bikes

Headington Headlines #397

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 3 – 9 December.

Fire crews attended a tumble dryer fire in Foxwell Drive, Northway on Tuesday.

Cllr Nigel Chapman (Headington Hill & Northway) planted a giant sequoia in Headington Hill Park on Wednesday. It’s this year’s planting by the Friends of Headington Hill Park.

Cllr @MarkLygo (Churchill) has described the gym at Barton Leisure Centre as ‘a dump’.

Also in Barton, the city council is holding a consultation exhibition today (10 December) about the redevelopment of Underhill Circus. It’s from 2 – 7 pm and they promise mince pies and hot drinks!

I extracted all the policies in the City’s latest Local Plan document which relate to possible development sites within OX3. You can read about it and download the extracted document here.

Slightly further afield, South Oxfordshire District Council has put the green belt land between Barton Park and the Elsfield road back into its draft local plan. @headingtonnews has compiled a helpful history of the redevelopment plans for this land.

@TheAmpleforth‘s success in making it through its first year earned the community pub in Risinghurst a page in the Oxford Mail.

The Bayswater and Boundary Brooks and other streams in the city have become dumping grounds for broken, stolen or just plain abused dockless bikes.

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

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

  • Massive student development proposed by Brooke in Headington Conservation Area
  • Possible new development adjacent to Barton Park

Headington Headlines #381

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 13 – 19 August.

The City’s Executive Board agreed to introduce parking charges at Manor Place Farm, Marston (see HH380). The scheme now goes to the County for consideration and public consultation.

While the lower (western) section of Staunton Road is closed at Headley Way for Access to Headington work, SGN (Southern Gas Networks) is taking the opportunity to replace the gas mains in the road.

Oxonbike, the original bike rental scheme using docking stations, has closed blaming the emergence of the dockless bike schemes.

The mysteriously-disappearing planning application for an extension to the A&E Department at the JR Hospital has reappeared on the City Council’s website. Its reference number is 18/01851/FUL and the close of the consultation period has been put back to 15 September.

In other mysterious planning application news, the controversial Wychwood Lane development in Risinghurst lives on in a vegetative state. The ‘expiry date’ shown on the City’s website keeps being pushed back although nothing seems to be happening. The previous time I looked the date was 31 August; now it’s 15 September. The application itself was strangely omitted from the list of ‘forthcoming applications’ on the East Area Planning Committee’s agenda earlier this month. Is the new expiry date set to allow for the next EAPC meeting on 5 September, I wonder?

Another report of a sliced bike stand in Headington. Be careful where you leave your bikes!

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

There were no new posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week.

Active Travel for Nielsen Residents

TonyOX3

On 21 December 2017 the City Council gave prior approval to a change of use (ref: 17/02969/B56) allowing the conversion of the Nielsen building by the A40 next to Thornhill P&R into 134 flats. There were several conditions attached to the approval, which was a delegated decision. Campaigners and supporters of active travel will be pleased to see five conditions requiring better access to the site by foot and on cycles, cycle parking, and travel information for residents.

Proposed first floor plan

These two drawings may help put the text in context:

Condition 3 calls for “improvements … to the footpath to the south of the site … to create an appropriate shared footway and cycle access into the site. [This] must be of a sufficient standard for shared pedestrian and cycle use and must be appropriate for safe and convenient use year round.” This access leads into Risinghurst – good news for The Ampleforth!

Condition 4: “Improvements … for pedestrians accessing the site from the proposed vehicular access point to the north of the site. The scheme shall detail appropriate levels of street lighting and footway widths… [and] shall be carried out … before the development … is first occupied.”

Condition 5: “Improve the … current secondary vehicular exit, towards the west of the site, for the use of pedestrians and cyclists. The scheme shall provide details of the closure of the exit for vehicular use, and improvements to be made to the pedestrian and cycle environment including; appropriate levels of street lighting and the reinstatement of the footway and cycle route along the southern site of the A40 at this access. The improvements shall be carried out … before the development … is first occupied.”

Condition 6 specifies a minimum of 326 easily accessible cycle parking spaces, and Condition 7 requires there to be a Travel Plan Co-ordinator for the site and for a Residential Travel Information Pack to be given to every resident when they move in.

Of course, the fiasco of cycle provision at Westgate isn’t a good precedent. Although we will have to wait and see how the Nielsen site turns out it seems to be a step in the right direction. But the city planners will have to keep their eye on the ball to make sure the developers deliver good quality schemes to satisfy these conditions.

Other links: