Headington Headlines #49

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 6 – 12 February —

New timetables for bus routes 8 and 9 were announced, with a start date of 19 February. It’s claimed they allow more time for buses to get onto the Green Road roundabout in the mornings, and that they will schedule more buses on the Barton (8) route.

Two local schools are on the list of 10 Oxfordshire primaries to be converted to academy status under a government schools improvement policy. They are St Nicholas Primary School, Raymund Road, Old Marston and Bayards Hill Primary School, Waynflete Road, Barton. I blogged about an astonishing interview about the proposals with the County’s Cabinet Member for Scools Improvement, Melinda Tilley, and there’s a comment on the blog in support of St Nicholas’ School.

Consultation on two big Council planning documents opened this week: the Sites and Housing Development Plan Document (SHDPD) and the Barton Area Action Plan (BAAP). The documents can be downloaded here (SHDPD) and here (BAAP). You are constrained to comment in the format required by the Council. I have extracted the OX3 sites in the SHDPD into a handy annotated map to make it easy to see what the document has to say about them(*). I hope to write more on the Barton plans over the next few weeks.

Local Councillor @RuthWilk and Highfield Residents’ Associations’ Patrick Coulter met County officers at a site meeting to discuss the Lime Walk/All Saints’ Road junction and other road works in the area. Ruth’s report is here.

A 15-year old girl was sexually assaulted in Quarry Road on Monday. The police are appealing for witnesses and information.

The Masons Arms (@The MasonsArmsHQ) is looking for evening and weekend bar staff. No experience required.

Lazy Gamer, @LazyGamerUK, a new computer games and comics shop is due to open on London Road (opposite Domino’s Pizza) on Friday 17th. Their website is still under construction.

This map shows the location of some of the places mentioned in this report.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

(*)The extracts from the SHDPD in my annotated map are taken from the version that went to the full Council in December. I haven’t checked to see if there are any material changes.

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

  • New Lime Walk and All Saints junction “improvements”
  • London Road – closure of cycle lane
  • Leak/blocked drain at St Andrews Road/ Dunstan Road junction

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.