Headington Headlines

Headington Headlines #285

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 26 September – 2 October.

A 14 year old girl was abducted and raped at around 8.25 on Wednesday morning. The abduction took place near the junction of Banbury Road and Marston Ferry Road. The victim was found around mid-day in Cavendish Drive, Marston. Police are looking for two white men and a silver car, possibly a VolksWagen, and on Saturday released descriptions of the men. Anyone with information, video footage etc is asked to contact Thames Valley Police on the 101 number quoting incident number 1631, or you can report anonymously at Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online at crimestoppers-uk.org/

Earlier in the week, early on Sunday morning, a woman was sexually assaulted in Cuckoo Lane between Pullen’s Lane and Marston Road. Police are looking for two male suspects.

News emerged of a stabbing in Barton ten days ago (Thursday 22 September). A man was stabbed in the head by what is thought to be a Stanley knife and then robbed. @TheOxfordMail describe the location as “an alleyway behind the playground on Waynflete Road”.

Headington Farmers’ Market relaunched on Saturday with more – and new – stalls, owls and other animals, and even a pianist.

After sucessful lobbying by local councillors the faded and ‘unenforceable’ parking control lines in Stapleton and Bickerton Roads are going to repainted.

Oxfordshire County Council held a public exhibition of the first work to start under the Access to Headington scheme. Work starts at the Roosevelt Drive/Old Road/Gipsy Lane junction on 17 October – see the detailed drawing here. My summary note and more links are here.

Access to Headington Exhibition panels
Exhibition panels

There was a power cut in central Headington on Thursday. Waitrose had to close all their chilled food displays.

Two fire engines turned out to New High Street on Tuesday evening, to what turned out to be a small fire in a tumble dryer in the Royal Standard. No-one was hurt.

Work should be starting today on the new pavilion at the Margaret Road recreation groun.

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

  • “Access to Headington”: start of work
  • Descending Headington Hill in the cycle lane… beware walkers.
  • Loss of trees in Headington Quarry
  • The X90 and Trafalgar Square COMPLAIN

Headington Headlines #284

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 19 – 25 September.

While we wait for confirmation of when and where the heatpipe roadworks will start, the County Council has opened applications for short-term visitors’ parking permits for people who will have work going on outside their houses. You can apply here.

Nor do we have any firm details yet about the timing of the Access to Headington road works. All we have at the moment is that work is scheduled to start on 17 October to reconfigure the Roosevelt Drive/Old Road junction. Among other changes this will provide two lanes coming out of Roosevelt Drive which is intended to provide more capacity for when Churchill Drive is closed for heatpipe work.

The latest fall-out in the sorry tale of Southern Health was the Chairman, Tim Smart, who resigned ‘for personal reasons’. His broadcast interview answering questions about Katrina Percy being slotted into a new job on the same salary with no due selection process showed a man out of his depth and out of control of the situation.

A motorcyclist suffered head injuries in a crash at Headington roundabout on Thursday morning. He was taken to the JR.

A burst water main flooded Trinity Road in Quarry on Wednesday.

Even grown-ups were discovering their inner 6 year old by doing chalk drawings on the pavement in Headington’s Big Draw on Saturday. Overnight rain had washed it all away by Sunday morning, but then ephemerality is part of the artistic concept, or so I’m told.

Just one active post on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Campaign Against Cuts to Services at Horton Hospital Banbury

Headington Headlines #283

TonyOX3

 

Your weekly round-up of local news for 12 – 18 September.

A 48 year old man was stabbed in Margaret Road in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday. He was taken to the JR Hospital. On Friday police issued descriptions of two men they wanted to speak to in connection with the incident. The victim was said to be in a stable condition, and his injuries not life-threatening.

The Boundary Commission’s proposals for Oxford East (see section 81 on p.20) show our constituency gaining two City Wards, North and St Margaret’s, which currently lie within Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood’s constituency). In the City Council, North Ward is Labour and St Margaret’s is LibDem.

Two sets of number plates were reported stolen over last weekend (10/11 September), one on the London Road near Ramsay Road, the other on Lime Walk.

St Andrew’s School Association joined twitter with a bit of a stammer as @sasastandrews1. They need your vote to help raise money for a new outdoor classroom.

Frontier Estates (the developers building the Beech House student accommodation on the corner of Latimer Road) are resurrecting a new version of the planning application they withdrew earlier this year to build a 55-bed care home at 1 Pullen’s Lane. I’ve drawn up a handy timeline of the ups and downs of this potential development.

Children at @WindmillOxford were featured on @BBCOxford as they celebrated the centenary of the birth of Roald Dahl on Tuesday by dressing up as their favourite characters.

Behind the security fencing on the pavement at the top of Headington Hill is a 15 metre gap in the old wall. Here’s the story.

Buongiorno e Buonasera opened as scheduled on Friday, and Oxford Vapours @OxfordVapours seems to be opening a vape shop in what was the old BBB Stores next to the old Post Office. They already have shops in Abingdon and Witney. A vape shop sells e-cigarettes and related products – see Oxford Vapours’ website for more details.

@JockOx3 felt good about his visit to a new Turkish barbers in Marston.

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

  • Margaret Road Pavilion
  • Campaign Against Cuts to Services at Horton Hospital Banbury
  • The Marston Barber