2024 - Adapting
A planning application was submitted on 15 February 2024, with the hope of being the first "all-electric" stadium in England. This will be achieved through the help of solar panels and a low carbon energy supply. [13] [14] The club's chairman, Grant Ferguson, announced that the application had to be successful if it was to be ready for 2026. As the expiring lease at the current stadium cannot be extended, if the project is not completed in time, Oxford will have to move elsewhere. [15] The first steps to reaching an agreement were made on 22 April 2024, [16] but less than two months later the club were told the plans needed "more detail". [17] The current plan includes not only the new stadium but a "180-bedroom hotel and 1,000 capacity conference and exhibition centre". As many as 1,000 jobs will be created as a result, whilst the project is hoping to generate approximately £32m annually through tourism. [18]
2025 - Resistance and breakthrough
In April 2025, whilst featuring on a podcast hosted by BBC Radio Oxford known as 'The Dub', the club's CEO, Tim Williams, was quoted as saying, "if we don't have a stadium, we don't have a football club". [19] Three months later, on 3 July, an important planning hearing was held as Oxford's future hung in the balance. [20] [21] Ahead of the hearing, the club wrote an open letter to locals to highlight the benefits that the new stadium would bring to the area. [22]
Another hearing with Cherwell District Council was set to be held on 31 July, but this was delayed after a decision was made in mid-July by Natural England to designate a woodland nearby to both the initial and new stadium site as ancient, and therefore protected by law. [23] [24] However, on 25 July, Natural England eventually concluded that the area was, in fact, not ancient woodland as it did not appear any on maps of Oxfordshire from the 18th and 19th centuries. [25]
On 6 August, planners from Cherwell District Council recommended the stadium for approval prior to the rescheduled hearing the following week. According to BBC News, they were quoted as saying that there were "very special circumstances" to justify the stadium's construction at the Triangle. [26] On 14 August, the new stadium's planning application was approved by Cherwell District Council, after a final hearing that lasted four hours. [27] [28]
Oxford Parkway