Following the campaigns in the 1980s and the 1990s, SENDRA has continued to keep a watchful eye on the Oxpens Meadow, both as the natural flood plain and as a highly valued local amenity. It is the only area on the City side of the Thames where the public has the right of access.

Having narrowly escaped the leisure village in the 1990s, the Meadow came under threat again through the proposals in the City Council’s West End Area Development Plan in 2008. Effectively the Meadow would have disappeared under roads, houses and public buildings. SENDRA wrote many submissions and attended numerous hearings, all to no avail. The decision was taken that the only course of action was to apply for Town Green status under the recently passed 2006 Commons Act. An application was submitted to the County Council in 2008 and a sub-committee of SENDRA was set up, known as the Friends of Oxpens Meadow (FOM), to raise funds and to further the application. Dr Rosemary Fennell was the energetic chairman of this sub-committee. The City Council opposed the application and were fully prepared to fight SENDRA at a public enquiry.

FOM was well aware of the financial implications for a small association faced with the costs of a public enquiry and so remained flexible in trying to explore other possible routes to an agreement with the City Council which would safeguard the future of the Meadow. In 2012 it proposed that the City enter into a covenant with the National Playing Fields Association to guarantee the retention of the Meadow as a public open space. The City agreed to this proposal, and on 14 February 2013 a covenant was signed which designated the greater part of the Meadow as a Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Field or Field in Trust (FIT). This is marked by the commemorative stone on the Meadow which was unveiled in July 2013, see photos.  

The covenant states that the area should not be used:

“3.1  other than as an area of public open space, for use by the public for leisure or recreational purposes and/or for the purposes of holding occasional fetes, fairs, circuses, concerts, dramatic productions, sporting events, community events and other public entertainments which may involve the erection of marquees, tents, and other temporary structures or enclosures (entry to which may or may not be subject to the imposition of a charge) and which may provide entry onto the property of necessary motor vehicles, provided that there shall be no more than 6 such events per calendar year; such use being subject to any reasonably required flood remediation or flood prevention work”.

Click here for the covenant which includes a plan of the designated area.

During the campaign, the performance poet, Paula Claire, a SENDRA resident, created a poem about the cedars alongside the Ice Rink. To hear Paula performing “The Seven Sisters” see paulaclaire.com and link to Hear My Poetry.

The archive of SENDRA’s campaigns relating to the Meadow from the 1990s and 2007-15 has been deposited at the Oxfordshire History Centre, St Luke’s Church, Temple Road, Cowley and can be viewed free of charge (currently subject to booking a session – see details at oxfordshire.gov.uk/oxfordshirehistory.) The current Chair of SENDRA as successor to the depositor will need to provide ID and proof (s)he is Chair of SENDRA. Anyone other than the current Chair will need a letter of permission from the current Chair together with an archive card. The records are as deposited in boxes of files so need to be identified by Accession Numbers. Quote Acc 4442 for the 1990s Oxpens Leisure Village (10 boxes); Acc 5633 for the Public Enquiry 1997-1998; and Acc 6631 for 2007-2015 (4 boxes of correspondence, minutes, reports, newspaper cuttings etc plus one box of cassettes, CDs etc). In June 2021, Maria Morris, Archives Assistant, was of great help in providing this information.

In April 2015 the Meadow was added to the City’s Heritage Asset Register: this includes assets which make “a special contribution to the character of Oxford and its neighbourhoods through its locally significant historic, architectural, archaeological or artistic interest”.

SENDRA continues to review the City’s development proposals which may have an impact on the Meadow, currently most of relevance is the OxWED proposal. The whole of the Meadow, including the section designated as the Field in Trust falls within that plan.