Headington Headlines #52

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 27 February – 4 March —

In a now-you-see-them now-you-don’t story that became known as #yellowlinegate road markings came in for criticism, particularly the double yellow lines across the road at the junctions of Latimer Road/London Road and Bickerton Road/Old Road. The story made the national news in the Mail Online, and was covered on BBC local TV and radio and the @BBCOxford website, as well as being debated on the e-democracy forum (see the "New Lime Walk and All Saints junction ‘improvements’" thread). You can watch the BBC video clip broadcast on Tuesday here. And then on Wednesday, the County Council started to remove them, or rather paint them black.

@LazyGamerUK finally opened to the public on Friday. Their shiny new website is also up and running. The launch is reported to have gone well. Discussion of the operation continues on the e-democracy forum under the “Costa Coffee” thread.

@OxfordCity have started another consultation on the flooding problems in Marston and Northway. Details on the Council’s website; Oxford Mail story. A public exhibition and consultation event is being held on Monday, March 19 from 12pm to 9.30pm in the Northway Community Centre.

EF International Academy, part of the larger EF operation on Pullens Lane (Headington Hill), held a public event on Friday and Saturday to explain their plans for the Cotuit Hall site they bought from Oxford Brookes last year. I wrote a note about it.

Marston local police published their March newsletter.

The City Council has written off business rates owed by The Six Bells and The Butcher’s Arms because “the debtors cannot be traced”.

My favourite Headington-related tweet this week:

I think the number of active topics on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week is a record since I started reporting it:

  • New Lime Walk and All Saints junction “improvements”
  • The Friar Pub Marston and Tesco
  • Headington Ward Focus meeting leads to Headington Cycling Working Group
  • Bus Users UK Oxford Group AGM, Tue 28 Feb 2012
  • BUUK Meeting on 22 Mar
  • Costa Coffee
  • Cycles on the footpath
  • EF Academy plans for Cotuit Hall
  • Nasty looking Shark
  • Dorset House

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.