Life in and around Headington & OX3 (mostly), and Oxford (occasionally)
"To every complex problem there is a simple solution, startling in its simplicity, piercing in its clarity, and hopelessly and completely wrong" - Gore Vidal.
Your weekly round-up of local news for 18 – 24 December.
Bins will be collected one day later than normal this week, back to normal next week.
For food shop opening times over Christmas and New Year and other useful seasonal information see headington.org.uk.
The cut-through to the JR from the private road off Sandfield Road will be closed for the day on 1 January (6.00am on the day to 6.00am on the 2nd.).
The story about the Shark possibly getting listed status hit the national media. It was featured on ITV News, and has been picked up by some national dailies.
Parts of OX3, particularly Risinghurst, were out of water on Tuesday evening. Thames Water reported the fault as fixed at 1.000am on Wednesday morning.
@OUH_Estates won an award for Something In A Complicated Category To Do With The Heatpipe. But congratulations anyway to them and @VitalEnergi.
Congratulations to @OUH_Estates, for winning the Estates and Facilities Innovation Award at the Health Business Awards for the CHP district heating scheme. The project is set to generate savings of over £461k and 10,000 tonnes of carbon output each year. pic.twitter.com/98zonXY2XV
However, the whole system is not yet fully operational; the CHP (combined heat and power) engine isn’t yet commissioned.
There’s work going on at the ex-pet shop on the corner of Stile Road (opposite the Co-op), but as yet no information about what will be there. On the other side of the road the promised “Grill House Opening Soon” seems to have been on hold for the past month or more.
The shop that was last Morrison’s is to be a branch of franchise operation Heavenly Desserts.
@LeonardoLoredan has been mounting a one-man twitter campaign pointing out continuous breaches of agreed working conditions by Frontier Estates and their contractors Winvic on the Beech House site, Latimer Road.
The Oxford Mail reports that Independent Councillor for Marston, Mick Haines, is raising concerns about sewage flooding from the Barton Park development once people start moving in to the new properties. Provision of foul drainage capacity is a matter for Thames Water, and was a ‘reserved matter’ in the original outline planning permission for what was then West Barton. A Foul Water Strategy was prepared and the East Area Planning Committee approved the corresponding Condition 26 on 11 February 2015. Whether Cllr Haines is crying wolf remains to be seen, but I think I can hear a bandwagon approaching.
Your weekly round-up of local news for 29 May – 4 June.
I know of only one more hustings for Oxford East, and it’s today (Monday) at 6.30pm in the Sheldonian Theatre, organised by Oxford University Students’ Union. It’s open to all and you can register on Eventbrite.
The hustings organised by Churches Together in Headington was on Thursday (1 June). It was well-attended and four of the five candidates were there; only Labour’s Anneliese Dodds was missing due to a prior commitment. She was represented by City Council leader Bob Price. It was a polite affair at least up to the time when I had to leave, though I gather it got a bit livelier once discussion was thrown open to the floor.
Whether or not you’ve been to a hustings, or have been doorstepped or leafleted by any of the parties, and whoever you support please turn out to vote on Thursday.
Turning to other matters, for the record all the heatpipe roadworks are definitely over. Here’s the last road to be cleared, photographed yesterday.
Churchill Drive after the heatpipe work was completed, June 2017
Although Access to Headington work on The Slade is far from finished, the countdown to the next phase, Headley Way, has begun. There’s a public exhibition of the plans for the work today (5 June) at the Northway Community Centre, Dora Carr Close from 2.00 – 6.00 pm. Engineers from the County will be there to answer questions and listen to your comments but it’s not a formal consultation. No further significant changes to this phase of the scheme are likely.
The Headington Festival took place over the weekend. The extra-large Saturday market was busy in the sunshine and so were the stalls and entertainments in Bury Knowle Park on Sunday, even though the sunshine had given way to cloud.
After nearly two decades when private schools have dominated the competition, St Joseph’s Primary School on Headley Way has won the Oxfordshire Under-11 Chess League. They beat Magdalen College School to win the championship.
The disabled spaces at the JR car park No. 2 were closed off this week. A temporary steel structure and a large crane appeared. This is what the Hospital Trust said on their facebook page:
You may have noticed a very large crane – and the temporary closure of some spaces – in Car Park 2 on the John Radcliffe site. This is to allow vital replacement air handling units to be lifted onto the rooftop of the hospital over the next week. We’re sorry for the disruption and inconvenience and ask you to bear with us during this period.
The first phase of work will last until the evening of Monday 5 June. From today (Friday 2 June), the roundabout by the main entrance, as well as part of Car Park 2, will be closed to allow the crane to be brought in.
A second crane will be brought onto the JR site on Saturday 10 June to deliver steelwork and air handling units, which will then be lifted onto the rooftop of the hospital. This will affect the roundabout by the main entrance only.
Crane in JR car park
The Oxford Mail reports that The Grill House, opening where Connell’s estate agents used to be (next to Bury Knowle Park), is run by the same man who owns the Old Mill Coffee Shop in Chipping Norton. A good sign is that The Old Mill has a five-star hygiene rating.
The anger at the way Frontier Estates has been trying to acquire land to build more speculative student accommodation has been growing. Cllr Alex Hollingsworth has become involved, and apparently the draft new Local Plan for the City which will be out for consultation in the next few months includes an intention to curb such developments. The Oxford Mail ran the story, and to follow the local debate you need to go to the e-democracy forum.
My favourite Headington-related tweet:
Residents in Rock Edge, St Anne’s Rd and Gathorne Rd area looking forward to Endeavour filming in their area on 7 June.
