Headington Headlines #358

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

The doctor whose fitness to practice was found to be impaired following the death of Connor Sparrowhawk at Southern Health’s Slade House has been suspended for a year.

Increased car park charges for Headington were approved by the City Council on Monday. They come into force in a few weeks’ time. Here again are the new charges for the car park behind Waitrose.

Table of Proposed charges for 2018
Proposed charges for 2018

It doesn’t say much for local democracy that these new charges are directly opposed to a Community Policy in the Headington Neighbouhood Plan, which says

“BRC1: CHANGES TO CAR PARKING CHARGES At off-peak times only, the car parks on St Leonard’s Road and Old High Street should provide free parking for 30 minutes followed by stepped parking charges”.

These Commmunity Policies are not statutory, but express how we want to see Headington change for the better over the coming years. The City has chosen to ignore it.

Oxford City Council is asking itself to give itself planning permission to build four retirement homes on a playground in Wood Farm.

Headington’s latest public artwork is a new piece by Saad Qureshi. His sculpture “Assembly” is in the courtyard of Oxford Brookes’ new Clerici Building, accessed from Gipsy Lane. Qureshi is an alumnus of the university.

"Assembly" by Saad Qureshi
“Assembly” by Saad Qureshi
Photo: Oxford Brookes University

For a full list of all Headington’s public art see headington.org.uk

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

There were no new posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week: