Headington Headlines

Headington Headlines #339

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 9 – 15 October.

A consultation on the proposal by the City and County for a city-centre zero emission zone starts today (16 October). Details here.

Oxford building firm Kingerlee has won a contract for an expansion of Sobell House Hospice (on the Churchill Hospital site).

Here are the parking controls introduced at The Manor Surgery (see HH338). Fifteen minutes free or register at Reception for the duration of your appointment. Control and enforcement is by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras and £100 fines.

Manor Surgery parking notice
Manor Surgery parking notice
Number plate camera
Number plate camera

There’s a chance to find out more about the Swan School, the free school that is going to be built in Marston. It will be run by The River Learning Trust on the Harlow Centre site in Raymund Road. There are three ‘community consultation events’ – the first is today (16 October) at New Marston Primary School from 6 – 8pm. The other dates are 1 November and 7 November, same time and place. The Oxford Mail has the story, and a search of Headington Headlines for “Swan School” will find you my earlier reports about the school.

With the County Council being over-ruled by the Government, buses will return to Queen Street from Sunday 22 October – two days before the new Westgate opens. Referring to this map, we can see that @Stagecoach_Ox buses 8 & 9 bound for Headington, Barton and Risinghurst will start from stop E2 in Norfolk Street behind the new development. They will get to the High Street via Queen Street, stop at stop T2 where the pavement has just been widened, and again at Queen’s Lane.  Inbound they will stop at Queen’s Lane and (I assume) Carfax before Speedwell Street as now, terminating in Norfolk Street stop E2. I guess @OxfordBusCo buses will do the same. I haven’t yet seen what if any changes there may be to the U1, 400 and 280/X8 services.

Local boutique distillery @TheSpiritofToad plans to launch a crowdfunding to raise investment funds. Their own website is silent on the details so we can’t tell yet what benefits subscribers might enjoy.

There have been no posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week.

Headington Headlines #338

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 2 – 8 October.

It was all kicking off at the JR …

From today (Monday 9 October) patients using the Manor Surgery car park must register their car at reception when they attend for an appointment.

The Barton Park developers have submitted their plans for a controlled parking zone (CPZ) in Barton Park. The documents are on the council website under reference 15/03642/CND. There are two drawings, both of them of such poor quality that they don’t convey much information; I tried and failed to understand what they are supposed to show. But as this is all discharging a condition on the original planning application, and acceptance will be a delegated decision (read ‘tick the box’ and ‘rubber stamp’), and there doesn’t seem to be any consultation either, whatever the plans are supposed to show will no doubt be what happens. Or perhaps not, because nobody will know either way.

The Oxford half-marathon came to Marston again on Sunday, accompanied by the now usual complaints about non-consultation and no warning about road closures.

I checked to see if you can get safely into Barton Park and the marketing suite for the new homes if you want to go on foot or by bike. I’m glad to say you can!

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

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

  • Free Exercise Bike
  • Road works at Roosevelt Drive
  • Anyone know of CCTV showing road between Headington Cemetery and the Black Boy?

Headington Headlines #337

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 25 September – 1 October.

The Oxford Mail carried a story about a possible energy network to provide homes and offices in the city with cheap energy. The article suggests a power plant might be built on Warneford Meadow, but as it also says the site would be 4.6 sq km it’s probably a bit early to start worrying. A circle of this area centred on Warneford Meadow would stretch from the JR Hospital to Between Towns Road in Cowley.

Anthony Stansfeld, Police & Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police, was at the Headington Ward focus meeting on Tuesday evening.

Ruskin College has put in a planning application (ref: 17/02387/FUL) to demolish the Bowen Building and build two blocks to accommodate 95 students. The 12 bed block described as ‘proposed’ on the east side of Stoke Place doesn’t seem to be included in this application.

Ruskin College student accommodation plans
Ruskin College student accommodation plans

Headington’s newest restaurant has opened (was Bar Meze).

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

Headington Farmers’ Market celebrated its 10th anniversary last Saturday (23 September) with more stalls than ever.

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

  • Barton Bash today – 12 – 4.30pm