March 2014

Headington Headlines #154

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 10 – 16 March.

The Stan James bookmakers at Risinghurst was the victim of another armed robbery on Thursday. The same shop was raided back in January.

@CultivateOxford‘s VegVan is going to be in Headington every Saturday from 29 March. They say they are a co-op bringing fresh, local, ecologically-grown food direct from farmers to the city. Whether their planned pitch outside Barclays Bank on the corner of the London Road and Old High Street will work in the long term remains to be seen.

According to BBC Oxford, officers at Birmingham City Council are recommending the closure of the Stansfeld Outdoor Centre.

The Britannia pub closed last night (Sun) for a revamp. It’s scheduled to re-open on Saturday 22 March.

You’ll remember – at least, those of you who live in Wood Farm or Northway will – that Oxford City is going to refurbish all its tower blocks. The second formal consultations are being held to show tenants, leaseholders and the community the enhanced design plans for the tower blocks. You’ll have to be quick though – the consultation for the Plowman Tower is at the Tower Play Base today, Monday 17 March from 5.30pm to 8pm, and for Forester Tower it’s the Wood Farm Children’s Centre on Tuesday 18 March from 4pm to 7pm.

My favourite Headington-related tweet of the week:

Active topics on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Headington Hill Park Friends inaugural meeting
  • Allotments free at Pullens Lane
  • Exercise equipment in Headington Hill Park
  • Activities for under 5s on Fridays
  • Commercialisation of Headington Hill Park?
I cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Headington Headlines #153

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 3 – 9 March.

The new management team at @VictoriaArms, Euan and Lizzie, have a combined 26 years in the licencing/hospitality trade.

The body of Dr Richard Barnett who worked at the Manor surgery before his retirement was recovered from the Thames at Shillingford.

A man from Saxon Way appeared in court charged with rape. The alleged incident took place in September 2012. He pleaded ‘not guilty’ and the trial continues.

The inaugural meeting of the Friends of Headington Hill Park will take place on Weds 26 March at 6pm in the East Oxford Community Centre.

More on the @BartonPark_ development – this time a suggestion from Councillors that existing Barton and Northway council tenants ‘might’ get priority in allocation of social housing.

Last week’s Walk of Protest made national TV, albeit on the Urdu channel GeoTV.

A friar who is also a former governor of @RyeStAntony school admitted at Southwark Crown Court possessing more than 5,000 child abuse images. He will be sentenced later.

The Oxford Mail reported on the new @JacobsChopHouse.

@Stagecoach_Ox announced they will be ordering 26 new buses to replace the current @Oxford_Tube fleet.

Active topics on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Northway Town Green application and Barton Park
  • Osler Road junction
  • Headington Hill Park Friends inaugural meeting
  • Activities for under 5s on Fridays
I cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Headington Headlines #152

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 24 February – 2 March.

Headington Art Weeks @HARTWeeks joined twitter but without a bio and without tweeting they’re not likely to make a mark.

@LazyGamerUK closed its doors for the last time.

Elizabeth Whitwick of @windmillshop wrote about the Fair Trade concept in the Oxford Mail.

The organisers of the Headington Neighbourhood Plan @HeadingtonPlan want to recruit a part-time Project Manager for a year.

The attempt by Northway residents to block a key access route to @BartonPark_ by having some land on Foxwell Drive declared a Town Green has been referred to a formal inquiry in July by Oxfordshire CC.

Elsewhere, some Barton residents rather belatedly woke up to the fact that the name Barton Park had been foisted on them without any real chance for them to have a say. I hate to say ‘I told you so‘, but … well ..

The Oxford East LibDems have selected @Mark__Mann from Denbighshire as their prospective parliamentary candidate for the next general election.

Mark bolstered his credentials as PPC by turning out for the Walk of Protest organised by local LibDem councillors on Saturday to protest about the state of the London Road and put pressure on the County Council to rebuild it rather than just resurface it when they do the work later this year.

The County Council announced they have found a new operator for the Thornhill/Headington cycle hire scheme. It will be relaunched in April. The new operator is HourBike, who run similar schemes elsewhere. Their twitter account @HourBike is hardly used but they tell me they’ll be setting up a new one for their operation in Oxford.

My favourite Headington-related tweet of the week:

Active topics on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Marston number 5 in the country
  • Northway Town Green application and Barton Park
I cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.