Crime & Safety
Award-winning Oxford brewery to launch 10 beers at festival
Tap Social Movement is hosting its annual Change is Brewing festival this Saturday, an annual event in the indie beer calendar.
The social enterprise brewery, bakery and hospitality organisation has teamed up with Brewser, the world’s first direct-from-brewery subscription service, to distribute an exclusive collection of 10 new collaboration beers at this year’s festival.
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Available from Brewser from May 25 to June 21, the Change is Brewing box features Tap Social collaborations with 10 of the UK’s leading independent breweries.
The Change is Brewing box of 10 beers in collaboration with Tap Social and indie breweries, available from Brewser (Image: Tap Social)
All of the 10 breweries will serve a range of their own beers at the June 6 festival, with the collaboration beers also debuting on draught on the day.
Oliver Morgan, co-founder of Brewser, said: “Tap Social is doing something genuinely different.
“They’ve built a brewery and social enterprise around creating real employment and progression for people in prison and those recently released, and Change is Brewing is the moment of the year when that mission meets some of the best independent beer being made in the UK.
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“The breweries involved in this box are there because of the respect Tap Social have earned across the indie beer world. That kind of line up doesn’t happen by accident.
“We started Brewser to get great independent beer to more people and to shine a light on the breweries making it.
“This collaboration is exactly the kind of thing we built Brewser for.”
Tap Social’s fifth annual Change is Brewing festival will take place at its Botley taproom from 2pm to 11pm on Saturday, June 6, with tickets available to buy online for £12.
Crime & Safety
A422 speed camera – 97 drivers caught in two hours
A mobile speed camera van was parked up along the Hennef Way in Banbury, close to the M40, between 6.30am and 8.30am on Monday, June 1.
Police caught 97 drivers exceeding the 40mph speed limit of the A422.
The highest recorded speed was 81mph and two large goods vehicles were also caught speeding.
A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: “Speeding significantly increases the risk of serious collisions and puts everyone in danger.
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“These figures highlight why our enforcement activity is so important.
“Please slow down, stick to the speed limits, and help keep our roads safe for everyone.”
Data reported on earlier this year revealed 69 per cent of speeding tickets handed out in Oxfordshire are from mobile speed camera vans.
Thames Valley Police caught 10,817 instances of speeding in the county for three months during the summer between July and September.
And of those, 7,512 vehicles were caught by somebody with a speed gun at the side of the road.
The worst area to get caught by a speed camera van is in the West Oxfordshire and Cherwell districts of the county, the data suggests, where 3,540 were caught in the three months.
Overall in Oxfordshire, fixed speed cameras flashed 3,305 times during the three months of summer, while mobile speed cameras recorded 7,512 instances of speeding.
Crime & Safety
Oxford University college buys £6.7m Stonemason House
St Hilda’s College completed the purchase of Stonemason House, 145 to 146 Magdalen Street, on Friday, May 29.
The building was purchased by the college from a vendor represented by Allsop.
It is being used for student accommodation with plans to house 44 St Hilda’s graduate students from October 2027.
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St Hilda’s College has purchased Stonemason House in Oxford. (Image: St Hilda’s College)
Stonemason House allows the College to house roughly 50 per cent of its graduate students, in addition to all undergraduates.
This then relieves some of the strain on the private rental market, says St Hilda’s College.
Bursar Chris Wood said: “The acquisition of Stonemason House is a landmark moment for St Hilda’s.
“It advances our commitment to providing accommodation for nearly half of our graduate students and represents a significant investment in the College’s long-term future.”
The future graduate accommodation has been placed to complement the College’s existing accommodation in Cowley Road and Iffley Road.
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St Hilda’s College has purchased Stonemason House in Oxford. (Image: St Hilda’s College)
This lively area of the city is popular with students and young professionals thanks to the wide variety of local restaurants and bars.
It is also within walking distance of the College on Cowley Place.
A statement regarding accommodation from St Hilda’s College reads: “We allocate accommodation for new graduates on a first-come, first-served basis once funding has been confirmed.
“We own several graduate houses where we can offer rooms to most first-year and some second-year graduates who want them.
“Many choose to rent privately. We have a small number of rooms for couples, but do not have accommodation suitable for families.”
Crime & Safety
Thunderstorms in Oxford as rain expected to last for days
According to the Met Office, the rain is expected for the rest of the afternoon (Tuesday, June 2), much of Wednesday and Thursday with a cloudy break on Friday.
On Wednesday, temperatures are to feel like 14C – nothing like the 30C-plus weather last week – with a 40 per cent chance of rain from 7am.
There are no thunderstorm warnings or flood alerts issued for any of Oxfordshire.
READ MORE: 97 drivers caught speeding in two hours by speed camera
The sudden change in the skies comes after the Met Office on Monday, June 1 said the UK had the warmest spring on record.
The mean average temperature in England across March, April and May was 10.41C, beating the previous record of 10.23C set in 2025, according to provisional figures from the Met Office.
It is the third year in a row that a new record has been set for the warmest spring in England.
Met Office scientist Dr Emily Carlisle said: “This spring highlights both the natural variability of the UK’s weather and the longer-term warming we are observing.
“While conditions varied through the season, all three months of meteorological spring recorded mean temperatures within the UK’s top 10 warmest on record.
“While we expect fluctuations from year to year, this spring shows some of the changes we’re seeing in our weather patterns, with more extreme conditions becoming more frequent.
“The fact that nine of the 10 warmest springs in England have occurred since 2007 illustrates this ongoing shift in the UK’s climate.”
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