have to become less visibly Jewish, less openly Zionist or less willing to speak in order to feel comfortable at university”, the society added. “Antisemitism does not cease to be antisemitism because it is expressed in the language of anti-Zionism. Hostility towards Jewish students because of their real or assumed connection with Israel is not legitimate.”

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford told Cherwell: “Oxford is unequivocal: there is no place for antisemitism, harassment, or discrimination within our community.

“The University condemns, in the strongest possible terms, any form of racial hatred, including any actions or language urging violence against groups of people.”

When asked about measures taken to counter antisemitism at Oxford, the University spokesperson highlighted efforts to promote racial and religious inclusion. These include an annual Student Racial and Religious Inclusion Forum, first held in March 2026, which brought students together to share their experiences. The University also said its Equality and Diversity Unit has facilitated antisemitism training from the Union of Jewish Students for student-facing staff.

Diverse voices: ‘Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah’ by Miljenko Jergović 

Abigail Riley
-
0
Diverse voices: ‘Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah’ by Miljenko Jergović 

‘When he created Earth and these lands upon it, when he divided people into believers and infidels, the crescent moon and the cross, the good Allah made us all different except for one thing. We die easily without seeking reasons; the reasons come on their own. And He sits on His celestial throne and is surprised by how little we cherish life while we have it, and how many tears we shed once it’s gone.’

Hiding in the woods, the narrator of Jergović’s eighth story ponders the push and pull of religion in Bosnia. His is one of the trickier voices in Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah. Obsessed with the sins of a lightning-struck Hodža, the disappearance of a young refugee from the town’s memory, he resolves to be the saviour. He answers the call of God, who is “testing us just as an old grandfather tests his coffee with the tip of his tongue to see if it’s hot”. As he falls asleep in the cold, his mind is fragmented with fantasies of sin and punishment. The details of “the Charred Mosque minaret” slip away; he remembers that “the Hodža was bald and smooth-faced”, but he cannot remember why. When he sneaks back into the town, forgetting the stories he has told himself and the crimes he is supposedly avenging, our narrator commits a confused final act of violence. Jergović, through translators Ellen Elias-Bursać and Mirza Purić, delivers: “We both heard the same thing, and by that, on judgement day we will be judged as men – the woosh of the paddle like the woosh of the wind that brings the snow and the winter.”

Whilst the delusion of Alkatmer’s narrator is perhaps more complex than some other voices in this collection, the understatedness of his story and the winding, folkloric tone are definitive of Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah. Every story is characterised by the universal intimacy of the voice of a stranger telling you strange tales around a fire. Sometimes there is magic explicitly at play, like the talking bird of ‘Zulum’. Sometimes, with the freedom of unreliable narrators and prophetic dreams, reality in Jergović’s stories bends only slightly; such is the case in “Tespih” and “Misir”. 

As he describes it, Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah is the author’s attempt to capture “the unusual documentary spirit of Bosnian and Dalmatian lyrical songs.” Every short story begins with a note describing the “lyrical song” (or songs) that inspired it, thus each is framed explicitly by the culture and history in which Jergović writes. The natural, and surely intended, product of this form is the sharp focus, every time, no matter the length or style of the story, on the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The book stands as a record of Jergović’s people, a collection of mythical voices that can speak to God, to Allah, to birds, and dead brothers. 

The balance of folklore and monotheistic religion is a fine one, but Jergović seems well practised at spinning plates. One does not detract from the other: the presence of everyday myth lives alongside the honest faith of his characters. Nor does Jergović shy from the conflict between Christianity and Islam. The suffering of religious war is present, as are its justifications, its heroes and its victims. The form of a short story collection is, in this way, ideally suited for Jergović’s project, which does itself seem to extend a little beyond “lyrical songs”. Or rather, as I would believe myself, Jergović’s valuation of the music extends far beyond that first experience of hearing them. The crises of life, death, love, and faith are all within the bounds of “lyrical songs”,

It is fitting, then, that such a diverse chorus of voices is published in English by the independent publishing house Archipelago Books. Founded in 2003 by Jill Schoolman, the small team specialises in translated fiction “from the margins”. It publishes around 15 to 16 books a year, exclusively translations into English. In a 2018 interview for Publishers Weekly, the translator Bill Johnston describes working with Jill and her team. “It’s an unusual, collaborative dialogical approach,” he says, “and I find it very conducive to doing good work”. At the risk of understatement, it seems this same process has been successful for Elias-Bursać and Mirza Purić: Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah is some pretty “good work”.

Unique writing can come from all kinds of directions, but I don’t think it is a coincidence that Jergović’s writing is coming into English through an independent publishing house, one known for its “dialogic collaborative approach,” the same one that has published his work in English three times before. You might say the same for Mathias Énard and Fitzcarraldo, or the 2026 International Booker winner Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and & Other Stories. Independent publishing houses are taking risks that larger organisations cannot, and as readers we stand to benefit enormously from this. 

I’ll finish with this bit of advice. Contrary to popular belief, not everything goes in one ear and out the other. Some stuff gets kept, and it would be nice if it was interesting. It would be nice if it was the kind of voice you hadn’t heard before. So keep an ear out because Inshallah, Madonna, Inshallah is coming out on 13th October. 

Art as protest on university campuses

Lara Solie-Tuluie
-
0
Art as protest on university campuses

CW: rape.

This week, Cornell University has made headlines as prosecutors reopened an investigation into the alleged rape of a student at the Ivy League in 2024. The case is characterised by extreme violence and the university’s apathy towards the anonymous Jane Doe. When victims are ignored, and perpetrators’ punishment is to write an essay, what can we learn from those who use art as protest on campus?

In 2015, Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz carried her dorm room mattress across her graduation stage. She had been carrying it for months: every day the university failed to expel the man she accused of anally raping her. Having reported the assault to the university in April of 2013, Columbia found her attacker, Paul Nungesser, “not responsible” for his alleged crimes. She filed a report with the New York City Police Department to no avail.

In response, the visual arts student embarked on a performance art piece entitled Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), as her senior thesis. Starting in September 2014, Sulkowicz carried a 23kg, dark blue, extra-long twin mattress, identical to the one on which she was raped, with her constantly while on campus. Dubbed by Sulkowicz to Columbia Spectator as an “endurance art piece”, she described the mattress as “the perfect size for me to just be able to carry it enough that I can continue with my day, but also heavy enough so that I have to continually struggle with it”.

Her performance was intended to travel by “word of mouth”. Having written the rules of engagement for lugging the heavy mattress around the walls of her studio space, she left the rest of her performance unexplained: a student walking around campus with a blue rectangle of springs and plastic.

On the steps of university buildings, at coffee shops, covered in a sheet matching the shade of Sulkowicz’s graduation gown, the mattress is always there. The mattress’ out-of-placeness is off-putting, interrupting a space of efficiency, learning, and practicality. It is cumbersome, attention-grabbing, and unsettling. It’s a weight not only to those who carry it, but a disruption to the lives of those around it. Its presence speaks to an absence of accountability and justice in the space it inhabits. Notably, under Sulkowicz’s regulations, the mattress was not allowed to be removed from the university campus, even when she was elsewhere. The burden of truth and violence was made big, blue, and bold. It’s difficult to move and impossible to ignore. In a piece written for TIME, Sulkowicz accused Columbia of being “more concerned about their public image than keeping people safe”. When the words of victims have limited consequence and perpetrators fail to be held accountable, art speaks in a tongue that cannot be twisted.

Protest is often remembered through its material objects. We picture the hourglass of Extinction Rebellion, the peace sign of the anti-Vietnam War movement, the crouching panther of the Black Panther Party. The visual memorabilia and graphic art of protest leave a lasting cultural and personal impression. In an interview with Tate, artist Jeremy Deller recalls the impact the protest art of the 2017 Women’s March had on him: “It was kind of the first time you saw… those body parts being drawn or in public being displayed, those sort of reproductive organs.” Really, women’s reproductive systems have been displayed on museum walls with varying accuracy for centuries. Think only of Gustave Courbet’s 1866 L’Origine du monde: it’s all the ‘taboo’ bits and nothing else. Possibly, it is the presence of these taboo bits paraded so pointedly, with overt political sentiment behind them, as well as the real-life person holding the placard, that makes protest art, at least to Deller, so remarkable. It discards any question of whether art should be political and forces it to be so. It gives the aesthetic political purpose; it upsets how we understand, use, and display art. In Sulkowicz’s case, it makes the mundane, purpose-driven object an aesthetic anomaly that first surprises, and then frightens. 

Sulkowicz’s performance art protest draws on the visual interruption caused by something being in the wrong place, detaching the signifier from the sign. The spatial anachronism of mattress-in-library, or mattress-in-cafeteria, creates an unsettling instance of a stubborn, physically cumbersome dedication to truth-telling. The mattress is impossible to ignore; so is the silent system of gender-based violence that permeates university culture. Sulkowicz makes the location of violence mobile, unavoidable, and universal. While the weight of assault can be carried by anyone anywhere, the mattress is a reminder that the perpetrators of such violence are just as present. 

The tool of oppression deployed by universities like Cornell and Columbia is language in the form of excuses and essays. Language is fortified to protect the guilty and complicit from the consequences of their actions. Art, at this moment, confuses the schemes of language. It evades clear distinction, forces itself to be acknowledged, and upsets the campus’ playhouse of power and punishment. 

Good grief! Why do we feel for the death of fictional people?

Jas Mauj
-
0
Good grief! Why do we feel for the death of fictional people?

I always cry at the depiction of death in plays. Considering that, during my first year at Oxford – the first time I engaged seriously with theatre – the listings almost seemed pointed for someone as weepy about grief as I am. From the beautiful, slow reflections of Tidal Theatre’s Launa to the raucous yet still moving titles like Blackstar Productions’ Teen Spirit and Greyjoy, I had some sort of physiological reaction to all of them. Whether it’s a mild sniffle or full-blown tears, I always end up feeling a bit ridiculous about the whole ordeal when it’s over. I mean, it’s not real, is it? Why do I waste my grief on things that haven’t happened, that will never happen?

That question – why I feel sadness for fictional grief – is at the heart of the ‘paradox of fiction’, a philosophical dilemma that asks how we feel anything at all for things we know don’t exist. It could be that, caught in the moment, I am so immersed in the play that I treat it as real. But that fails to explain how one of the most gut-wrenching portrayals of grief in theatrical history – Mother Courage’s silent scream upon seeing the corpse of her son in Mother Courage and Her Children – takes place in the context of a Brechtian production that deliberately distances the audience. The perceived ‘realness’ may not matter to our emotional reaction, but it raises the question of how fiction on the stage crosses boundaries to generate effects in the real world of the theatre stalls. 

Theatre has many unique devices up its sleeve that make it, in my opinion, superior to every other art form in the domain of audience manipulation. Namely, theatre is rife with ritualistic elements: the surreal stiffness of monologues and of stage blocking, the very practice of dressing up to sit silently in a dark room. Of course, one could argue that these are also features of certain films, but film lacks theatre’s trump card: the sense of immediacy between actor and audience. As the influential Polish director Jerzy Grotowski put it: “Theatre cannot exist without the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, direct, ‘live communion’.” 

In a sense, the actor, inhabiting the ghostly space between unreality as a character and immediacy as a body for the audience member, can use it to be possessed by the emotions it would be impermissible for many of us to feel in real life. When watching theatrical portrayals of grief, we mourn through the actors as much as we mourn with them. We need not necessarily mourn the same thing they do on stage. But even if all the play gives us is catharsis, a reflection the narrative gives us of the ‘real’, I think what is important is that it offers a socially valid space, separate from everyday life, for doing so.

Grieving rituals exist around the world, with ‘professional mourning’ mentioned everywhere from ancient Egyptian records to the Bible. In the deserts of Rajasthan, India, Rudalis – lower-caste women hired as professional mourners in a declining tradition – still carry out the function of wailing and singing at funerals where it would be improper for the upper-caste relatives of the deceased to showcase such emotion. Professional theatre is unique in that it often offers release to the actor as well, whereas the tears of many marginalised mourners throughout history saw no such catharsis.

All of this may help explain why theatre can drive us to tears, but why do we seek out such experiences? Are audiences, voyeurs as they are, the strange ones for going to watch someone whose pain they share for two hours and an intermission, before forgetting it? Or is it the writer, the actors, and the director who work on ensuring their art creates a sense of bereavement in the audience? I believe that Joan Didion holds the answer in her firm indictment of the audience: why we are in the stalls and what we are postponing through it. The starting lines of Didion’s play adaptation of a famously harrowing account of grief following her husband’s and daughter’s deaths, her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, declare: “And it will happen to you.”

Exeter College to fund data centre in Oxford

Stanley Arlidge
-
0
Exeter College to fund data centre in Oxford

Cherwell District Council will decide next month whether to grant permission for a controversial £900 million data centre development funded by Exeter College. 


The development, named EXOq, is located next to Oxford Parkway station in Kidlington and aims to be a “home for global research innovation and education”, with a particular focus on AI and quantum computing. The plans include a large data centre to provide computing infrastructure, alongside an innovation hub aiming to bring together researchers, government institutes, and investors. 

The plans also include a conference centre, 180-room hotel, and a further education college that focuses on “equipping the young people today with the skills to be the workforce of tomorrow, working in and supporting newly emerging technologies linked to EXOq”. Construction would begin in 2028 with an expected completion in 2040. 

Exeter College finance and estates bursar, Nicholas Badman, told Cherwell: “EXOq is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Oxford and the region. Exeter College is uniquely placed to deliver the sovereign High-Performance Compute infrastructure the country, and the Oxford ecosystem, needs to compete in quantum computing and AI.” 

The University of Oxford’s Vice Chancellor, Irene Tracey, said that “fundamentally, EXOq fits very well with the university’s needs and it has my full backing”. 

Exeter’s plans come alongside a government drive to grow the UK’s compute infrastructure. The government’s 2025 UK Compute Roadmap forecasts that the UK will need three times as much data centre capacity by 2030 to keep pace with AI developments. 

The plans also tie in with the government’s ambitions for the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, which it has dubbed “Europe’s Silicon Valley”. An economic impact assessment produced in support of the application suggests that the gross value added could reach £1.4 billion and create 7,000 jobs total, of which at least 4,600 would be in the local area. 

Local residents have criticised the planned development. Kidlington Councillor and Leader of the Green Party on Cherwell District Council, Ian Middleton, has publicly objected to the proposal, while more than 35 local residents submitted statements opposing the plans during public consultation. One resident urged the council to “be courageous and stop letting the colleges dominate the whole area” while another labelled the development “huge, unwanted, and unnecessary”.

Local campaign groups, such as the Oxfordshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, have raised environmental concerns including the development’s impact on the green belt separating Oxford from Kidlington and a nearby ancient woodland. One objecting group, Wolvercote Neighbourhood Forum, explicitly references noise problems caused by data centres in the US in a letter opposing the site. 

In response to queries about the project’s environmental impact, Badman told Cherwell: “The College understands local concerns and is committed to making EXOq an exemplar of sustainable data centre design.” Badman noted that the plans include on-site solar power and would reuse waste heat from the data centre through a low-carbon heat network serving both EXOq and the surrounding area. He added that the College is exploring off-site renewable energy and working with electricity generators and is “committed to ensuring EXOq’s demands will not conflict with local energy needs”.

The most significant local challenge to the project surrounds the provision of golf courses. In 2025, the 118-year-old North Oxford Golf Course, owned by Merton College, Exeter College, and the University of Oxford, closed to make way for a housing project. Greenway, a group set up by former members of the club, told Cherwell that “the college gave assurances that Frieze Farm [the land upon which EXOq would be built] could be used if necessary as a replacement for the golf course”. Such a use is suggested in the Cherwell District Council Local Plan 2031. 

Regarding the potential golf course, EXOq states that “evidence submitted to the Local Plan highlighted that the popularity of golf is declining nationally, and there is insufficient demand locally to justify the EXOq site as a replacement course”. In a statement to Cherwell, Greenway have labelled these statements inaccurate. 

A decision is expected at the start of next month after the council’s independent golf need report is complete. The report will be the third golf need survey attached to the application, after Exeter and Greenway submitted their own competing surveys. 

Dosa Darlings, we need to get a move on…

Ellie Pemberton
-
0
Dosa Darlings, we need to get a move on…

Along Cowley Road, a taste of South India sits within a rather inviting building, complete with burnt red accents and the occasional fairy light: Dosa Darlings. After many of my friends had moved to the area into their second-year houses, it only seemed right to try out a restaurant located somewhere beyond a five minute radius of Turl Street. For one night, I left the joys of Najar’s and the Covered Market in search of a new place to add to the ‘treat’ rotation. 

Walking inside, the atmosphere was immediately welcoming, complete with dim lighting, though not too dark given the sparkle of lights decorating the restaurant, and the candle perched in the middle of our table. It was looking to be a lovely evening, which was only further confirmed by the rather beautiful-looking jug of water (still, not sparkling) on the table. This was nothing like the typical uninspiring water containers I had become accustomed to receiving during my summer in the US. 

We ordered a selection of food for the table – I have learnt that ordering as a couple is far superior to having individual meals – since there was so much on the menu that looked appetising. There were the famous dosas and other classic curry dishes, as well as vegetarian options, and ‘little plates’. After some difficult deliberation, we started with two vegetable samosas (£6.50 total), accompanied by a tamarind chutney, as well as a plate of beef chukka (£9.50). Whilst I did not try the latter, I was assured on good authority that it was quite delicious – and I can confirm that the samosas were delightful. They were fresh, piping hot from the kitchen, and generously sized too, leaving us with some leftovers (though not for lack of enjoyment).

The first dishes were speedy, but we then waited another 50 minutes until our main courses came out. Ordinarily, this would have been fine, but here everything was ordered to come together. The wait took a little away from the experience, mainly because, after looking around, it was quite clear that most tables were emptying – even those who had arrived after us. We did finally receive the selection of poppadoms (£4) we had ordered some time earlier to nibble on. This was genuinely quite exciting; there were several types which were all different, not just in shape but also in flavour, texture, and, best of all, colour. So, I suppose, had we not been waiting for so long, we would not have had time to enjoy the novelty of this selection.

This period of delay gave us our most memorable experience of the evening by far. My boyfriend returned from the bathroom, sat down, and exclaimed: “You won’t believe what they’re playing in there.” He was correct; I did not believe him until I went to test the claim myself. Playing very loudly in an otherwise quite chic bathroom was the booming voice of Stephen Fry narrating to me the journey of the ‘Golden Trio’ in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – not quite what I was expecting, given the relatively inoffensive and quiet music playing in the background of the rest of the building. Either way, I did enjoy my short time hearing about Harry’s journey within the Ministry of Magic before returning. Eventually, the main event was here: a prawn moilee curry (£16) and a walnut cinnamon and honey dosa (£9.50). 

The curry wasn’t particularly memorable and was quite light on prawn, but the flavour was enjoyable and paired with what was left of the poppadoms. For those who have not enjoyed a dosa before, they are quite spectacular in their own way. Dosas are cone-shaped savoury crepes, and mine was so big it didn’t quite fit on the plate. It was, however, utterly delicious, and drowned in honey. I think our combination of flavours may have negated the savoury component slightly, but nonetheless it made the wait worth it. It had a Goldilocks quality, in the sense that it was filling, but not overly so in the way some breads and dipping snacks tend to be. 

Just before the restaurant had completely emptied, we decided to ask for the bill, and it was here that our waiter made up for the earlier inconvenience. He brought over two desserts for both of us to try. I wasn’t quite sure what it was at the time, but after a few Google searches, I believe it was ras malai, since it had a spongy disc in the middle soaked in a bath of milk flavoured with a range of spices. The spongy part was not quite to my taste, but the milk component had a unique (but enjoyable) taste to it which, I suppose, is all I can ask for in a complimentary dish. 

Despite the longer-than-anticipated wait time, the evening was memorable and, at the very least, was a great environment to spend a couple of hours in. I would recommend trying a dosa to anyone; they have so many options that finding a flavour to suit you shouldn’t be an issue. It’s not the place to go for a cheap evening out, but it is by no means overpriced. So if you’re looking for a place to go for a special occasion, or a reason to venture past Magdalen Bridge, then Dosa Darlings is just right. 

We should hate more

Anish Vedantham
-
0
We should hate more

Oxford students hate C*mbridge. Or at least, we’re supposed to. We call them Tabs, occasionally ‘shoe’ them, and inherit a rivalry as soon as we matriculate. There’s only one problem: most of the time, nobody seems particularly bothered.

The Varsity matches between Oxford and C*mbridge began with men’s cricket in 1827, followed by the first men’s Boat Race in 1829. Today, Varsity takes place across 50 sports and involves thousands of students. 

And yet, 200 years later, the rivalry rarely escapes the sporting world. Sure, we shout “shoe the Tabs” during the Boat Race and teams feel similar disdain when facing ‘the other place’ on the water, pitch, court, or track. But, aside from particular Varsity matches, the so-called hate seems a bit…lacklustre. 

Oxford beat C*mbridge 110 times last year and has recorded more wins than the Tabs in Varsity competitions for the past six years. Did you know? More importantly, did you care? We have two centuries of competition and two institutions obsessed with tradition. It should be impossible to manufacture a better rivalry. 

And yet much of it happens unnoticed.

Contrast this with American university rivalries. Harvard and Yale are perhaps the closest equivalents. Their American football match is simply “The Game”, and the rivalry stays with students throughout their lives.

And of course, that rivalry is tame compared to the heavy hitters. 

Duke students tent (camp outside the stadium) for weeks to win tickets to the game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And it’s not just for the ultra sports fans; some years “more than 2/5 of the student body [have] attempt[ed] to earn a spot” tenting at the most difficult level. The Michigan – Ohio State rivalry presents another classic rivalry, where, during “hate week”, the Ohio State community crosses out every single “M” on campus with red tape.

Of course, these rivalries are a peculiarly American phenomenon and would feel forced here. But Britons do not lack tribal thinking.

Think about football derbies. North London. Merseyside. Manchester. Fans invest emotional significance in beating one particular club that massively exceeds the objective significance of the result. There are uglier manifestations, but there is also wonderfully pointless taunting.

Rivalry operates through agreed irrationality. In 2024, some Tottenham fans even hoped they would lose to Manchester City to prevent Arsenal from winning the league. We don’t need to import the American capacity for hatred. Britons have perfectly good hatred at home.

This is especially crucial at Oxford. For much of everyday life, Oxford isn’t one community. It’s dozens of colleges. We eat separately, live separately, and often socialise separately. It begs the question: what exactly is an Oxford student?

The collegiate structure is wonderful at producing college identity. It is considerably less good at producing Oxford identity. What exactly defines us? The University administration? The Rad Cam? A seal containing a Latin motto?

It can be difficult to work out what a PPEist at Somerville, a Philosophy and French student at Hertford, and a Classicist at Merton have in common. Fortunately, C*mbridge provides an answer: none of them are Tabs. 

Oxford does not necessarily need more spirit. It needs something around which spirit can crystallise. That’s where C*mbridge comes in. 

An ‘us’ becomes much easier to define once there is a ‘them’, and C*mbridge makes an unusually convenient ‘them’. It’s a collegiate university built around small-group teaching, formals, gowns, eight-week terms, and an impenetrable vocabulary – only with supervisions instead of tutorials, Easter instead of Trinity, and enough minor alterations to maintain the pretence of originality. A good rival, after all, must be similar enough that beating them matters and different enough that you can pretend it proves something. C*mbridge fills this role perfectly.

More importantly, there is a liberation in caring so much about something that matters so little. Oxford life offers no shortage of consequential competition: exams, internships, jobs. Hating C*mbridge offers the opposite. There is no rational reason why any of us should care. That’s exactly why we should.

Of course, the rivalry plainly isn’t dead. Rugby matches feature heckling, chants, and a crowd united around shoeing the Tabs. The Boat Race turns London into a sea of dark blue and light blue shirts. The rivalry, however, should not require a fixture. 

We should hate C*mbridge more comprehensively. Stop calling it C*mbridge: it is ‘the other place’. Call its students Tabs without really knowing why. Their shade is not light blue; it is an unfortunate failure to commit to a proper colour. Treat every league table on which Oxford finishes higher as vindication and the rest as methodologically suspect. When a friend announces that they are visiting, offer your condolences. In short, be petty. 

Perhaps, then, we should be grateful for C*mbridge. Every good protagonist needs an antagonist. They give our insults somewhere to land, and dozens of colleges something to agree upon. They can even make Oxford feel like one university.

That is a valuable public service. Obviously, we should never tell them. Instead, regard light blue with suspicion. Be partisan. Whenever you compare us to them, come to the completely dispassionate conclusion that Oxford is better. And if you happen to meet a Tab, be perfectly pleasant. They made a rough decision when they were 18. We’ve all been there.

C*mbridge has spent eight centuries giving Oxford somebody to hate. It would be rude not to take them up on their offer.

123...2,604Page 2 of 2,604