This article includes a report on the meeting of the Wantage Chamber of Commerce on 13 January 2026 at which the above photograph was taken.

The Wantage Chamber of Commerce

Policing, parking, planning, pedestrianisation, publicity materials – every town in the country in the country faces these or similar issues. Wantage is no exception. One of the ways by which these matters are discussed and reacted to is through the Wantage Chamber of Commerce.

This is, as the website states, “a voluntary organisation run by our members; a friendly group who represent businesses and professional interests within the Wantage community. We seek to benefit the trading interests of our members and to promote our town and district.”

Chamber meetings generally take place at 6pm on the second Tuesday on the month, the venue rotating amongst town-centre licensed premises.

The reports below are by Penny Post, not to be regarded as official minutes. Any opinions expressed are those of Penny Post and not necessarily those of the Chamber of Commerce, its individual members or guests.

More information about Wantage and the surrounding area can be found in Penny Post’s Wantage Area Weekly News, updated every Thursday evening and at other times as necessary. This includes news stories, events, information on voluntary and community groups and updates from the town and parish councils.

Business rates: 13 January 2026 update

The January 2026 meeting – held this month at the Elmbrook Court Care Home – looked at the issue of business rate rises for the hospitality sector and for retailers generally; and the wider question of whether the system was either fair or functional. The meeting was addressed by the Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber, who has been much involved in a Save Our Pubs campaign. Increasingly, he feels that the support offered for affected businesses should encompass the entire retail sector.

The business rating system is a strange one. Its origins date back to the sixteenth century. Despite its name, it’s really a tax on (commercial) property , not on the profitability or societal contribution of the businesses. The values are periodically reassessed by the Valuation Office Agency, which appears to have no other function, according to a set of criteria which I don’t understand (and which would, even if I did, be beyond the scope of this report to summarise). Appeals cannot be launched until the invoice is received, even though people will know their valuation months before

It gets even stranger. Those paying it receive no services as a result, not even the collection of bins. Its valuations are set centrally but collected locally: however, much of the money ends up back in Whitehall. There it is redistributed according to a system which a Commons committee described in 2019 as “broken.” Many would apply this word to every aspect of business rates.

All in all, if no system for raising revenue from businesses existed and you were looking to invent one from scratch, no rational person would come up with this one.

None the less, its what we have. The latest wave of revaluations has produced some very unwelcome shocks for small business owners who have already been hit by the increase in NI and the minimum wage. The Bear in Wantage, for instance, is facing an extra charge of over £1,200 a week as a result and the Fleur de Lys in East Hagbourne of £43,000pa. Others at the meeting had similar stories to tell.

The reality is very plain. Previous meetings of the Chamber (see below) have looked at matters such as marketing, events and regeneration to keep the town viable and vibrant. If, however, the businesses are taxed out of existence, none of these initiatives matter.

Matthew Barber suggested that a three-pronged attack was called for:

• To support the motion going before the Vale of White Horse Council on 11 February (the agenda will be added to this page a week beforehand) to provide extra assistance for for affected businesses. There also needs to be greater clarity on what a “pub” is: if it has rooms, does it therefore count as a hotel and thus perhaps fall outside any support scheme?
• To build on the government’s recent reversal of controversial tax rises affecting pubs and to keep the pressure up to extend this more widely.
• To lobby for the replacement of the business rates system with something more equitable. Council tax, being also a tax on property, not wealth, is in many people’s view past its sell-by date too.

He urged members to provide him with real-world examples of tax rises for their businesses as this would help add weight to the points the campaign is making.

As in so many matters, local councils are effectively acting as the agents for the government. Matthew Barber did, however, point out that district councils like the Vale (of which he’s a former Leader) have some discretion in how it handles aspects of the collection and the relief: lobbying the Vale is not, therefore, an empty gesture.

It’s also worth adding – although the local district councils won’t thank me for pointing this out – that the likes of the Vale and South Oxon are sitting on quite large reserves of cash. Why? Because, unlike counties or unitaries, they aren’t responsible for social care, education and SEN. By contrast, the unitary West Berkshire Council (which does deal with these things) is, through no particular fault of its own, pretty much flat broke.

Many might argue that this is exactly the kind of support that councils should be providing at times of need, if they can afford to do so. Businesses in West Berkshire might be miffed that their council has less financial wriggle-room. The good news, in the medium term, is that the government’s reform of the local-council structure will do away with two-tier authorities and so at least create a level-ish playing field. Whether these changes, and the financial settlements that will accompany them, will be to the benefit of local business owners remains to be seem.

Matthew Barber’s final point, which was greeted by numerous nods in the room, is that this is urgent. Some businesses might not long survive the arrival of the first bill.

All businesses in a town like Wantage depend upon each other, directly or indirectly. As Rob Corlett, owner of the town-centre Dolphin Gallery put it, every time a business closes, it affects all of the others. The town becomes that bit less appealing and a few more people might defect to online outlets (which, comparatively speaking, are unaffected by these charges), so deepening the problem.

The Wantage Chamber of Commerce its doing its best to ensure that does not come to pass there. Other communities elsewhere are launching similar fights. Together, it’s hoped that the message can be brought home. None of those present denied that businesses need to contribute to the national coffers. However, an unofficial straw poll suggested that none felt that the current system was the right way way of accomplishing this.

• You can also click here to read the Chamber of Commerce’s summary of the event.

The Chamber and Love Wantage: 14 October 2025 update

The October meeting looked at the Love Wantage website and its relationship with the Chamber: Love Wantage being, as the Chamber’s Maeri Howard stressed, “a collborative effort”.

It also considered how Love Wantage is supporting and promoting events in the town, including both regular events sich as the Dikensian Evening and the Literary Festival and one-off ones such as the eightieth anniversary of VE Day. The organisation is also developing partnerships, including with the Southern Oxfordshoire Tourism Partnership (which made a presentation to the April 2025 meeting – see below).

Matters that the organisations will be promoting or have initiated in the next few months include:

• The return of the Wantage Business Breakfast on Wednesday 12 November, at 7.45am at the Charlton Lodge Care Home. Love Wantage welcomes being contacted by other organisations, preferably in the town centre,who’d be intrested in hosing future breakfasts.
• Small Business Saturday on 6 December.
• Alfred Fest on Sunday 26 October.
• The Christmas Market on Sunday 30 November.
• The Dickensian evening on Friday 5 November.

Any local businesses are invited to contact Love Wantage or the Chamber if they want to get involved in any of these events in any way. Details of all theswe events can be found on the Love Wantage website.

Two views on the future of Wantage’s town centre: 9 September 2025 update

There were two speakers at the September Wantage Chamber of Commerce. Both were addressing the same issue (that of the commercial vitality of Wantage) but approached matters in a very different way.

Robin Heath, Commercial & Development Agency Manager at Green & Co.

The Chamber’s description of his address was that “Robin will provide professional insights into commercial property matters in Wantage, sharing his expertise on current market conditions, development opportunities and trends affecting local businesses.”

Robin gave an at times combatitive summary of some of the issues facing the town.

In general, he felt it offered many opportunities for those preparing to do business there. Its promotion could be concentrated on what it already was. Hungerford, for example, is famous for its antique shops and has benefitted from this message: Wantage is a successful town with many independent retailers.

He took issue with some aspects in the recently-made neighbourhood development plan. There were, he felt, some questionable statements including about the threat of the loss of commercial space (which he felt was not a problem), the excessive number of charity shops (which he said had actually slightly declined in the last twenty years) and the possible re-opening railway station (the site for which has been protected by the Vale Council).

He also suggested that some of the aspirations were unrealistic and beyond the power of a council to influence: the real achievements in a town, he argued, were by retailers brave enough to open up and market their wares.

[NDPs, once made, have the benefit of providing the parishes with an uncapped 25% share of the Community Infrastrucure Levies (CIL) provided by developers (as opposed to the capped 15% they otherwise receive). They also let local communities co-author with the planning authority (the Vale of White Horse in this case) the policies and site allocations that locally apply, all of which become enshrined in the authority’s local plan.]

Recent changes in the flexibility of commercial property use classes and automatic permitted development rights had, he said, made the re-purposing of vacant premises easier. There were, however, anomalies, such as the restrictions on changes of use for listed buildings and the underlying influence of planning conditions dating back perhaps decades which specified a particular use and require a new planning consent.

He also criticised landlords who failed to invest in their properties and disputed the perception that a short rent-free period gives the tenant all the encouragements they needed to sign a lease.

Wantage also suffered from a lack of large retail premises. This is, perhaps, shared by most towns of this size and might help encourage the number of smaller independent retailers on which the appeal of Wantage (as distinct from that of, say, Abingdon) partly rests. He put the number of these at about a hundred, and with a very low vacacany rate.

This figure suggests that the town is, commercially, in a good place,  a sentiment he expressed more than once. He suggested that there was, however, a deeper problem at work.

This was the question of future access to the town centre. The considerable developement in both Wantage and Grove will in his view soon lead to a situation where this is inaccesable to those who need or choose to drive.

The inference I took from this is that any improvements will have only a limited benefit as, for many, it will be easier to drive elsewhere to where they can park, or to shop online. Any improvements to the Market Place and surrounding areas will be limited by who can conveniently access it, not by the amount that’s spent on regeneration.

In the light of all this housing development, the real problem is perhaps that Wantage town centre is no longer in the right place. It needs to be a mile or more further north, creating a new centre in the effective new settlement of Wantage-and-Grove (“Wove” or “Grontage”, perhaps) which is slowly but inexorably becoming a demographic, if not an administrative, reality.

Andy Sweeney, Team Leader Place and Planning, South and Vale at Oxfordshire County Council (OCC).

The Chamber’s description of his address was that “Andy will give us an update on the Wantage Marketplace Regeneration project, including progress since our last stakeholder engagement and timelines moving forward.”

Andy was at the Chamber at its last meeting (see below) when he spoke about the proposed regeneration plans for the town centre. Many would have been looking forward to the promised update but I’m not sure they would left fully satisfied.

He began by describing several long-term issues, including those of demography, transport and public health, with which his team were occupied. Most of those present were, however, more interested in the changes to Wantage OCC had proposed.

As mentioned below, and as previously extensively reported, these have not always been flawless in their consultation or execution. To this must be added a regrettable recent incident (for which Andy apologised) involving a fiasco of road-marking removal, the main effect of which was grit and dirt sprayed over several business frontages.

As regards the town-centre strategy (if that’s the right term), we were told that expert consultants had been appointed to develop a feasibility plan for the plan. What exactly these plans might be was, however, still vague.

More than once he used phrases such as “a different vision for the Chamber” and “wanting the same things in different ways”. Intentionally or not, this reinforced idea that there are two parties: the one who does; and the one whom it is done to. I think that some of Wantage’s businesses see themselves in the latter group.

To some extent, Andy is the prisoner of the bad communications (see also below) that attended the last regeneration attenpt a couple of years ago. However, on being pressed as to what were over the next few months the ways on which local businesses could engage in the progress, there was little definite offered.

The most immediate was an engagement event on either 22 or 23 October, to be booked through a website link that wasn’t announced, at a venue that was currently confidential and whose attendees would be selected to include a wide range of views, the criteria for which was not specified. I’m not sure why it needs to be organised like a secret and illegal rave. Why not rent some public space for the day and display the plans for all who care to come?

Further questions and discussions elicted a timescale of sorts. By October 2025, preliminary designs would be available (presumably for the above event). Detailed plans would then be available by the early summer of 2026, by which time a more formal consultation would be arranged. Budgets were also mentioned, with sums approaching £4m suggested as the possible outlay on an agreed plan for the town’s future

In the meantime, local businesses would be kept informed of developments through personal communication, via the Chamber and perhaps other methods. Andy also said he’d be happy to communicate with the Chamber at any time.

I remained confused as to when or how local residents and business owners would have a say on changes which would directly affect them. The attendees were, for the seond time in three months, being asked to buy into a vision of uncertain shape and nature without having any clear sense of how or by whom this would acquire substance.

Andy finished with a quite separate point. Cameras would soon be put up in the approaches to the Market Place and would remain in place for a couple of years. These were being used only for the purposes of clocking the number of venicle and pedestrian movements and wouldn’t capture faces or registration numbers.

Conclusion

Both speakers described Wantage from their own persperctives. Robin’s was specific, immediate, personal and at times anecdotal. Andy’s was general, long-term, dispassionate at at times procedural. Neither can be faulted for their desire to see the town thrive.

There were, however, two very different prescriptions for success expressed. One was bottom-up, relying on the free market and the availability of suitable entrepreneurs and the extent which they could be encouraged. The other was top-down, a vision from OCC which may or may not conform with the collective wishes of or vision for the town – assuming always that such a collective view can ever be expressed.

The truth, as so often, lies somewhere in between. Somewhere between the two views there is a sweet-spot where municipal investment and free-market imperatives produces an ideal result.

There’s also the question of the money. £4m was mentioned as the budget. Such sums are worth translating, just as large volumes of water are often expressed in terms of a number of Olympic swimming pools. £4m would, for instance, buy you two seven-bed houses like this one in West Hanney on the Green & Co website, with change left over. It would also get you about 25m of HS2 track or the left foot of a Premier Leagure footballer.

But what does £4m means in terms of street furniture? If I were variously told that a pair of traffic lights costs £5,000 or £100,000, I’d find both equally believable. I have no idea about such price tags and, apart from Andy Sweeney, I doubt anyone else at the meeting did either.

It might be useful to have an exchange rate so we knew how many traffic lights, CCTVs, metres of dropped kerbs or hours of consultancy time £4m would buy. That would give us some sense of what this project might look like (and whether the £4m might find better uses). At present, its all disorientatingly vague.

Although matters such as lights and traffic flow are important, this nebulous scheme risks obscuring a fundamental truth, which Robin expressed – without the retailers, and therefore their customers, none of this matters. The discussion produced two different visions of how these people could be supported.

It remains to be seen if OCC’s interventions will help or hinder this vital ambition and how the retailers themselves can help shape any changes. On these matters, the jury still seems to be out: mainly because it’s not at all sure of what it’s meant to be considering…

Town-centre changes: 10 June 2025 update

The guest speaker at the meeting of the Wantage Chamber of Commerce (CoC) on 10 June was Andy Sweeney, the Head of Place (for the Vale) at Oxforshire CC (OCC). He was accompanied by his colleague Claire Moreton, the Place Engagement Co-ordinator.

The subject was – well, that’s not so easy to define…

The subject

The CoC’s summary of was “OCC is consulting on permanent traffic restrictions in the Market Place area that could fundamentally change how customers access businesses throughout Wantage. While the initial focus is on the West End, these changes could set a precedent that affects the entire town centre.” This was kind of what was covered.

The session was also a summary of  OCC’s vague aspirations for the town; a revisiting of the unhappy events of 2023 when many retailers and the Town Council embarked on a collision course over pedestrianisation in the Market Square; and a free-ranging charm offensive which got bogged down in past issues, technical confusions and personal opinions.

Andy Sweeney described a proposed “regeneration project” for the town centre and cited evidence – including travel patterns, footfall, car usage, accessibility and demographics – why this was needed. However, the details of what this might involve were, he admitted, vague.

An aspiration

We’re therefore dealing with an aspiration from OCC to accomplish something, motivated by whatever.

Much was said about the need to listen and to engage; also to meet four broad objectives (making the town welcoming, enhancing the environment, improving public transport and supporting local businesses). They were arranged in this order: perhaps they were all of equal significance. However, if so, were I to be addressing the CoC, I’d have put the last one first.

At this point, some attendees started to shift in their seats and hands were raised. When questions are asked during a presentation it’s a sure sign either that people are losing their way in the narrative or that the remarks are stirring a brew of old problems.

Both applied here. The matters Andy Sweeney was describing were, variously, technical, conflated, confusing, imprecise and divisive.

• Technical

For most, the decision-making processes of three-tier councils, particularly regarding the Department for Transport’s myriad highways regulations, are confusing to the point of opacity. Much of what he said depended on an understanding of these which many attendees, for all their expertise in their own fields, possibly lacked.

• Conflated

The conflation of two issues added to this problem.

The first was the experimental traffic order (ETO) to change the layout of the Market Square in late 2023. The second was the far wider aspiration for the town’s “regeneration”.

Andy Sweeney said the ETO (a revision of a previous one) needed to be made permanent if it were to survive. That having happened – possibly at a meeting of OCC on 17 July – it could be tweaked.

The problem some at the meeting expressed – I won’t go into all the issues – was that the current arrangements are unwelcome to many, were inadequately consulted on and (by some opinions, particularly from the taxi firms) illegal. Andy Sweeney said he wouldn’t introduce anything illegal in the future but, shrewdly, wouldn’t be drawn into whether anything was illegal now.

This issue was conflated with the wider plan for the “regeneration”. The point made by several people was that it was bizarre to set one aspect of the regeneration (the traffic arrangement in the Market Square) in stone when there was uncertainty about the wider plans, with which these might not mesh.

The logical option might be to revert things to how they were and start again. Andy Sweeney initially suggested his recommendation would be that the current ETO be made permanent. I wonder if he still feels that way after this meeting.

• Confusing

The confusion was that there were two different decision processes at work.

The first was the above-mentioned ETO on 17 July. The second was an “engagement process” running from 24 June to 22 July.

The results of this would then, Andy Sweeney explained, be considered by OCC and (presumably) consultants, leading to a formal consultation (which this 2025 “engagement” will not be) in early 2026.

£500,000 is available for this part of the project. As I understood matters, this will cover the costs of the “engagement” and consultants to consider the results. Anything left over would, it seemed, go on adding dropped kerbs in the town, on which OCC seems to have made up its mind.

There are two in-person events, on 5 July at the Museum and on 9 July at the Methodist Church). More details, and on the process generally, will be provided when we have them.

• Imprecise

I don’t think anyone left the meeting having gleaned much of what OCC intended.

The aspirations were vague enough to be generally acceptable. However, the meeting – predominantly attended by independent retailers – wanted certainty. None was provided. There was also the sense that the regenerated town Andy Sweeney described and the one in which the retailers worked were not the same places.

• Divisive

It was impossible that any discussion involving pedestrianisation, parking, deliveries and access would not return to the events of 2023: and so it proved. It’s also true that that no such changes ever meet with universal approval. The retailers are but one part, albeit a vital one, of the mix. Motorists, pedestrians, residents, cyclists, the disabled, delivery firms and the emergency services all have their views. Frequently these are different.

It’s therefore a brave, or foolhardy, council which suggests altering these unless there’s an overwhelming benefit. It’s rare that this happens. Any resulting discord then needs to be dealt with in future proposals, no matter how well handled.

My research for an article about the how the 2023 proposals were handled suggested that, from the retailers’ point of view, this was an object lesson in how not to conduct public engagement. I don’t know if OCC and Wantage TC have learned from this. The fact that Andy Sweeney came to the CoC suggested an attempt to reboot with the local business community. I’m not sure to what extent it succeeded.

Masterplans

We seem to be looking at an attempt to start a town masterplanning exercise while tidying up a divisive pre-existing problem.

At their best, masterplans employ public engagement to raise external funds to support popular schemes. At their worst, they’re tools for councils to use the public to provide evidence for funding pet projects.

I’m not sure which more accurately describes what’s going on here. However, erring on the side of caution, I’d advise local retailers to watch and engage with the process very closely.

There was recently a similar master-planning exercise in Hungerford, which also involved the vexed matter of changes to parking regulations and pedestrianisation. This was started by West Berkshire Council in late 2022, was paused, then re-activated in late 2023. In late 2024, the process was aborted by the Town Council as it exposed previously dormant divisions that made the discussions toxic and the steering-group meetings un-chairable.

Andy Sweeney suggested steering groups could discuss the issues OCC’s proposing. This could be a genuine desire to ensure local engagement or a tactic to get the work and recommendations, and so any fall-out, made locally.

I have no firm view. However, as mentioned above, I’d suggest Wantage’s businesses should be careful about people bearing gifts. The £6m or or so of funding which might be released for “regeneration” sounds attractive. However, what would this involve?

An uncertain vision

The meeting provided no certain steers beyond the fact that it accorded with OCC’s objectives. Whether these accord with those of the town’s retailers is unclear. Each will have their own views.

The CoC should provide an effective forum for expressing those on which they can all agree. Andy Sweeney said several times that OCC wanted to engage with the Chamber on its vision for the town. Let’s see how that goes and get involved with it on the terms he suggested.

However, at present, it seems far from clear what this vision is. Retailers need to stay watchful, engaged and constructively critical.

The PCC at the Chamber: 13 May 2025 update

Earlier this year (see the 13 March edition of our Wantage Area Weekly News column) The Wantage Chamber of Commerce drew my attention to an “article” in the Wantage Herald about crime statistics in the town. This had not been well received locally due to a rather basic statistical misunderstanding. The piece also provided nothing in the way of context, being merely a copy-and-paste job from an official, and unreferenced, report.

This week, the Thames Valley PCC, Matthew Barber, was the guest speaker at the meeting of the Wantage Chamber. He referred to this and repeated his assertion, that he had made at the time, that incidents of anti-social behaviour (ASB) in the town (rather than the wider area) had increased not by eighty-one percent as the paper had suggested but by seven: an increase none the less, but not the crime wave that  the higher figure suggested. He considered several aspects of crime, real or perceived, in the town and took a number of questions.

ASB is an odd one and in many cases isn’t a crime at all. Unlike something like an assault or a car theft, it’s also very subjective: even more some than with most law-and-order incidents, different people seeing the same incident would have wildly different views about what, of anything, was being done wrong. These are, like all such statistics, reflecting the number of official reports, not of actual incidents. It’s possible that, as the perception increases that ASB can be reported, that more people do so: this doesn’t prove there were more incidents.

He spoke about the seasonal peaks (mainly in the summer) and troughs of this and also praised the work that local organisations like Sweatbox did in helping to channel the energies of younger people in the town in creative ways (though that’s not to say that only young people are responsible for ASB).

He also referred to social media, which does not represent a way of reporting incidents of any kind. He suggested that the kind of ASB or other incidents are generally not new: what is is the ease and rapidity with which these can be shared. Sometimes this can lead to good outcomes of identification or public awareness. As regards reporting, however, please see this page for the official routes that should be used.

He also touched on three other matters which concern people: knife crime (which appears to very low in Wantage); sexual and violent offences (which often blur into domestic incidents and which take up a good deal of police time); and shoplifting (he urged local businesses to use the Disc app, “the online information-sharing system that’s helping all kinds of communities reduce low-level crime and anti-social behaviour” as the website describes it.

He stressed more than once that local community groups and organisations play in not only reporting crime and other unwelcome incidents but also reducing the pre-conditions that tend to create them.

Is there a crime epidemic in Wantage? he asked at the end – no. Are there problems? – yes. These don’t, however, seem to massive ones, and certainly not on the scale that was suggested in the paper earlier this year.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday 10 June at the King Alfred’s Head and will provide “an essential discussion on the future of Wantage Market Place.” The word “pedestrianisation’ will doubtless be used several times, re-opening an issue which caused so much local debate a couple of years ago and which we covered in detail. See you there.

• Two chats at the Chamber: 8 April 2025 update

I went along to the meeting of the Wantage Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday at the Cob and Pen bar at The Swan. As this latest newsletter explains, the two speakers were:

• Karen Roberts, Economic Development Officer for Vale, sharing valuable insights on local economic initiatives and opportunities for businesses in our area.
• Maeri Howard, Marketing and Membership Co-ordinator for the WCoC, presenting six new marketing pieces created as part of the Visit Wantage initiative to draw visitors to the town.

The main thrust of Karen Roberts’ address was an introduction to the Southern Oxfordshire website. I must confess I was unaware of this – though the initiative is a fairly recent one – and applaud the work that has gone into it. It’s currently work in progress, as she stressed. Anyone running a business in the Vale or South Oxon is advised to get in touch with her or staff via the website to see how it can help you reach the increasing number of people who visit the site.

Two intentions of the project stood out for me. The first was to present the area as being distinct from the City of Oxford which dominates the county to an overwhelming extent and which attracts international visitors in vast numbers (there’s quite a famous university there, I’ve heard tell). The more rural area to the south is very different with a different range of attractions, as the project is seeking to highlight.

The second is that it aims to address a problem that affects any attempts at area-wide promotion, that of the large number of disparate sources of information that exist. There are, for instance, at least 42 separate on-line on-line articles bout walks across the two districts, no one of which paints a complete picture. Providing a central place where all these are linked to, or the information pooled, is a laudable aim. We wish them well with the project.

Maeri Howard then displayed a number of well-produced DL-format leaflets designed to showcase specific aspects of the town, including for walkers, cyclists, historians and disabled visitors. Each offers a selection of the available offerings with a QR code taking people to where more information can be found online. You should be seeing these in various locations around the town very soon, if not already.