Bad Bear;
I'm slightly concerned at your post re Oxford. I'm an Oxford based pilot, I fly corporate helicopters, corporate jets and hold a Gold C and am a lapsed instructor (gliding). Ground at Oxford is not currently used and hasn't been used for at least ten years, tower and radar SHALL NOT be combined in UK airspace, it is ILLEGAL. What I suspect you got was a combined tower and approach (procedural) which often happens at weekends.
Also at least two of the Oxford controllers are/were very experienced glider pilots, so can we all start facing the fact that ATC often fly as well and can be found among us at the launch point/club bar.
For those of us who fly public transport in Class G TCAS has become an essential tool in traffic avoidance, not just a great pose, and FLARM is utterly useless in telling me where you are (and trust me the view out of the helicopters I fly is no where near as good as the view out of any glider)
I regularly hear a glider near Cambridge talking to Cambridge Approach at weekends and his position reporting is mighty handy (if you read this thread I was the one telling you to trust your abilities one Sunday this summer when it was all going wrong and you were looking for a field)
Closest I've ever come to a glider outside of a thermal was the Janus which went under my aircraft from seven o'clock to one o'clock less than thirty feet below in August 2014 five miles south of Fairford. No doubt he didn't see me, if he did he was a touch silly and if he had hit me from that angle the seven helicopter occupants would have died and I'm sure a lot of people would have been on here saying "power gives way to glider, ergo it must be the helicopter pilots fault.
There is plenty of airspace in the UK, it has to be used reasonably and fairly and with KNOWLEDGE. If I'm flying an approach and you're in the feather I'm IFR with all that implies even if I can see forevermore outside. And the feather denotes an instrument approach, not just an ILS. Please if you want to be taken seriously by ATC/CAA commercial operators look at the rules they live by, just fo info as a case in point there is not now, never has been an information call with "no service required" you have called an ATC unit, they have to respond and will pass information on you to others. The only place you may receive an acknowledgement to that is from an Air Ground only unit.
SND