Olly Glover, MP for Didcot and Wantage, visited the Vale and Downland Museum on Church Street last week and heard about new proposals to redevelop the Barn Gallery.

This comes as the manager of the Wantage museum, Lisa Gale, said that without “an increase in consistent income” they will continue to face challenges meeting costs.

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The project to renovate the gallery recently received a financial boost with funding secured from several sources, after the removal of a Formula 1 car from the area by Williams Racing two and a half years ago.

Those funding the works include Arts Council England, Vale of the White Horse District Council, FCC Communities Foundation, Persimmon Homes, and the Friends of the Vale and Downland Museum.

Ms Gale said: “We are thrilled to receive funding for projects across the museum, and it makes a real difference.”

A preview of the landscape artwork of the Vale and Downlands (Image: Vale & Downland Museum)

The renovation is set to be phased with the first installation, scheduled for June, featuring a large-scale artwork by landscape artist Anna Dillon, depicting the distinctive scenery of the Vale and Downlands.

A second phase will focus on the physical refurbishment of the space, introducing interactive displays, hands-on activities, and previously unseen objects from the museum’s collection.

While the green light for this project was welcomed, the museum continued to stress that they were facing funding challenges, including to Mr Glover.

The local MP – who recently raised the issue in Parliament – said: “I had a good discussion with the team about the challenges they face in terms of fundraising and rising costs, following my recent oral question to culture ministers.

Olly Glover MP (Didcot and Wantage, Liberal Democrat) (Image: Supplied)

“I will continue to do all I can to support them.”

Ms Gale said: “Without an increase in consistent income—particularly as we do not benefit from the level of admissions income that many independent museums receive—we continue to face challenges in meeting our operational costs.

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“We encourage local businesses to consider partnering with the museum.

“There are also opportunities for individuals to get involved, including joining our 100 Club or becoming a museum patron. Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.”

Funding for cultural attractions such as museums is a topical issue in Oxfordshire after the River and Rowing Museum closed to the public last September.

Ms Gale has previously reported on signs of wear and tear at the Wantage destination.

Speaking in March, she said: “We have had leaks in certain places. Day to day dealing with an old building is a challenge.”

Tracker and UK police recovered 55% more stolen vehicles in 2025, with the recovered vehicles valued at a combined £41.3 million.

The figures set a record for the vehicle recovery company and reflect a 72% year-on-year increase in the value of vehicles it helped police recover.

As a result of its recovery work, 200 stolen vehicles without Tracker devices were also recovered and returned to their owners. The company attributed the results to collaboration with police forces, car makers, dealer groups and insurers.

The data suggests vehicle crime is widening, with lower-value cars featuring prominently in recoveries. The largest share of stolen cars recovered last year were valued at between £10,000 and £20,000, while one in 10 were worth less than £10,000. Only 4% were valued at more than £50,000.

This contrasts with the public focus on prestige vehicle thefts and suggests organised criminal groups are targeting a broader range of models. Tracker said profits from stolen vehicles help fund other criminal activity and warned motorists that no vehicle should be considered safe from theft.

Recovery Rates

Tracker says it remains the only stolen vehicle recovery specialist formally supported by all 43 police forces in the UK. Most police patrol vehicles and all police helicopters carry its detection units, which identify stolen vehicles through a VHF signal.

It says this approach delivers a 95% recovery rate, with half of stolen vehicles found within four hours and 80% returned to owners within 24 hours.

The broader picture is mixed. Tracker cited DVLA data obtained through a Freedom of Information request showing an 11% year-on-year fall in vehicle theft across England and Wales in 2025. However, theft levels remain 48% higher than a decade earlier.

At the same time, recovery rates for vehicles without dedicated protection remain low. According to Tracker, police recovered only 13% of stolen vehicles between 2022 and 2025.

More than 90,000 vehicles were reported stolen in 2025, based on the DVLA figures it cited. Those thefts ranged from motorbikes and vans to prestige cars and agricultural machinery.

Models Targeted

The most stolen vehicle in the DVLA data for 2025 was the Yamaha NMAX scooter, followed by the Ford Transit 350. Other frequently stolen vehicles included the Toyota Hilux, Honda WW 125-A, Nissan Navara Tekna, Ford Fiesta Zetec and Mercedes-Benz Sprinter models.

Tracker’s own recoveries are heavily weighted towards premium marques, including BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Toyota.

Clive Wain, Tracker’s head of police liaison, outlined the mix of vehicles his team sees in recovery work.

“Our stolen vehicle recoveries are dominated by thefts of premium car brands, such as BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Toyota. However, the intelligence we gather from our partner network tells us that the Toyota RAV4, Ford Puma, Nissan Juke and BMW X5 are firm favourites amongst thieves,” Wain said.

Recoveries also peaked around the March and September registration plate changes. More than £4 million worth of vehicles were recovered around the spring plate change alone.

Crime Networks

Tracker linked vehicle theft to dismantling operations and the illegal sale of used parts. Working with police, it said it uncovered and shut 78 illegal chop shops last year, leading to 147 arrests.

“Vehicle theft can be financially and emotionally devastating for motorists. That’s why we continue to forge industry partnerships and work tirelessly with U.K. police to recover stolen vehicles to their owners,” Wain said. “Together, not only are we stopping motorists’ prized possessions from being sold on or shipped abroad, but we are also stopping them from being stripped for their parts. The illegal harvest and sale of quality second-hand parts have become a lucrative revenue stream for OCG’s operating on the black market. Last year, Tracker and the police uncovered and closed 78 illegal chop shops, resulting in 147 arrests, which was another record year.”

Mark Kameen, lead for the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership, said the results reflected closer intelligence-sharing between law enforcement and private sector organisations.

“An overarching ambition when launching the National Vehicle Crime Strategy in 2024 was to enhance intelligence between law enforcement and the private sector to help tackle organised vehicle crime. And we are actively achieving our goal. The record number of stolen vehicle recoveries by Tracker and the U.K. police also underlines this. We will continue to build on this success by working closely with all of our partners and members, sharing expertise to ensure we all play a vital role in tackling vehicle crime across the country,” Kameen said.

Qognetix has been named a Regional Finalist in the UK StartUp Awards 2026, selected from more than 2,100 startup entries nationwide.

The Birmingham-based deep-tech business is also raising GBP £725,000 to expand its team and continue developing what it describes as an execution-layer platform for intelligent systems.

Qognetix is targeting a part of the artificial intelligence stack that receives less attention than model development. It argues that the industry has invested heavily in models and inference, while paying less attention to how intelligent behaviour is executed, monitored, and constrained once systems operate in live settings.

That gap becomes more significant as AI tools move from trials and demonstrations into operational environments, where organisations want clearer oversight of how systems behave. In response, Qognetix is developing infrastructure designed to make intelligent behaviour more controllable, inspectable and reliable after inference.

Funding Push

The current fundraising effort is intended to support hiring, platform development and the next phase of commercial growth. Qognetix has not disclosed investors in the round, but said the money would strengthen both technical development and market readiness.

This positioning sets it apart from many AI startups focused on model performance or application layers. Instead, the business is building software and controls that govern how AI-driven actions are executed once a system is deployed.

That focus comes as businesses and public institutions place greater emphasis on governance, auditability, and the reliability of AI use. In sensitive or operationally demanding settings, the key question is often not whether a model can generate an answer, but whether the resulting behaviour can be observed, limited and traced.

Qognetix is developing its platform for environments where the cost of unpredictable system behaviour is higher. It identifies runtime control, inspectability, bounded behaviour, deployment reliability and governance-oriented execution infrastructure as core areas of work.

Market Debate

The broader AI debate has begun to move in a similar direction. As more systems enter practical deployment, questions around execution and oversight are becoming more prominent for buyers, regulators and operators.

That shift has created room for companies to build infrastructure between the application layer and the raw model layer. These businesses are trying to solve for operational trust rather than model novelty, especially in sectors where decision pathways need to be understood after a system goes live.

Nic Windley, founder and chief executive officer of Qognetix, linked the award recognition to that broader market view.

“It’s encouraging to see early recognition for the direction we’re building in. We believe the next major challenge in AI is not just what a model can infer, but how intelligent behaviour is controlled and deployed in real-world systems,” he said.

Windley said much of the difficulty emerges only when AI moves into production and must operate within practical limits.

“A lot of the conversation around AI still centres on the model itself, but in production settings, the real challenge is often what happens when that intelligence has to operate reliably, safely, and within defined constraints. That is where we think execution-layer infrastructure becomes increasingly important.” 

The UK StartUp Awards were created to recognise newer businesses from around the country. Qognetix’s regional finalist status places it among a group of emerging companies selected from a large national field of entrants.

For Qognetix, the recognition comes as it tries to turn a technical thesis into a commercial business. It is building for a market in which demand for governance and control tools may rise alongside broader adoption of AI systems in live environments.

“We see this as part of a wider shift in the AI market. As deployment becomes more critical, the infrastructure for execution, control, and governance becomes increasingly important. That is the problem space we are building for,” Windley said.