Students protest against raw sewage release into river

sewage or other sources such as agriculture.

conservation area.”

However, despite opposition to the design and construction of the building, the Planning Inspectorate accepted the college’s appeal and permitted the building’s construction.

The building’s fast deterioration has since been investigated further by building consultants. They found that the original structure of the building was based on a maximum weight that did not provide “adequate structural capacity to support many heavyweight or solid materials”.

The building specialists also realized that, at the manufacturing stage, the window surrounds did not meet the specification requirements, and the quality control at the manufacturing stage had “little-to-no” oversight.

This resulted in some of the glass reinforced concrete (GRC) window paneling being manufactured with a “thickness less than the minimum allowable,” resulting in their rapid deterioration. All of this GRC now needs to be replaced with a different material.

St. Cross College released a statement to explain the refurbishment. They stated that “the final stages of the building work were complicated when the main contractor and subsequently the glass reinforced concrete sub-contractor both went into administration.”

Niall McLaughlin Architects, the firm which designed the building, refuses responsibility as they agreed to a “design and build contract.” They claim their role was to produce the original outline drawings which the contractor would use to complete technical designs and the construction work. The contractor was then “responsible for the ongoing performance of the building.”

A spokesman for the firm stated: “Niall McLaughlin Architects were not involved, nor were they intended to be, with the quality control or oversight of the manufacturing process of the glass reinforced concrete panels.” He confirms that the firm spoke to the building specialist who reported on the damaged panels, and “[the specialist] confirms that there was no issue with the description of the panels.”

St. Cross College states on its website that “it has taken time to find a permanent solution to the issues with the window surrounds,” but “the College team is confident that the right solution and contractor have been found.” The college concludes: “We look forward to being able to enjoy the building for many years to come – and to a proper re-opening event in due course.”

Oxford University students protested at the Torpids rowing race against Thames Water’s dumping of untreated sewage into local rivers and waterways. This comes amid increasing frustration that the designated bathing water status awarded to Wolvercote Mill Stream has not had a marked impact on sewage dumping.

Protestors are asking Thames Water to produce a public timescale for capacity upgrades and to regularly fund bacteria testing at Donnington Bridge or Folly Bridge. They urge Thames Water to take stronger and quicker action against this pollution.

Between 28th December 2022 and 20th January 2023, the Witney sewage treatment plant continuously discharged 552 hours of sewage spills. It follows the established trend of high levels of discharge in 2021, when there were 891 hours of sewage being released from Oxford STW processing plant.

Consequently, the Environmental Agency has classified the Wolvercote Mill Stream, in the north-western corner of Port Meadow, as of ‘poor’ bathing quality, advising against bathing. Informing this assessment is the dangerously high levels of E. coli bacteria that have consistently been found in the river, which can come from either raw

One protestor told Cherwell: “For me and many people living here the rivers in Oxford play an important part of everyday life. Across all seasons, students continue to interact with rivers whether this be novice rowing in Michaelmas, cold wild swimming in Hilary, and sunny punting in Trinity. However, the rivers do not always feel like a safe space that I and others can enjoy due to frequent sewage releases made by Thames Water.”

Previous campaigning by the Oxford Rivers Project led to the designated bathing water status at Wolvercote Mill Street, yet there have not been significant improvements in water quality.

Thames Water has begun a £15 million upgrade to Witney sewage works which they expect to complete in early 2024. They have also launched in response a near real-time map which shows discharge activity. In a public statement, they affirmed: “Putting untreated sewage into rivers is unacceptable to us, our customers and the environment. That’s why we’re working hard to stop these discharges, with the help of the Government, Ofwat and the Environment Agency.”

One student protester remarked that “their current plans to reduce releases by 50% by 2030 are not enough when the Thames is such an important part of the city. Overall, we are calling for a cleaner Thames, where users of the river can feel safe.”

Recent collaborative research from the University of Oxford and Japan’s Ochanomizu University conveys that almost four in ten hours currently devoted to unpaid housework and caring responsibilities could be automated in the next ten years.

During the project, researchers from the universities asked 65 Artificial Intelligence experts (29 from the UK and 36 from Japan) to predict trends in the future automation of common household tasks.

On average, experts agreed that grocery shopping is the most automatable household activity. They predict that grocery shopping time in the future would fall by nearly 60% in 10 years, in comparison to current statistics. On the other hand, experts believe that care for children or the elderly is the least likely to be impacted by AI; with research suggesting that time spent on physical childcare would only be reduced by 21%.

Dr Lulu Shi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and departmental lecturer for Oxford’s Department of Education, summarises that in general; “only 28% of care work, including activities such as teaching your child, accompanying your child, or taking care of an elderly family member, was predicted to be automated. Yet 44% of housework, including cooking, cleaning, and shopping, was thought to be automatable.”

Strikingly, previous studies have highlighted that the UK’s population, aged 15 to 64, spends nearly 50% of their entire work and study time on household errands such as cleaning, cooking and care. However, the recent research suggests a potential increase in the prospect of leisure time, due to the fact that there would be less to do manually around the house.

To this day, the burden of undertaking household labour has fallen disproportionately on women. Ekaterina Hertog, an associate professor in AI and Society at the University of Oxford argues that this has negatively affected women’s earning ability, savings and pensions.

Evidence illustrates that in the UK, the majority of working age men do around half as much of domestic (unpaid) housework as the majority of working age women. In Japan, using the same parameters, the men do just 18%, which is less than a fifth.

Having increased automation and more “smart homes” would therefore also free up working time for women, and could lead to strides which help achieve gender equality. However, technology is still relatively expensive and more extensive and diverse research is needed to be undertaken.

The complete research is published in the journal PLOS ONE. This research project was funded by ESRC in the UK and JSTRISTEX in Japan.