Oxford City Council has approved plans to transform Oxford’s Clarendon Centre into a new public square, with trees, seating, and a water feature. 

The redevelopment, proposed by the site’s owner Goldmoney Properties, will involve removing the shopping centre’s roof to create an open-air square measuring approximately 41 by 42 metres. The pedestrianised space is intended to host events including Christmas markets, ice skating, and outdoor concerts.

Council planning officers concluded that “the proposal would make best and most efficient use of the existing site” and that “economic benefits would be derived from the provision of high-quality retail, food and beverage and office uses”.

Plans for Clarendon Square were first submitted earlier this year. On 24th February, Goldmoney Properties Ltd submitted an application for planning permission, proposing the demolition of over 8,000 square metres of existing floorspace and the removal of the centre’s roof to create a large public square open to the sky. 

The 3.5-acre site, located on the corner of Cornmarket Street and Queen Street, was conceived by Roy Sebag and designed by Quinlan Terry CBE. Terry’s design features classical stone facades along both streets. 

Goldmoney Properties acquired the site in a £30 million deal after its previous owner, Lothbury Property Trust, entered liquidation. Sebag, the investor behind the redevelopment, outbid a joint venture involving the Crown Estate, Pioneer Group and Oxford Science Enterprises.

The Council accepted a previous application, submitted in July 2024. It also aimed to remove the roof of the Clarendon Centre and create a new public space, but included plans for student accommodation that are not in the current proposal.

The approval marks a significant step toward the redevelopment of one of Oxford’s central shopping sites. Sebag told Cherwell: “I am delighted that Clarendon has received planning approval and grateful to everyone who has helped us reach this point. My intention is to create a beautiful public square in the heart of Oxford: somewhere people can meet, sit and enjoy the city.” 

A spokesperson for Goldmoney Properties Clarendon Square Ltd told Cherwell: “At Clarendon, we have made a deliberate and quite radical choice: to reduce the amount of built space and open the estate to the sky, creating a substantial outdoor square and open-air streets.”

They added: “We believe the relative scarcity of this kind of setting in central Oxford, together with the quality of the architecture and the interest we are seeing from prospective occupiers, gives the scheme a strong commercial foundation.”

Councillor Susanna Pressel, who previously welcomed the plans, told Cherwell: “I’m glad this planning application got permission – with some sensible conditions. I think the new Clarendon Centre will be a great asset to the city.

“Students are lucky to have access to dozens of college quads, but most townspeople would never think of going through those private-looking doors, so a new green space will be very welcome.” 

Pressel added: “The developers have promised to seek out lots of independent stores and cafes, and not charge ridiculously high rents, so let’s hope for some interesting new places to go to.” 

The redeveloped Clarendon Centre is set to open in 2028. 

Pro-Palestine protesters marched from Cowley to the Weston Library on Saturday 31st October, demanding Oxford University’s divestment from Israel. 

Around 120 people attended the protest, including groups such as Oxford Students for Palestine (formerly Oxford Schools for Palestine), Oxford Action for Palestine, Oxford City Green Party and Health Workers & Allies for Palestine. 

The protest started with a speech about Oxford-educated administrators’ role in the creation of Israel, notably through the Balfour Declaration. 

Green councillor Ahalya Bala also commented on the current situation in Palestine: “This is not a war. This is annihilation… The atrocities are still happening. It is just the pace that changes.”

“In the West Bank, forced displacement, seizures, neighbourhoods levelled to the ground, military raids, arbitrary detentions, torture, rape, executions, and land theft for Israeli expansionism and the cruel racial segregation and domination of Palestinians.”

A large banner at the centre of the gathering read: “Israel bombed 36 hospitals in Gaza and murdered more than 1700 healthcare workers. Targeting healthcare is a war crime. Arms embargo & Sanctions now!”

As protesters moved through Oxford, they chanted “blood money on your hands, show us your divestment plans”, “arms embargo right now”, and “Oxford University pick a side, justice or genocide”.

Two march attendees, Lisa and John, have been protesting for Palestine daily outside Carfax Tower. They spoke to Cherwell about the current state of the student movement for Palestine. Lisa, a current graduate student said that:  “For students the consciousness is there and the willingness is there but people are afraid.” John added that Oxford’s prestige meant “there is a lot of power and opportunities to speak up concentrated here”.

Outside the Weston Library, protesters heard speeches from Nick Maynard, an Oxford alumnus and surgeon who has worked extensively in Gaza, and Haya Adams, an activist from the SOAS-liberated zone. Maynard, who went to Exeter College, said in his speech: “There are moments in history when silence becomes a form of complicity… More than 22,000 children have been killed in Gaza in the last three years.” He told the audience about individual patients he had seen in hospitals in Gaza, explaining that, on one occasion, his colleagues were stripped of critical supplies of baby formula by the Israeli military upon entering the strip. 

Regarding the international treatment of Palestine, Maynard later told Cherwell: “We know it’s been failed by our governments, we know it’s been failed by our media, but it’s also being failed by our academic institutions… They have not given students a sufficient platform to talk about the genocide. Students have been fantastic. The university needs to give a much bigger platform to its students.”

Oxford Students for Palestine, one of the groups organising the protest, told Cherwell: “We wish to remind the University and others that Oxford city is extremely pro-Palestine, that we call for the end of the genocide and apartheid, and we call for every Palestinian to be liberated and have the right to return. We are twinned with Ramallah for a reason.”

The group added that “we’re calling on Oxford University and its colleges to disclose and fully divest from any Israeli investments, products, or banks like Barclays”. They also criticised the Oxford University Endowment Fund (OUEM) as “fundamentally resistant to disclosure and divestment”. 

Adams, from the SOAS-liberated zone, told Cherwell: “The most basic and bare minimum thing that Oxford University can do is cut ties with genocide through their investments, through their partnerships. There really are ethical alternatives… Oxford University can also protect the right to free speech by allowing students to speak up for Palestine with no disciplinary action. They need to be held accountable for the arrests that happened during the time of the encampments.”