Young people speak out against University land grab at 11 New Road

A protest against the City Council’s sell-off of 11 New Road was held outside Oxford town hall on Wednesday as the Council Cabinet met to approve the sale of the publicly-owned property. 

Currently occupied by three businesses - Castle News, Classy Barbers, and American Nails - who were only informed of the impending sale last Thursday, 11 New Road is set to be sold to neighbouring St Peter’s College, who plan to convert the bulk of the building into student accommodation. Their planning application specifies that the nail bar on the first floor of the premises would be replaced by student rooms, whilst the ground floor would remain as commercial premises. However the current occupiers of the ground floor - Castle News and Classy Barbers - have been given no guarantees that they would be allowed to remain in the building after their current leases expire, and the newsagent has just been put onto a “tenancy at will” agreement which allows their occupancy to be terminated at any time. 

Below are comments from some of those in attendance, including a group of young people from the nearby FE College. 

Lisa - “I’m here to support Hannah [the owner of Castle News and American Nails]. I’ve known her for the past ten or twelve years, and the situation of Oxford University trying to buy all the land, I think this is wrong, it’s a public space.” 

Blazie, 18 - “We like Castle News, it’s our favourite shop. It’s easy to get there after college when we go on lunch and we need to grab our snacks for a good price. So if they get rid of it, we don’t really wanna go anywhere else; it’s the shop we would choose, so we wanna save it. And we don’t like how they’re turning loads of buildings into student buildings: we feel like there’s too many in town, there’s nowhere that’s not really owned by the University, so they don’t really need to take anything more, especially from small business owners.” 

Ash, 17: “I just love the area, love the shop, it’s amazing” 

Rox,17 - “I came down because Castle News is a really nice shop: it’s helping the community and all the nearby areas. The lady’s very nice and I think it’s quite unfair for the lady who runs the shop which is getting shut down by the Council. So I think it’s quite unfair, so I’m here to save Castle News.” 

Dan, 17 - “Castle News has just always been an amazing shop, aunty’s always been very nice to everyone and it’s been amazing for the community” 

Lex, 17 - “I’m here cos most of town already consists of student housing and there’s no need for more especially when you’re replacing a good business such as them” 

A petition against the sale of the premises has now gathered over 400 signatures since it was launched last Friday.