Oxford Mushroom Farm officially opened on Monday, May 25 with a launch party from midday to 5pm.

Based at a previously unused patch of land beside Hinksey Heights Golf Club, the new business is providing fresh gourmet fungi to homes and businesses across Oxfordshire.

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Lifelong Oxford local Steve Hart, who attended Cherwell School, launched the farm in January 2024 with an ambition to transform unused ground into something productive, sustainable and community-focused.

Now, after two years of balancing the project alongside a full-time job as a builder, landscaper and heating engineer, Mr Hart has officially opened the farm to the public.

A new Oxford mushroom business has been launched next to a golf club (Image: Steve Hart)

He said: “Every decision has been intentional, from the growing environment to sourcing the best possible ingredients.

“I want the farm to produce high-quality food for Oxford while also exploring the environmental benefits fungi can offer.”

Among the farm’s offering is Lion’s Mane, oyster, shiitake, speckled chestnut and other varieties of mushroom, with the businesses based around sustainability.

A new Oxford mushroom business has been launched next to a golf club (Image: Steve Hart)

Premium mushroom substrates are produced using sawdust sourced as a natural by-product from sawmills in the mountains of Snowdonia, combined with pure Snowdon Mountain spring water in collaboration with North Wales-based growers Fungi Foods.

Alongside supplying fresh produce locally, Mr Hart is also interested in the emerging science of mycoremediation, an eco-friendly technique that uses fungi to help break down ground pollutants and restore damaged land.

He said: “My main goal is feeding Oxford, but also using science and mycoremediation to help heal polluted land and fly-tipping ground in Oxfordshire. 

Steve Hart (L) setting up the Oxford Mushroom Farm (Image: Steve Hart)

“The world needs healing and I hope this will play a part and grow… mushroom!”

The lead farmer, who recently received diagnoses of autism and ADHD, said creating the farm had been a major personal achievement.

He said: “After two years of hard work, I’ve finally turned this space into something positive for the community.

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“I really want to make the mushroom farm a success and create something that helps feed Oxford while bringing people together through food, science, art and nature.”

The launch saw visitors tour the farm and see the gourmet mushrooms growing with music and food on offer.

As well as mushrooms, shoppers can also buy kits so that mushrooms can be grown at home with a range of dried mushrooms also being worked upon.

Products can be purchased at the farm or delivered directly to people’s homes.

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

Thrive has appointed Dr Daniel Fujiwara as Head of Economics, creating its first dedicated economics leadership role.

The appointment coincides with the launch of an in-house Economics Team, which will work on Thrive’s Impact Evaluation Standard, the framework it uses to measure social impact. The team will also support clients seeking a more detailed analysis of social value and well-being outcomes.

Dr Fujiwara is known for his work in social value economics and well-being valuation. He co-authored HM Treasury guidance on well-being and wrote valuation chapters for the Green Book, which the UK Government uses to appraise policies and projects.

He also founded Simetrica, a research consultancy focused on social value, which later became part of Simetrica-Jacobs. His experience will help guide the next stage of development for Thrive’s measurement framework.

The hire reflects growing pressure on companies and public bodies to produce social impact data that can withstand closer scrutiny. Boards, investors and contracting authorities are demanding measurements that more closely align with financial reporting standards, particularly as environmental, social and governance reporting evolves.

At Thrive, that demand is shaping both product and advisory work. The Economics Team will focus on well-being valuation, distributional impact analysis, and methods applicable across international markets.

According to Thrive, the Impact Evaluation Standard is already aligned with the Green Book and the UK Government’s Social Value Model. Future updates aim to expand its use beyond the UK while sharpening the assessment of social interventions’ effects on well-being.

That work also underpins a broader expansion of Thrive’s consultancy offering. Alongside the new team, the company is adding an economics advisory service covering valuation, methodology design and the evidence used to support social impact claims.

Thrive’s clients span construction, real estate, technology, professional services and the public sector. It positions its work around linking social impact data to decision-making, particularly where organisations need evidence that can withstand internal governance and assurance processes.

Neil MacDonald, Thrive’s Chief Executive Officer, linked the move to changing expectations in boardrooms and investment committees.

“Social impact is maturing. Boards and investors want the same rigour from social data that they expect from financial accounts. They need numbers that can support investment decisions, not just stories that read well in a report. The Impact Evaluation Standard already sets the methodological pace in this market, and Daniel’s appointment further deepens the economic expertise behind it. His role is to keep pushing that pace,” MacDonald said.

The Economics Team will support both consultancy and assurance work as organisations seek more defensible ways to measure social outcomes. In practice, that means closer attention to how outcomes are valued, how benefits are distributed and how evidence is tested.

Rising scrutiny

Social value has become a more prominent part of procurement, investment and reporting decisions in recent years, especially where organisations need to demonstrate broader public benefit. Yet methods for quantifying those outcomes remain contested, with debate over consistency, comparability and the quality of underlying assumptions.

Well-being valuation has emerged as one of the better-known approaches in that debate. It seeks to estimate the value of social outcomes by examining their relationship to life satisfaction and other measures of well-being, rather than relying solely on market prices or direct financial proxies.

Dr Fujiwara’s academic and policy work has been closely associated with that field, as well as with distributional weighting and econometric methods for assessing who benefits from interventions and by how much. Those questions are becoming more important as companies are asked not only to show impact but also to explain how that impact is shared across different groups.

For Thrive, bringing that expertise in-house marks a shift from operating mainly as a measurement platform to offering more direct economic analysis and technical advice. The team will contribute to successive updates of the Impact Evaluation Standard, which is overseen independently by a steering committee of academics, economists and sector specialists.

Dr Fujiwara said the sector needed to strengthen its methods and improve how outcomes are captured.

“Social value measurement is ready to raise the bar on rigour, and on how clearly it captures the wellbeing outcomes that interventions actually deliver. Building on the Green Book methodology and rigorous statistical analysis is where the discipline needs to go, and the Impact Evaluation Standard is the right vehicle to take that work to scale,” Fujiwara said.

The Witney Chamber of Commerce is asking local people to respond to its ‘Transport and Movement Survey’ which comes after the publication of Oxfordshire County Council’s controversial Local Transport and Connectivity Plan for the West Oxfordshire Lowlands.

A row has broken out following the publication of the consultation which is running until June 2.

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The consultation document states: “The availability of free parking discourages the use of alternative modes of transport for short journeys, as people have the ability to do so.”

It adds: “We need to work proactively with community, local stakeholders and businesses to explore options to manage car parking (e.g. removal/ limiting of free parking, re-locating car parking, reducing parking stock) while at the same time protecting the rural local economy.”

Some have taken this as a plan to remove free parking across west Oxfordshire, including Witney, although the county council has said that there are no current plans to change existing parking arrangements.

Witney and District Chamber of Commerce chair Adrian Bullock (Image: Witney and District Chamber of Commerce)

In response, a chamber of commerce spokesperson said on social media: “The main item we want to point out is this plan notes there is very high car use across the region.

“They accept that the aging population and rural setting means car dependency is high YET puts the car at the bottom of a pyramid of hierarchy of transport options.”

The chamber added that there was an “inferred threat” within the consultation to car parking.

A spokesperson for the county council said: “Any potential changes to parking would only be considered in locations that have a good level of access by other modes of transport, prior to future schemes being implemented.”

Free parking in West Oxfordshire is ‘under threat’, it has been claimed. (Image: WODC)

Adrian Bullock, chair of the chamber of commerce, has said the group is working on its own paper about transport in Witney and its surroundings.

As such, a survey has been launched to find out whether local businesses and residents support ongoing transport policy in the region and to feed into the chamber’s own work.

Respondents can take part through the organisation’s website here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KWJXCRH

A statement said: “While we as an organisation represent businesses, our members are employers as well so the needs of residents who work in the area are just as vital to these documents.

“We are not a political organisation, we do not wish to engage in rhetoric, opinions or ideology.

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“We do want to understand as best we can what the people of this area need and want when it comes to getting around.

“To this end we are asking you to complete this survey so we are better informed on your needs and can represent this further to those that are responsible for managing our transport network.”

As well as free parking, the chamber of commerce has spoken out on ongoing construction work on Witney High Street and parking provision within the town.