Headington Headlines #24

As the financial world went into meltdown (again) and people everywhere were dusting off their houmus and taramasalata joke, here in Headington well-wishers were jumping the gun to announce the 25th birthday of the Headington Shark.
In other news for the week 1 – 7 August —

The East Area Planning Committee gave planning permission to Oxford University’s plans for two large new buildings on their land next to Old Road. A couple of days later it was announced that the decision is to be ‘called in’ for review.

It was confirmed that Feltham Construction will shortly start work on building flats on the remaining Manor Hospital land.

McKenna Plant Hire is reported to be intending to submit a planning application to re-open Woodeaton Quarry as a site to dump soil and clay. Barton residents are gearing up to oppose the plan which would mean a significant increase in heavy lorries along Bayswater Road.

The landlords of the Ampleforth Arms in Risinghurst who lost their daughter to meningitis held a charity event on Saturday.

Thrive Barton’s funding was reported to be under threat.

The JR Hospital (@oxfordradcliffe) took delivery of a 7 Tesla MRI scanner, the most powerful in the country. There was a Family Fun Day in the JR grounds on Saturday to raise funds for the JR and Horton A&E departments.

Problems associated with language school students surfaced with coverage on local TV, letters in the papers, posts on the e-democracy forum and moans on twitter. I blogged about it too.

And talking about students in Headington (tenuous link of the week), it emerged that Headington School’s wealthiest alumna will be spending the coming academic year in Oxford. Yes, Emma Watson will be a student at Worcester College for a year before returning to Brown University in the USA to complete her Eng Lit degree. Wonder if she needs digs … ?

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

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

  • Joint Bus Ticketing Starts 24 July
  • Good homes for used carpet?
  • Headington Car Park site
  • The Cavalier pub
  • Police patrols to tackle anti social behaviour by language students

I try to 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.