That's certainly better than nothing - though it's definitely preferable to allow for as many opportunities to bump into people as possible - which diminishes when you have the social spaces removed from the presentation spaces. And really, don't presume that people will be in lectures all day - there is usually a lot of activity outside sessions with spill-over discussions from previous sessions, press interviews, mini-presentations, and many other impromptu pow-wows and chats. In fact (and this is the case with most conferences), many people find the most interesting discussions for them personally take place outside scheduled sessions. So - just how big is that foyer? :-) It doesn't look so substantial from what I can see from <http://www.oxford.gov.uk/leisure/Venuehire.cfm>. And that ice cream place wouldn't be anything like what we need as a genuinely social, malleable space. So this lack of convenient social space is still a concern for me with this proposed venue - and I know other Wikimaniacs will be thinking along the same lines.

That's good to know about the public transport - though I wonder if it might still be an idea to look into additional shuttles around the peak times of anticipated arrival/departure?