Parking waved through at Warneford Park despite strong local opposition
Coalition warns decision signals Oxfordshire's ambitious policies "can be negotiated away"
Oxfordshire Liveable Streets and Headington Liveable Streets, supported by five other local organisations, have warned that a council decision to approve a major increase in car parking at the Warneford Park development sets a damaging precedent for how development is decided across Oxfordshire.
The application had been called in for review by 12 councillors concerned about policy compliance and the scale of parking. On 16 June, Oxford City Council's Planning Review Committee approved the increase anyway, despite detailed local objections that exposed flaws in the County Council's highways assessment and the application of parking policy.
The development itself is widely supported. Speaking at the Planning Review Committee, Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell of Oxfordshire Liveable Streets and Hannah Kirby of Headington Liveable Streets expressed support for the new mental health hospital, the research facilities, and the wider public good the development will bring. Their objection is narrow and specific: the increase in car parking.
The groups say the parking increase is not policy-compliant, rests on a flawed transport assessment, and will cause real harm through the additional traffic that parking generates. A roughly 186-space increase is expected to add hundreds of car journeys a day through Headington, already one of the most congested and road-dangerous parts of Oxford.
Oxfordshire Liveable Streets and Headington Liveable Streets first raised their concerns in February 2026, writing to the County Council's then Cabinet Member for transport Andrew Gant. The letter requested clarity and transparency on how policy and parking standards had been applied to the commercial research element of the site, and asked the council to review the approval and respond to the campaign groups before the application reached the planning committee. A response from the council did not arrive until 21 April, the day the Planning Committee met to determine the application.
Ahead of the 16 June Planning Review Committee, five days before the meeting, OLS and HLS lodged a detailed 56-page written submission with the City Council's Planning team and members of the review committee. Supported by Cyclox, Morrell Avenue Area Residents Association, Oxford Pedestrians Association, Oxfordshire Cycling Network and CoHSAT, the submission set out the grounds on which OLS and HLS believed the parking element should be refused.
The submission raised significant concerns about the validity of the transport assessment: the misapplication of planning policy M3, an absence of supporting evidence on cumulative traffic harms, miscalculations in floor space for determining the employee base, and the inconsistent treatment of different uses on the site, which, combined, led to an inflated parking allocation.
At the start of the meeting, Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell asked committee members for a show of hands as to who had read the detailed submission. No hands were raised.
Headington is one of the most congested parts of Oxford. The second largest employment area outside the city centre, home to five hospitals, two university campuses and numerous schools, it draws up to 30,000 workers and around 5,000 patients every weekday onto roads residents say are already at breaking point.
There is a direct correlation between the provision of car parking and the journeys it generates. The development increases formal parking on the site by around 88%, against policy standards that require no net increase. Those additional spaces are expected to add hundreds of car journeys a day through Headington.
The groups signing the the submission warn that more traffic means more danger and worse air. Three women have been killed cycling at Headington junctions in recent years. Pedestrians and wheelchair users already struggle to cross its wide roads and busy junctions. And every additional car trip from the development will pass the junction beside Cheney School, where air pollution already exceeds World Health Organization safe limits, exposing 1,700 children to harmful air every day.
Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell, Campaign Director of Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, said during the Planning Review Committee hearing:
"We support this hospital and research centre and the good they will bring. But we should not accept that public good and public health are mutually exclusive. Subjecting people to yet more harm is not an inevitable trade-off, it is a choice. And how the council responds here signals to developers across Oxfordshire whether our ambitious policies carry real weight, or can simply be negotiated away”.
OLS and HLS say the parking uplift for the research component reflects commercial attractiveness, rather than the operational need, such as shift working and patient care, that planning policy is designed to protect. During the meeting, the applicant said the research element "does improve the business case" and that the aim was to attract private sector researchers to the site. The groups say the hospital's parking allowance has been used to justify spaces for the commercial research centre that its own use class would not permit.
Speaking at the meeting, Hannah Kirby of Headington Liveable Streets said:
"We are not here to obstruct a good development. We are here because the evidence, the policy and the public interest are clear. We hope the Committee will see that too and find the courage to refuse the parking element of this application".
Nearly 500 residents signed Headington Liveable Streets' petition opposing the parking increase, many describing their fears about how more traffic will make Headington's roads even more dangerous, stressful, congested and unhealthy than they already are.
The two groups note that the County Council acknowledged the increase would not contribute to the council's targets for reducing car journeys, and that it would have preferred no increase in parking on a site it described as “highly accessible”.
Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell said: "If the parking is waved through, the message is clear. Institutional weight and financial power can override policy, and Oxford communities pay the price.
The Planning Review Committee approved the application by a majority, with two members abstaining.
Planning permission has not yet been formally issued. The section 106 agreement and conditions, including arrangements to manage car parking, are still to be settled.
Notes to editors
Application reference 25/01859/OUTFUL, determined by Oxford City Council's Planning Review Committee on 16 June 2026.
Led by Oxfordshire Liveable Streets and Headington Liveable Streets, supported by Cyclox, the Marston Area Residents Association, Oxford Pedestrians Association, Oxfordshire Cycling Network and CoHSAT.
The development comprises a new mental health hospital, a brain and mental health research centre with space for biotech and start-up companies, and a new University of Oxford graduate college, on the site of the current Warneford Hospital.
The submission sent to planners and the Planning Review Committee can be viewed by request via hello@oxfordshireliveablestreets.org
Link to recording of the Planning Review Committee meeting (including transcript)
Contact for interview or further information: hello@oxfordshireliveablestreets.org subject “Warneford Park”.
