Oxford distillery’s future in doubt as drinks firm leaves

Campaigners are trying to keep a city’s only distillery open, after its parent company announced it would be relocated.

The Oxford Artisan Distillery (Toad) opened in 2017 and was rebranded to Fielden earlier this year.

It has since announced plans to relocate its operations to a mass production site in Yorkshire.

The Friends of Toad campaign group is calling on the company to leave the distillery in its current state, so it can be taken over and reopened.

The group wants to see the artisan spirits business stay open under the same name and says it has approached the distillery’s owners with plans to save it.

Toad founder Tom Nicolson left the company’s board in 2022 but is now leading the campaign to save it.

“We’ve gone from nothing, starting a small business and getting to a point where we have significant investment from a major drinks business, it should be a wonderful success story and up until very recently I was under the impression that we’d secured the distillery’s future here in Oxford,” he told the BBC.

He said the company had “abandoned” its promises, adding: “They’re saying they’re going to decommission the stills and kill Toad, which is very sad.”

Under Fielden’s plans, much of the white spirit production under the brand will be brought to an end.

Staff at the distillery have also been put on notice as part of the plans.

Mr Nicolson said: “It’s actually cheaper for them to walk away from the site and not decommission anything and just let us take over.”

Fellow campaigner Joy Le Fevre said: “The current owners have an opportunity to do a really good thing here – leave what they don’t need behind and allow the people of Oxford to carry it on.”

“It would be the gracious thing to do and very much in keeping with their sustainability claims,” she added.

In a statement, Fielden CEO David Smith said: “Continuing in the Oxford site with the former stills is simply not viable.

“The stills themselves are unfortunately no longer fit for purpose and continued use was deemed a health and safety risk, and restoration options were just too costly.

“We also explored options to remain at our home in Oxford but the site is difficult to develop given its physical footprint, location and the fair and reasonable restrictions imposed by the Oxford Preservation Trust covenants and Oxford City Council’s planning requirements.”

“As a result the business will be leaving Oxford,” he added.

He added that the site would be fully decommissioned by the end of 2024.

The distillery sits on land owned by the council, which said it was aware of plans to vacate the site, and was “reviewing future opportunities”.