Headington Headlines #266

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 9 – 15 May.

Vital Energi and the Hospital Trust are holding two community drop-in sessions to show their latest plans for the heatpipe connection between the JR and Churchill Hospitals. Both sessions are this Wednesday, 18 May. Details here.

All my posts about the project are under the ‘Energy Project’ tab in the main menu, and there’s a page of links and contact details here.

There’s a planning application (ref: 16/00968/FUL) to build housing on one of the Lye Valley garden plots immediately adjacent to one of the rare Lye Valley fens. @friendlyevalley are concerned that “acceptance would set a disastrous precedent for development all along this precious green corridor”. They ask for support: the deadline for comments and objections is 26 May. For more info see their web page.

A torrential rain storm on Wednesday afternoon caused flash flooding in Headington Quarry and at the bottom of Bayswater Road in Barton.

The application by Frontier Estates to build a 55-bed care home on Pullen’s Lane (see HH249) has been withdrawn. An earlier application by another developer in 2014 was turned down.

The traffic lights at the Headington roundabout failed again on Wednesday and were only restored by 9.00 on Thursday morning. Morning traffic on the A40 was delayed by up to an hour or more.

@ScienceOxford is holding an Open Day to show their plans for the Stansfeld Centre in Headington Quarry. It’s on 25 May from 1600 to 2000.

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

  • Energy Pipe

Heatpipe Drop-in Exhibition

TonyOX3

Vital Energi and the Hospital Trust are preparing to submit a new planning appplication for the heatpipe work between the JR and Churchill hospitals. Before making the formal application they have arranged two drop-in sessions for the community to see the proposals and discuss them with project staff.

The two sessions are both on Wednesday 18 May:

  • 0830 to 1100 at the Churchill Hospital League of Friends Café (go in the Main Entrance and turn right), and
  • 1500 to 1930 at the JR League of Friends Café (go in the Main Entrance and straight ahead).

The official notice is here, but note that the afternoon session has been extended to 7.30pm to allow people to visit after work.

Headington Headlines #265

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 2 – 8 May.

OK, they may not play at the Manor Ground in Headington any more but Oxford United are going up into the First Division next season. Well done all of you!

It was local election week. The full results and a brief commentary on the City Council election results for the six wards in OX3 are here, and the result of the Thames Valley PCC election is here. [Spoiler alert! There are no surprises.]

Barton has a new police sergeant. He is David Keith, and apparently was previously wiith the Met.

Frontier Estates, the developers of the student accommodation in Latimer Road, have submitted an appplication to vary one of the conditions for the building to go ahead. They now want permission to “enable the student accomodation to be occupied by cultural and academic visitors and by conference and summer school delegates outside of term time”. It’s worth noting that unless this is called in by Councillors, the decision will be taken as a delegated decsion by the Planning Officer for the case. Given the controversial history of this development we can only hope it gets fully considered.

Beleagured Southern Health Trust has appointed a new Chairman to replace the one who resigned last week (see HH 264). The new man is Tim Smart, who until last year was Chief Executive of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. According to Wikipedia he has an Economics degree from Birmingham University and had a long career as a businessman before joining Kings in 2008.

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

  • Disruption
  • Northway Estate
  • Energy Pipe
  • Election results