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In February 2010, plans to build a new teenage psychiatric unit on the century-old Warneford Hospital cricket ground were given approval after considerable opposition by local residents, Natural England, and CPRE Oxford City Committee.

For more than 100 years, the pitch has been used by the United Oxford Hospitals Cricket Club and by other local clubs not affiliated to the hospital.

Local residents who have been fighting to preserve the open green space in Headington were disappointed by the news. Sietske Boeles of Friends of Warneford Meadow and a local resident said:

“In the last 15 years 45 acres of NHS land in Headington has been lost or has been earmarked for development. Most of this land is amenity land and used by walkers for recreation and recuperation.

We urged councillors to ask the NHS to find a brownfield site on their landholdings to develop their much needed adolescent unit. For example, planners and councillors need to explore the feasibility of development on the adjacent Park Hospital site which was closed as an inpatient unit for Children and Adolescents in 2006 as it was ‘surplus to requirements’ in Headington.

It is unacceptable to lose the remaining parcels of green hospital land in already underprovided Headington.”

Natural England opposed the proposal claiming the site is too close to the Lye Valley Site of Special Scientific Interest, home to rare species of plants and insects, and that the development could increase flood risk.