CAMPAIGNERS hoping to bring back greyhound racing to Oxford Stadium are asking people in the city to show their support with car bumper stickers.

They are also putting up posters and local businesses have pitched in to help.

Rob Digweed of South Oxfordshire-based Windsock Music heard about the stadium’s plight from his music students in the Oxford area and decided to sponsor the car stickers.

He said: “I was surprised to hear that it remained closed as on all the occasions I’ve been there it was packed. The campaign has recently enjoyed a high profile, highlighting all the great work campaigners have been doing and I was happy for Windsock Music to support a local cause.

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“The stadium holds great historic and cultural significance for Oxford and it should be preserved for use by future generations.”

He added that if his firm expanded towards the city the stadium would be “an ideal venue” for tuition and bands.

It came as a fresh twist in the stadium saga unfolded. According to the Land Registry, another mystery firm may have a stake in the site’s future.

The registry shows the owner is GRA Acquisition Ltd, which acquired the site in 2013 from previous owners GRA Ltd, but also shows a blue line surrounding the Sandy Lane site that excludes Karting Oxford’s offices on the eastern edge.

The registry states: “The land is subject to rights reserved by a transfer of the land dated November 6 1998 made between (1) N J Estates Limited and (2) GRA Limited, except and reserved to the transferor and its successors.”

The Oxford Mail is appealing for information about this agreement and ‘N J Estates’, which is not registered at Companies House.

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith claimed the retained land could be a so-called ‘ransom line’, a strip of land still under the control of a previous landowner.

He added: “Someone obviously had that in place at some point in the past, in order to give them influence over what happened on the site.

“If anybody can cast any light on this, it would help us in our campaign to save the stadium.”

The agreement dates back to a few months before the stadium was sold to GRA Limited, but no firm with the name N J Estates has previously been linked to it.

Former owner and Banbury timber merchant Don Joyce, who lived in the Isle of Man, bought the stadium in 1996 and sold it to GRA Ltd at the start of 1999. He died in 2013 and is survived by two sons, Nigel and Malcolm.

An apparently active ‘N J Estates Limited’ was established in 1996 in the Isle of Man, but could not be contacted at any of its registered addresses.

Meanwhile, two companies with similar names in London said they were not involved and Oxford City Council said it had no business with such a firm.

  • Do you have information that could help? Call reporter Hannah Somerville on 01865 425271.