Headington Headlines #61

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 30 April – 6 May —

The elections of half the Councillors to the City Council took place on Thursday. The results nationwide have been extensively covered: locally five out of six wards returned their sitting candidates. The exception was Marston which elected Independent candidate and well-known local campaigner Mick Haines. The local results are summarised here, and my short report is here. The turnout in Headington Ward (41.35%) where @RuthWilk was re-elected was the highest of any ward in the City and Marston’s turnout was third highest.

In the run-up to the election Dr Julia Gasper, the UKIP candidate for Quarry & Risinghurst, said she had received death threats after publicity was given to comments she made in 2010 about homosexuals and linking homosexuality with paedophilia. @TheOxfordMail story summarises; Pink News reported the story on 27 and 30 April.

In other news @sundersandher of Headington Londis stores joined twitter.

Hair stylists Africare in Windmill Road has closed.

Headington residents have formed a cycling lobby group which held its first meeting last week.

@TheOxfordMail reported that the Dept of Health has offered Warneford Meadow for sale to the County and City Councils. The County has declined and the City say it’s too expensive though they are willing to negotiate. The asking price hasn’t been revealed.

The Sikh community has submitted a new planning application (ref 12/00990/FUL) to convert 295-297 London Road into a temple.

Private equity group Terra Firma is buying Four Seasons Health Care, owners of The Albany Nursing Home and the Headington Care Home.

The designs for the new Maggie’s Centre at the Nuffield Hospital have been published. The concept is based on the idea of a tree house.

EF International Academy published the results of their recent public consultation exercise on Cotuit Hall. A full planning application is about to be submitted. Meanwhile the internal re-fit of the existing buildings will start on 14 May and will last about 16 weeks.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week (no prizes for accuracy):

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

  • Restaurant application for former Tote betting shop in Marston Road
  • Is a wider process needed for consents for Transport Plans?
  • Northway Pharmacy
  • New Lime Walk and All Saints junction “improvements”
  • Flooding along Marston Meadows Cycle Track
  • Sikh temple in Cherwell Drive
  • Policing of bus lanes
  • Lack of bins with recycling sections in Oxford
  • City Council election on Thursday 3 May 2012
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.