Oxfordshire County Council wants to close Townsend House, a 45-place care home in Headington rated Good by the CQC. The consultation closes on 21 October.

Oxfordshire County Council is consulting on closing Townsend House, the care home on Bayswater Road in Headington. Anyone can respond, and the consultation closes on Wednesday 21 October. The council’s Cabinet is expected to decide in December.

Townsend House has 45 places and is run by The Orders of St John Care Trust, which provides the care on behalf of the Oxfordshire Care Partnership. The building itself is owned by the county council.

No decision has been made. The council’s published document says so four times. (Consultation on the future of Townsend House)

The numbers in the council’s own document

  • 45 places in total
  • 26 of them funded by the county council for people who need help with care costs
  • 19 for people who pay for their own care
  • 25 per cent of the home’s places were empty at the time of the review
  • 11 of the self-funded places were empty when the consultation was published

Under its contract with the Oxfordshire Care Partnership, the council pays for a fixed number of places each year “rather than paying only when places are used”. So an empty bed at Townsend House is still a bed the council is paying for.

Bar chart of the 45 places at Townsend House care home in Headington: 26 council-funded places and 19 self-funded places. Eleven of the self-funded places were empty when the consultation was published in September 2026.
Chart by The Oxford Post, from the council's consultation document.
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Why the council says it should close

The council’s case rests on the building and on future demand, not on the standard of care. Its document gives four reasons:

  • demand for residential places at Townsend House “is lower than expected and will reduce over time”
  • there has been “limited interest from people who fund their own care wanting to move into this care home”, which means “the home is not financially sustainable”
  • the way the property is built makes it unsuitable for people with higher care needs, “such as residents living with dementia”
  • the council looked at adapting it and found “there is limited scope to make these changes in a way that would make best use of the home due to its layout”

The council also says it checked care home capacity in Oxford before proposing the closure, and “found that there are alternative care home places available in the local area”.

If the closure went ahead, staff “may be at risk of redundancy if suitable employment opportunities cannot be found within the remaining OSJCT care homes”.

What the inspection record says

The Care Quality Commission rates OSJCT Townsend House Good, and Good on each of its five key questions: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The rating was published on 18 July 2024. The CQC also lists dementia among the home’s registered specialisms, alongside caring for adults over 65. (Care Quality Commission, OSJCT Townsend House)

The council is not arguing that the care is poor. It is arguing that the building cannot be adapted for the kind of care it expects Oxfordshire to need. Those are different claims, and the consultation is the place to test the second one.

Six options, and the one the council prefers

The review looked at the whole Oxfordshire Care Partnership contract, not just this home. The partnership runs 16 care homes across Oxfordshire with 878 places, and the council pays towards 508 of them.

The review was done now because the contract allows the council and the partnership to agree changes from April 2027.

Six options were assessed. In short:

Option What it would do
1 Keep everything as it is
2 Keep all 16 homes open, at a reduced cost once the financing arrangement ends
3 Close two homes, with no change to the types of place bought elsewhere
4 Close all six older homes, cutting guaranteed places by 148
5 Close all six older homes and change place types, also cutting 148
6 Close two homes and change place types elsewhere, cutting guaranteed places by 84

The council’s preferred option is option 6. The two homes it proposes to close are Townsend House and the Henry Cornish Care Centre in Chipping Norton, which is in the north west of the county and has its own separate consultation.

The council says money would not leave the care budget: “If the proposal is agreed, no money will be cut from the care provision budget. Money currently used to pay for empty places would instead be used to support care home places for people with more complex or specialist care needs.”

It also states plainly that “the preferred option may change after the consultation”.

What it means for you

If you live in Headington, have a relative at Townsend House, or may need a residential place in east Oxford, this is the window to say so.

  • Respond online at oxfordshire.gov.uk/townsendhouse before 21 October.
  • Paper survey? Return it to: Future care homes consultation, FREEPOST Oxfordshire County Council. No other address details are needed. Request a copy from consultations@oxfordshire.gov.uk or on 01865 792422.
  • Need it in another format? Easy Read, large text, audio, Braille and community languages are available from the same email and phone number.
  • The council wants views on four things in particular: the closure proposal itself, the effect on residents, families and the community, what support residents would need, and anything else it should consider.
  • If it closes, residents placed by the council would get a reassessment and a personalised support plan, and self-funders would be offered support on request. The council says that would take account of staying near family and friends, keeping couples together, meeting dementia or nursing needs, and keeping community connections.

Residents and families are also being offered face-to-face consultation meetings, with staff from the home available to support them, though staff cannot help residents fill in the survey.

For the decisions that follow, our Oxford planning news page tracks what the councils are deciding about buildings in the city, and the Oxford council tax bands page sets out what the county council’s share of your bill pays for, adult social care included.

We will report the consultation result and the Cabinet decision from the published report when it lands in December.

Sources