car park

Headington Ward Focus Meeting (19 July)

TonyOX3

The Headington Ward LibDems held the first of what they intend to be a continuing series of “Focus Meetings” on Tuesday evening in the Baptist Church, Old High Street. The meetings are designed to fill the gap left by the abolition of the Area Planning Committees but are unofficial, which means Councillors, City Officers and other representatives are there on a strictly voluntary basis and none of the business of the meeting is binding on anyone.

That said, the meeting was well-supported. More than 80 people were in the hall at the peak time. City Councillors and organisers David Rundle (who chaired the meeting) and Ruth Wilkinson were there, together with County Councillors Altaf Khan (Headington & Marston) and Roz Smith (Barton & Churchill). Two City Planning Officers, the Estates Manager for the Radcliffe Hospitals Trust, the manager of Headington Waitrose and representatives of several local organisations were there and took part.

The first half hour was scheduled as ‘Informal Chat’, which is a fair description. People wanting to buttonhole their Councillors could do so; others just sat, some chatting to their neighbours.

We then had a series of short presentations and discussions. The JR’s Estates Manager introduced himself and spoke about traffic problems, recognising that the hospitals are major traffic generators. He also confirmed the JR had ‘no intention’ to build on the large grass area between the car park and the Manor Surgery. He was asked, and agreed, to look into a request that the access road from Headley Way be given a name to recognise it being part of the repatriation route for forces killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request seems to have got lost in the administrative process.

Also in this session:

  • the bus gate by the London Road/Osler Road junction being used as a pedestrian crossing;
  • traffic congestion on Osler Road;
  • language schools and buses;
  • property at 29 Old High Street;
  • the Friends of Old Headington’s concerns about the future of Ruskin Fields;
  • the work of Headington Action;
  • success of the “Save Our Cheques” campaign

At about 7.10 the meeting moved on to discuss the City Council’s Sites and Housing Policy document. This has been widely consulted upon and inevitably discussion immediately homed in on the future of Headington car park. The manager of Waitrose confirmed the company’s opposition to any development, and many of the arguments against loss of car parking were again put to the Council’s planning officers. [Note: Friday 22 July is the deadline for commenting on this document.]

At this point the meeting should have moved on to the Old Headington Conservation Area Action Plan but the intended speaker was not at the meeting so David Rundle continued with general discussion points:

  • affordable housing on the Manor Hospital site – bogged down due to changes in the original proposals but hopefully resolved before much longer;
  • “hotel” accommodation for JR parents/relatives/carers of long-term patients – the hospital is keen to do this but doesn’t know how it can finance it;

That was more or less the end. I have probably skipped a few of the things which were raised, but hopefully this is a fair impression of the occasion. The next Focus Meeting is on 16 August at Headington School. A small group of diehards adjourned with Ruth, David and Roz to the pub but that’s another story, although I can confirm that no inappropriate conversation took place.

Headington Headlines #20

TonyOX3

Here is my weekly round-up of news for the week 4 – 10 July.

The Quality Care Commission issued a report heavily criticising standards in the Albany Nursing Home on the London Road. “The care provided fell far short of the essential standards of quality and safety people should be able to expect from a care home”, it says. The Albany Nursing Home is owned by Trinity Care (Crown) Limited, part of the troubled Southern Cross Healthcare Group. It is registered to care for 48 older people. [Latest] Southern Cross is closing all homes but says residents’ care will continue.

The County Council announced it has secured a grant of £5m for transport schemes. Around £3.5m of the grant will be put towards the following schemes:

  • Expanding Thornhill Park and Ride through the addition of 500 spaces
  • Creating a new outward-bound bus lane on London Road in Headington towards the ‘hamburger’ roundabout
  • Establishing two new low-carbon bus services connecting Thornhill Park and Ride with the John Radcliffe and other hospital sites, and the city centre.

Oxford Brookes University’s plans to put a maintenance unit on its £132m library and teaching building have got their neighbours annoyed again.

The first North-East Area Forum was on Tuesday. @RuthWilk and I both blogged about it. The Headington car park development dominated discussion, including in the e-dem forum.

A lorry and a Renault Clio collided on the London Road near the Green Road roundabout at about 07:15 on Monday.

The missing husky story made the Oxford Mail. The original twitter appeal was still being retweeted at the end of this week.

The Northway Estate reached its 50th anniversary.

The Mediterranean Fish Bar in Cherwell Drive, Marston, closed since a fire, re-opened.

An application to build flats in William Street, New Marston has been turned down because of concerns about overdevelopment, amenity space and access.

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

  • The Cavalier pub
  • Tagging
  • Headington area to get most of Government transport grant
  • Headington Car Park site
  • Amenities lost in Headington in recent years
  • Oxford Car Parks

 

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.

North-East Area Forum

TonyOX3
Partly because I live in Headington and partly just out of curiosity I went to the North-east Area Forum yesterday. It was the third such meeting organised by Oxford City Council under the new arrangements for planning consultation, replacing Area Committees: there are 5 scheduled during June and July to cover the whole of the City.
The purpose of the whole event was to consult on the Council’s preferred options for the various sites identified earlier this year for possible housing or other development. I arrived around 6.20 in the middle of a half-hour open meeting before the start of formal business. The north-east area had been split into three parts with a table assigned to each. On the tables were maps and documents identifying the sites and the options. A general display covered other policy objectives which are being developed, on which people could vote using coloured stickers.
By 6.30 there were just over 50 people in the room, including several Councillors, the City’s Chief Finance Officer (hope I got her job title right) and a number of Planning Officers, leaving about 40 members of the public. We were invited to sit at the table for the area in which we were interested. So many went to the Headington & Barton table the group was split in two. A Planning Officer was assigned to each group to join in the discussion and take notes. I joined one of the split groups.
To start proceedings our Planning Officer explained that the purpose of the Preferred Options exercise is to ‘allocate’ sites for specific types of development. This way specific planning criteria can be applied if and when planning applications are submitted. If sites are ‘unallocated’ only general planning considerations apply which could lead to less desirable development being allowed.
After a slightly hesitant start while people were unsure how to start a good discussion got going. By far the most time was spent on the proposal to build housing on the Headington car park site, with parking being retained below the raised buildings – known as ‘undercroft’ parking. It would be fair to say that just about everyone was against the idea, although one speaker (OK, it was me) did say that if the planners could come up with one or two real examples of where this kind of development had been done successfully he wouldn’t be against the idea. I’m sure I heard at least half a murmur of agreement.
I don’t intend to write the minutes of the meeting so I’ll just pick out a few other matters we discussed:
  • HMOs – a problem 
  • A possible ‘hotel’ at the JR for people visiting patients – no support
  • Traffic problems in Headington – bad and can only get worse
  • Ruskin Fields – hardly discussed for lack of time but no-one liked the idea
  • Garden grabbing – the City Council is trying to develop a policy
At 7.30 the discussions closed and Cllr Roy Darke invited each group to report back – this was done by the Planning Officers. I don’t mean this at all critically when I say that little new emerged. People’s views on the various issues are already quite well-aired through earlier consultations, the local paper and so on. One political issue was teased out, however, in connection with the residential care home Townsend House near Headington Roundabout. Government and County policy is to concentrate residential care in larger centres when it cannot be provided at home. On the other hand the City Council and, according to those at the meeting, the general public believe the elderly and infirm should be housed and cared for within their local communities, close to their friends and families.
I think this was a useful exercise. It was a risky thing for the Council to do – they must have had some worries that it could degenerate into a slanging match or an anti-development tirade. I was impressed that around 7.00 discussions at the four tables was in full swing and there was an air of constructive working in the room. I hope people came away feeling they had been given a good chance to have their say as well as to question the Councillors and planners.
The consultation period is open until 22 July – you can comment via the Council’s website if you haven’t done so already. You can also read Cllr Ruth Wilkinson’s summary of the evening on her web page.