Funding is in place for a new half million-pound life sciences centre in the city, creating 100 jobs. The Oxford Trust – a city charity which encourages the pursuit of science and enterprise – plans to install life science laboratory facilities at its Wood Centre for Innovation in Headington. £100,000 in funding towards the project comes from the Government’s Local Growth Fund, via the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP). Plans for the new lab follow a leap in demand from science and tech start-ups and small businesses for lab space in Oxford’s global health and life sciences district, which is one of the UK’s leading technology clusters delivering lifesaving developments such as the Covid-19 vaccine.
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Anthony Morris RSPB Otmoor pics A NEW national park should be created north east of Oxford to protect wetlands and woodlands in the area, an environmental campaign group has said. The 36 square mile reserve would cover most of the rural countryside north east of the Oxford Ring Road, between the A40 to the south, the A34 to the west, and the M40 to the north and east. It would include Otmoor, where there is already an RSPB nature reserve, Bernwood and Stowood forests, the site of special scientific interest at Sydlings Copse, and the Cherwell valley near Water Eaton. Campaign group Bioabundance has called for the area to be protected, possibly as a National Nature Reserve.
Taste Tibet opened new premises on Magdalen Road in east Oxford last November just as the second lockdown hit. Luckily its origins as a street food trader with a long-running stall in Oxford’s Gloucester Green market as well as touring festivals and catering at Oxford and Cambridge university balls came in handy. Owner Julie Kleeman said: “We spent much of 2020 renovating our new premises and it was clear that the pandemic wasn’t going anywhere and we were just going to have to open in some capacity at some point! “Luckily we have been operating as a takeaway for many years and we already have a good following locally of people who know us for healthy, comforting takeaway food and we’ve just kept this model for the time being.”
Cornmarket Street during lockdown.23/01/2021.. POP up shops might be used to fill vacant buildings on high streets across Oxfordshire thanks to a £1.875 million grant from a group that backs businesses in the county. The project could see as many as 100 shops in town centres or the middle of Oxford brought into temporary use with start-up restaurants and retailers taking over them, under what is known as ‘meanwhile’ use. The project, dubbed ‘Meanwhile in Oxfordshire’ because of the aim to get businesses into empty shops while a more long-term solution is worked out, is part of a wider £8.4m being spent by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership aimed at reviving the economy after Covid.