Headington Headlines #83

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 22 – 28 October —

@Headingtonnews reported that “‘Dilligal’, who defaced the pedestrian underside of the bridge over Headington Hill some time ago, had now decorated nearly every pillar up the hill.’ The graffiti had been removed by @OxfordCity by Friday.

Jamie Brooks @oxmailjbrooks has taken over as @TheOxfordMail‘s reporter for Headington & Marston.

Please look out for a long-haired blue/grey cat Millie who has gone missing from the Girdlestone Road area.


Missing Millie

A water main burst in Stile Road on Wednesday.

Robert Stanley Opticians (@RSOpticians) held an opening party to celebrate the complete refurbishment of their shop on London Road on Thursday evening.

It was @Ruskin_College‘s Opening Day on Saturday. There are pictures on the headington.org.uk website. My own picture of the library:-

New buses started operating on the No. 10 route on Sunday. New timetable too.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

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

  • Should Windmill School grow to over 600 pupils?
  • FP 74; upgrade of footpath from Edgeway Road to Fairfax Avenue, Marston
  • Fireworks Display in Risinghurst 10th November 2012
  • anyone know the cooks from 59 greys road
  • MISSING – Grey Long Hair Cat (Millie) – Headington, Oxford
  • New Road being built through Northway
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.

PCC Election Bulletin No. 1

TonyOX3

The official website for these elections has gone live and has details on all the candidates. Find the Thames Valley candidates at www.choosemypcc.org.uk.

Independent candidate Geoff Howard’s details are there, and I’ve summarised them below in the same format as the other candidates in my previous post.

Geoff Howard, Independent
Background: Former Head of Department in a Slough Secondary School. Businessman for 27 years. Magistrate for 20 years chairing Adult and Youth Courts in Berkshire. Former Slough Borough Councillor for 13 years.
Headlines: Politics should play no part in this role. Manage efficiency savings: no reduction in ‘bobbies on the beat’.
Top 3 crime priorities: Concentrate on tackling crimes that affect people locally. Manage efficiency savings demanded by Government without damaging the interests of the community. [Note: The choosemypcc website doesn’t ask this specific question so I have extracted this from GH’s statement.]

I’ll read the other candidates’ statements later and if there is anything new I’ll post it.

Voting procedure

If you’ve had the booklet from the Electoral Commission through your letterbox you’ve probably seen that you’ll be able to vote for up to 2 candidates. What it doesn’t tell you is how the votes will be counted – you have to look that up on a website called aboutmyvote.co.uk. It’s called the “supplementary vote system” and to save you the trouble, here’s how it works:-

  • Put a cross in the first column against your first-choice candidate.
  • If you don’t want to vote for a second choice, that’s it, you’ve finished.
  • If you want to vote for a second choice, put a cross against your second choice in the second column. (Yes, it’s a good idea for your second choice to be for a different candidate from your first choice or you’ll confuse the system.)
  • That’s it. Put your ballot paper in the box.
  • When the votes are counted, all the first choices are counted first. If any candidate gets more than 50% of the votes cast they are elected. Otherwise …
  • It becomes a count-off between the two candidates with the highest number of votes. The ballot papers for all but the top two candidates are re-counted, and any of their second choice votes which are for either of the top two candidates are added to those candidates’ numbers.
  • The winner is the candidate with the higher number of votes at the end of this second count.

I hope that’s all clear. And no, I don’t know why they’re using this system. If anybody does please leave a comment.