The Vale refused Peking University's 60-bedroom Boars Hill campus on 29 October, four years after backing it. The school asked for more time and was turned down.

The Vale of White Horse has refused planning permission for a 60-bedroom university campus at Foxcombe Hall on Boars Hill. The same committee had voted to approve the scheme in September 2022.

Councillors on the Planning Committee voted unanimously on Wednesday evening to follow their officers’ recommendation. The council issued the formal decision notice for application P21/V1376/FUL the next day, Thursday 29 October.

The applicant is PHBS UK, the UK campus of Peking University HSBC Business School. The Grade II listed hall is in Wootton parish, about three miles north of Abingdon town centre. We set out the officers’ case before the meeting.

The three reasons

The decision notice, signed by the Director of Planning, gives three grounds:

  1. Location. The site is “remote from services and facilities” and would rely on the car. There is no signed section 106 agreement to secure the public transport, the ban on students bringing cars, or the bus stop improvements. The notice cites the Local Plan and Policy IN3.3 of the Wootton and St Helen Without Neighbourhood Plan.
  2. Wildlife. Not enough information was submitted to judge the effect on protected species. The bat and great crested newt surveys date from 2021.
  3. Trees. Not enough information was submitted to judge the effect on trees to be kept, “particularly those protected by Tree Preservation Order”.

The school asked for more time

The meeting recording shows the applicant asking the committee to defer, not refuse.

A deputy director of PHBS UK told councillors the school “remains committed” to the scheme. The section 106 wording was agreed with the council in early July, the committee heard. The school accepted that its own processes had contributed to the delay since then. It said the request for new ecology and tree surveys first reached it through this month’s committee report.

The school’s planning consultant said there had been delays in appointing legal representation covering both the UK and China, now resolved. Some “internal matters” at the university remained. Asked what those were, the consultant said they were not relevant to the committee.

A local parish council, speaking for residents in the eastern part of Boars Hill, and the Friends of Boars Hill group both spoke in support of refusal. The Friends asked for three extra reasons, including harm to the Green Belt. Councillors did not add them. One said the extra grounds would be hard to defend at appeal.

The motion was to accept the officers’ recommendation. One councillor said there were “far too many outstanding issues to accept it or even defer it”. Another backed refusal reluctantly, and said the school could come back with a fuller application.

Five years from start to refusal

The application was registered in May 2021. In outline:

  • September 2022: the committee resolved to grant permission, subject to a section 106 agreement
  • 22 September 2022: the government issued a direction barring the council from granting it
  • 9 December 2024: the direction was withdrawn
  • 30 July 2026: a request for ministers to call the application in was turned down
  • 28 October 2026: refused at committee, with the agreement still unsigned

The dates come from the officers’ report to Wednesday’s meeting.

What it means for you

  • Nothing will be built under this application. Foxcombe Hall keeps its current planning use as a non-residential college.
  • The school can appeal. The notes to the decision give six months for an appeal of this kind, which runs to 29 April 2027. Appeals go to the Planning Inspectorate. There is no right of appeal for objectors.
  • It can also apply again. The officers’ reasons are things a new application could address: a signed transport agreement and up-to-date surveys. Any new application would go out to consultation afresh, and we would report it.
  • No community shuttle to Redbridge. Residents of Boars Hill, Sunningwell and Bayworth would have been able to use the shuttle bus in the 2022 package. The bus through Boars Hill, route 42, still runs only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Other decisions across the district are on our planning news page.