Four years after councillors backed it, Vale planners say Peking University's Boars Hill campus plan should be refused. The committee decides on 28 October.
Vale of White Horse planning officers are recommending that councillors refuse a 60-bedroom campus at Foxcombe Hall on Boars Hill. The same committee voted to grant it in September 2022.
The application, P21/V1376/FUL, goes back to the Planning Committee on Wednesday 28 October at 7pm at Abbey House, Abingdon. It is the only item on the agenda. The officers’ report is published with the meeting papers.
Foxcombe Hall is the UK campus of Peking University HSBC Business School, known as PHBS UK. The Grade II listed house sits off Jarn Way and Berkeley Road in Wootton parish, about three miles north of Abingdon town centre.
What the school wants to build
The plan would turn the site from a non-residential college into a residential university campus. According to the report, it includes:
- 55 student bedrooms in two new buildings on the site of the old laboratory and dairy building, which would be demolished
- 5 more bedrooms and a gym in the converted west wing of George and Yeates House
- a 200-seat lecture theatre, library and teaching space in a rebuilt Building T
- a new dining hall and campus cafe around a courtyard
The applicant’s 2021 figures, quoted in the report, put construction spending at £12 million and the campus at 26 jobs once open, a net increase of up to 12. The council’s economic development team says those figures are now years old and cannot be tested against today’s market.
Why it is back after four years
In September 2022 the committee resolved to grant permission, subject to a section 106 legal agreement. That agreement was to secure:
- a shuttle bus to Redbridge Park and Ride, eight times a day on weekdays and six at weekends, open to local people as well as students
- a second shuttle bus to the school’s off-site student housing
- a binding ban on students bringing cars to the site or parking nearby
- a shelter and cycle stands at the Hinksey Hill Top bus stop
The decision was then held up in Whitehall. The report says the government issued an Article 31 direction on 22 September 2022, barring the council from granting permission. It was withdrawn on 9 December 2024. A further request for ministers to call the application in was turned down on 30 July 2026.
Work on the legal agreement started after December 2024. The report says it has since “stalled”, so the application has come back to committee.
The three reasons officers give
Officers re-tested the scheme against current policy. They now conclude the harm outweighs the benefits, and recommend refusal for three reasons:
- Location. The site is remote from buses and services and would rely on the car. Without a signed agreement, nothing secures the shuttle buses, the bus stop works or the student car ban.
- Wildlife. The bat survey dates from March 2021 and the great crested newt survey from June 2021. Officers say surveys that old are out of date, so they cannot tell whether protected species would be harmed. Bats were found roosting in the Old Dairy and the lecture theatre in 2021.
- Trees. The tree surveys are also five years old. A new building would sit close to trees covered by a Tree Preservation Order.
The Green Belt is no longer an objection. National policy has changed since 2022, and officers now judge the scheme “not inappropriate” in the Green Belt. That also means the argument over whether students could be housed elsewhere, part of the original case, is “of no consequence”, the report says.
Bus 42 does not change the picture
Oxfordshire County Council has partly restored a bus to the area since 2022. Route 42 runs between Abingdon and Oxford via Sunningwell, Bayworth, Boars Hill and South Hinksey, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only.
Officers say that is not enough to remove the need for the shuttle buses. The county’s transport team says the nearest bus stop is 1.9km from the site, and without the shuttles the site “would be considered unsustainable”.
What objectors have said
Wootton Parish Council and the Friends of Boars Hill group opposed the scheme in 2022 and have written again since. In October 2025 the parish council asked the Vale to reconsider. It said student housing in Botley was now available on 16-week lets, which undercut the case made for building on site.
The Friends of Boars Hill sent a revised assessment of alternative student accommodation in July 2026. Officers record that both points no longer affect the decision, because the Green Belt test has changed.
What it means for you
- The committee can still approve it. Officers advise; councillors decide. If permission is refused, the applicant can appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
- If you commented on the application before, you can ask to speak. Register with planning services at PlanningBusinessEnquiries@southandvale.gov.uk by noon on Tuesday 27 October, the last working day before the meeting. The objectors share three minutes, as do the supporters and the parish council, under the council’s committee rules. The council encourages speakers to join remotely.
- Anyone can watch the meeting live on the council’s YouTube channel; the link is on the agenda.
- If you live on Boars Hill or in Sunningwell or Bayworth, a refusal also means no community shuttle to Redbridge, which was part of the 2022 package.
We will report the decision after the meeting. Other applications across the district are on our planning news page.
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