buses

Headington Headlines #318

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 15 – 21 May.

As the heatpipe work on Churchill Drive draws near to an end, the Access to Headington works on The Slade are causing severe delays. The Hospitals Trust is advising people to allow an hour to get to the Churchill and find a parking place.

On Tuesday Prince Charles was in OX3 opening the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies on Marston Road, and Camilla paid a visit to Maggie’s at the Churchill. She probably got a parking space without waiting.

Bayard’s Hill Primary School in Barton was closed on Monday because of a power and water system failure. It was closed, then re-opened, closed again, and finally opened fully on Thursday.

We had more rain on Wednesday than in the whole of April. Warneford Lane was one of the places hit by flooding.

Still no movement on the planning application to build next to the C S Lewis Nature Reserve in Risinghurst. The story has been picked up by Private Eye, but there’s nothing in the article that we didn’t already know.

It looks like Frontier Estates are still in the business of turning Headington into a Student World Theme Park. They have apparently been trying to find people interested in selling their houses at the east end of London Road and in Barton Road. The story is on the e-democracy forum.

The Children’s Air Ambulance charity shop was broken into on Thursday/Friday night and was closed on Friday. The charity is appealing for any information.

Don’t forget Queen Street is closed to buses again, with the 8 and 9 city centre stops moved to that very inconvenient spot down St Aldates. Also the stop for outbound local buses in Headington shops has moved to outside Ladbrokes while Thames Water do some work opposite the usual stop.

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

  • More Headington heat pipes?
  • Dog attack
  • Eight special Headington gardens open on Sunday
  • Frontier Estates Multiple Site London Road / Barton Road

Headington Headlines #315

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 24 – 30 April.

As of last Wednesday (27 April) and until 22 May, heatpipe works mean the 700 buses won’t be able to serve some of the stops on the Churchill Hospital site.

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.

Labour MEP for the South-East @AnnelieseDodds, who lives in Rose Hill, has been selected as Labour candidate for Oxford East after @AndrewSmithMP stood down. Here is her statement to Labour supporters.

Anneliese Dodds
Anneliese Dodds

A burst water main at the junction of Marston Road and Crotch Crescent on Monday was “more complex” than Thames Water originally thought. Service had been restored by early evening.

@blackmambatatto have won the right to retain their web domain name blackmambatattoo.co.uk after the original registrant and designer was untraceable. Good luck with the new website.

Leaflets promoting a ‘Yes’ vote for the @HeadingtonPlan on Thursday have been delivered throughout Headington.

The Iris Project, who run the Classics centre at Cheney School, has opened an in-school museum. It’s called the Rumble Museum @Rumblemuseum, named after Jamie Rumble. Their facebook page tells you more about it and there’s more in the Oxford Times.

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

  • Headington Plan – what’s next?

Headington Headlines #306

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 20 – 26 February.

There was a further heatpipe meeting with Vital Energi on Thursday. They are making good progress with just a few delays. My note about this and how they will manage the London Road work is 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.

After Jacobs Chop House became Jacobs Brasserie, another restaurant has changed its name. What was Bar Meze is now Desi Lounge Thali & Grill House. According to Wikipedia, thali is an Indian style of serving a selection of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, astringent & spicy foods on one plate. The Oxford Times carried an article about it including some words from the owner.

Vandals did some damage with cans of paint and smashed a defibrillator at Marston Saints Football Club in Boults Lane, Old Marston last week. It happpened overnight on 13/14 February.

At its meeting on Tuesday the West Area Planning Committee approved the installation of a memorial to Oxford men who died in the Spanish Civil War. The memorial will be erected at the bottom of South Park by the International Brigades Memorial Trust (IBMT) @IBMT_SCW who are raising funds to pay for it.

Artist's impression of IBMT memorial

As expected, the County Cabinet voted to sell the Harlow Centre site in Marston to the Government and contribute £2m towards the construction of a new free school – the Swan School – on condition that the Education Secretary seals a funding agreement with the River Learning Trust.

The roadworks at the junction of Old Road and Gipsy Lane are virtually complete, but there are a few snags which I think could have been avoided with better supervision of the work.

The new Aldi is going to open on 9 March. It’s where Curry’s used to be on the small trading estate on Horspath Driftway where Homebase is.

I don’t know when it started, but Aviva are running a ‘new’ bus route through Headington, the X8. It follows a similar route to the 280 joining Thame to Oxford Railway Station, but unlike the 280 it misses out Wheatley. Two early buses run Aylesbury – Thame – Oxford, missing Haddenham as well as Wheatley, with two making the return trip to Aylesbury at the end of the day. The Aylesbury – Oxford journey is 7 minutes shorter than the 280; the Thame – Oxford trip 6 minutes shorter.

Bus stop showing X8 bus route
X8 bus route through Headington. And X13?

This twitter conversation harks back with regret to the good old days of the Manor Football Ground and the pubs fans used to visit.

Police helicopter action over central Headington on Saturday prompted some chat on twitter, culminating in an appeal from the police for information about a missing man. He was found safe on Sunday.

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

  • Hospital Parking
  • London Road cycle path
  • Disruption