Bishop of Oxford comes to Banbury

The Rt Rev Dr Steven Croft is on a tour of the diocese, which covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

The three counties are divided into 29 ‘deaneries’ or groups of parishes, and Bishop Steven – who took up office in September 2016 – has pledged to spend a day in every deanery during his first nine months in office.

In the morning, he will be visiting the Warriner School Farm, and meeting with Dr Annabel Kay, chief executive of the Warriner Multi-Academy Trust.

He will then move onto Banbury Young Homelessness Project in the afternoon to meet chief executive Tim Tarby-Donald followed by a meeting in St Leonard’s Church, in Banbury with community leaders including Neil Blackwell, the headteacher of St Leonard’s VC Primary School, Gloria Clark and Cicely Lewis from the Grimsbury Community Association and Assia Bibi, the manager of the Sunrise Multicultural Project, which supports disadvantaged ethnic minority families in Banbury.

The Bishop will also share the Eucharist with the clergy of the Deddington Deanery, which covers Banbury and surrounding villages, and meet lay people over supper. The day ends with an evening with Bishop Steven at 7.30pm at North Oxfordshire Academy, to which all are welcome.