Headington Headlines #51

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 20 – 26 February —

Headington Headlines is one year old this week. My first round-up of local news covered the week 21 – 27 February 2011.

Starting with news from the retail sector, just over a year since it closed the Londis on the corner of Windmill Road re-opened under new ownership on Saturday. The same day @LazyGamerUK held a ‘pre-launch’ event prior to opening fully next week. There’s been some discussion of the shop’s prospects on the e-democracy forum under the ‘Costa Coffee‘ thread, oddly. Go down to the post dated Feb 21 09:09 for the first mention.

A shark to rival @Bill_Heine‘s has appeared outside Posh Fish as part of the redecorations after their fire. [Hooray! – Ed] Council planners are going to decide whether it needs planning permission. [Boo! – Ed]

Meanwhile, Marston residents are threatening to boycott Tesco when the new store opens on the site of the old Friar pub. Nearly 200 people attended a protest meeting.

Headington Action held an informal meeting on Monday to discuss how to encourage people to hold street parties this summer.

On Tuesday local Councillors for Headington Ward held a Ward Focus meeting at Headington School, focussing on cycling issues. You can read their report here.

Marston & Northway Neighbourhood Policing Team carried out an operation to enforce the ‘Access Only’ restrictions in Elms Drive, Marston on Thursday. One vehicle was given a ticket. @TVP_Marston reported bin fires in Stockleys Road on Saturday and asked for any information. Phone 101 if you can help.

Several groups are threatening to invoke the Town Green legislation to protect bits of land affected by the Barton West development plans. Northway Residents’ Group will try to protect land between Foxwell Drive and the A40 which would be affected by one of the access links, and Barton residents want to protect the Barton nature park. Technically separate but still tied in to the same development, Friends of Old Headington are campaigning to have Ruskin Fields declared a Town Green in an effort to thwart Ruskin College’s hopes of developing the site.

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

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

  • The Friar Pub Marston and Tesco
  • Costa Coffee
  • New Lime Walk and All Saints junction “improvements”
  • Peacocks

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 #50

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 13 – 19 February —

A power cut just after mid-day on Tuesday hit Headington and a much wider area. Time out varied locally from a few minutes to more than quarter of an hour. Apparently it was caused by workmen accidentally cutting through a cable. There was another power cut affecting parts of Marston and Headington for several hours on Saturday.

The row over Woodeaton Quarry resurfaced this week with local residents still unhappy about the plans to use the quarry to dump solid waste. My blog post from last August shows where the quarry is.

Oxford Brookes Restaurant joined twitter – @OBRestaurant. Computer games and comics store Lazygamer @LazyGamerUK didn’t meet its opening date target of Friday. They hope it’ll be sometime this week.

Dismay over the roadworks in the Highfield area continued with many people failing to see the rationale behind the changes. @RuthWilk wrote: The County Council will set up a build-out in All Saints Road next Monday 20 February. Residents have raised concerns about traffic cutting the corner when turning right at speed into Latimer Road from the Lime Walk/Stapleton Road direction. This is a pilot and the new layout will be monitored to see how well it works.

Pupils from St Andrew’s School made 24 bird boxes for Bury Knowle Park under guidance from the Friends of Bury Knowle Park and the RSPB. The boxes were funded by Headington Action. (Report via @RuthWilk).

Headington Action is also encouraging residents to pull out all the stops and make Headington "out-do all the other areas of Oxford this year" in organising Diamond Jubilee street parties. (Warning: this link to @TheOxfordMail‘s article will get you one of their Very Annoying full-screen adverts which completely obliterates the start of the article.) The street party initiative is being led by @OxStreets, aka Oxford Streets for People under the auspices of @OxCivicSoc.

The new bus timetables for routes 8 & 9 started yesterday (Sunday 19 Feb). We’ll have to wait to see if it makes any difference.

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

  • Clarification needed on the joint ticketing bus scheme.
  • A festival of street parties in Headington during the Jubilee weekend?
  • The Friar Pub Marston and Tesco

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 #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.