Headington Headlines #140

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 2 – 8 December.

Friday nights are Girls’ Nights Out in Barton, for young women aged 14 – 17. But only from 6.30 – 8.30pm.

Headington cyclist Simon Hunt has taken over from James Styring as Chairman of campaigning group Cyclox @cycloxoxford.

@OxFurniture shut down their not-so-old shop on Saturday evening, and re-open this morning (Monday) in what was Brambles. It must have been a busy Sunday!

Blackburn Close is looking much better now.

A free cash machine has recently been installed outside the Post Office in Risinghurst.

National tree week was marked in Bernwood Road, Barton the weekend before last by the planting of about 40 saplings in Bonny Banks Park.

Kennett House was sold at auction for £2.5m (+VAT). Original story in HH 138.

Barton got into the Christmas spirit with the Barton Christmas Wonderland yesterday (Sunday 8 Dec). A pantomine, face-painting, raffle and tombola were among the attractions.

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

  • Noise in Quarry
  • Chain stores in Headington
  • London Road proposed cycle lane consultation
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.

Headington Headlines #139

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 25 November – 1 December.

Brambles closed its doors for the last time. Well-wishers, souvenir hunters and opportunists were buying stock and fittings up to the last minute.

@Oxonbike going into liquidation means their twitter account is no more.

Talking of twitter accounts, I wrote a short article about some local schools’ failure at ‘doing twitter’.

Is this a new toilet facility or the latest incarnation of the Tardis behind @JacobsandField? No, they’re building an extension apparently.


Picture c/o Jacobs & Field

A story surfaced about a suggestion that land next to C S Lewis’ house ‘Narnia’ in Kiln Lane, Risinghurst might be used to build sheltered housing. As far as I know there’s no planning application as yet, so nothing to comment on other than the story and the editorial comment in Thhe Oxford Times.

The @OxfordBusCo released pictures of its new and bigger coaches for the X90 London service. They say the livery is ‘dual-branded’ so they can use them on the airport services too. The larger coaches will initially be used to provide extra capacity at peak times starting in early December.

A firm of plumbers from Manchester was fined for fly-tipping in a field north of Barton off Bayswater Road.

A care home at Slade House on Horspath Driftway has been closed to new admissions by the Care Quality Commission, who found serious failings in the treatment of patients and the state of the facilities. Slade House is owned and run by Southern Health NHS Trust, who bought it from the Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust, also known as the Ridgeway Partnership, a year ago.

The new grit bin (originally reported here in October) has been installed on the corner of Ethelred Court and Dunstan Road. Headington Ward’s LibDem councillors and the Friends of Old Headington provided the funds.

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

  • Has anyone got a large Santa suit they could loan for a day?
  • Letting Rooms to Overseas Students
  • Police and Crime Commissioner Public meeting
  • Inclusive Neighbours Online Workshop Sat Nov 30 – Kingston, Dec 2 Event on New Voices too
  • London Road proposed cycle lane consultation
  • NHS Public Meeting
  • Sound Insulation & Noisy Neighbours
  • Events in Headington
  • Badgers in Headington
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.

Local schools fail at twitter

TonyOX3

A chance tweet in my timeline and an email from @headingtonnews got me thinking: how is it that two of our local non-fee-paying schools have twitter accounts they never use? New Marston Primary @NewMarstonPS says its account is “The place for up to date snippets from New Marston Primary School”, but it has never tweeted!

Cheney School @CheneySchool toyed with the idea almost three years ago but must have thought better of it.

It doesn’t stop them saying at the foot of their home page “Follow CheneySchool on Twitter for quick updates about school events & news”. #musttryharder, as we say on twitter. Seriously, I’d have thought the use of social media would be part of a modern curriculum. I expect the children could do better than the school offices! So the accolade goes to @WindmillOxford who run an active account.

This article is about the local state schools (if that’s still the right term). Two Headington private schools @RyeStAntony and @HeadingtonSch are active tweeters too.