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'Biggest transfer is yet to come'

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[BBC]

For most football fans, January is a month for speculating on whether our club will land a 25-goal-a-season striker, manage to keep our best players and offload peripheral players to other clubs.

Most Oxford United fans would agree that, whilst we may not have signed the elusive striker, we have nonetheless had a successful transfer window that has strengthened the squad.

But for Oxford United fans there is a bigger transfer on the horizon as we leave January behind.

Having been given notice to leave the current stadium, which is not owned by the club, Oxford United hope to construct a new stadium and community facilities at the Triangle near Oxford Parkway station.

There have been consultations, thousands of pages of planning documents, comments from the local community, responses from the planning team and further documentation.

Now we head into the final straight, with the current consultation period ending on 8 February. The planning officers at Cherwell District Council will then review the latest submissions and make their recommendation to the planning committee.

The target decision date is the end of March. The January transfer window may well have set us up well for the rest of this season, but the long-term future of the club will only be assured by a positive decision in March.