This has been in the wings for quite some time - am surprised it has taken so long. The "Oxford" name is history so the location is now irrelevant. The Oxford premises are very cramped, grubby, and have not had any money spent on them since the 1970s (see the acid 70s colour of the orange curtains in the Langford student accommodation for proof !).
If there is spare classroom space at a nice modern sim centre at Gatwick (or Madrid or Brussels or Amsterdam, for that matter), it does not make economic sense to maintain a stand-alone facility at Oxford. It has the highest cost per square metre of floorspace of any CAE facility worldwide. Or so stated a senior CAE bean counter visiting from Montreal about four years ago. In the same breath he said a move to Gatwick made sense, so the writing was on the wall.
How will they manage the move?
If its done the same way they moved the sim centre, the new instructors will in place at Gatwick, the ones at Oxford will be given the chop with short notice, very few if any will be stay on and commute to the new location, and the students get told be be at Gatwick for next Monday. Any complaints or requests for assistance for accommodation will have a clause in a contract pointed out to them which absolves CAE of any responsibility.
I suppose it does prepare them for the aviation environment.
The March 2021 date is very optimistic. I would expect most of the ground instructors will hand in their notice on receipt of the news, unless there is some compensation gold paid to keep them there till the end. In the current circumstances it would just make sense to stop any further courses starting until the move is complete.
Is the IR training going too? It would be the only thing left there so unless they have a cheap deal for a portakabin I could not see it staying. Perhaps it would make sense to leave Covid-plagued Arizona and concentrate all flying in one sunny EASA country?
My bet is.....something near Madrid. Or ...Ponte-de-Sur in Portugal. To show L3 what they could have had.