Debbie Dance

Mrs Debbie Dance OBE DL was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire in 2026. Part of the Lieutenancy team focused on Oxford, she holds the Lieutenancy’s History and Heritage brief.

Debbie has had a long career in heritage, most recently as the Director of the Oxford Preservation Trust (1998-2023). Under her leadership, Oxford Castle was restored, Oxford Open Doors was established and Shakespeare's Painted Room was opened to the public. She was awarded an OBE for services to heritage in 2013.

Following her retirement from OPT, Debbie has continued to contribute to the county through her roles chairing the board of the Oxford Playhouse, and as Chair of the Buildings Fabric Committee of Christ Church Cathedral.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Chartered Surveyors and the Royal Society of Antiquaries, Debbie gained a Historic Conservation MSc from Oxford Brookes University, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2018. She is currently a part-time Architectural History DPhil student at St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, where she is researching the preservation of the setting of Oxford as a public amenity in the twentieth century.

At a national level, Debbie is a member of the Church Buildings Council of the Church of England and has been appointed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to the Statutory Advisory Committee on Closed Churches. She is also a Trustee of the National Churches Trust, where she sits on the grants awards committee and takes the lead on county historic churches trusts. Debbie has previously chaired the Historic Chapels Trust, the Historic Towns Forum and the UK Association of Preservation Trusts and was a Trustee of the Churches Conservation Trust and the Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust, and a former governor of Headington School.

Having raised their family in Oxfordshire, Debbie now lives in Oxford with her husband.