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.
With roadworks for the OUH Energy Project (the heatpipe) starting on 28 November, ‘No Parking’ notices have been posted on all the affected roads. The notices say parking is suspended for the whole duration of the works – four and a half months.
Following the inevitable – and fully justified – outcry the Hospital Trust has circulated this statement:
The County Council has put up erroneous notices saying that all parking is banned in all the residential streets for the duration of the Energy Link. This was done for all the right reasons and with the best intentions, but we have now agreed with the parking team that we will inform them 2 weeks in advance of the need to close off parking bays so that there is a “rolling” system and, therefore, as few parking spaces as possible will be closed off at any one time.
Your weekly round-up of local news for 14 – 20 November.
With heatpipe work starting in Sandfield Road early in the New Year, local councillors held a street surgery on Sunday (20 November) in Sandfield Road for residents to ask any questions about how they will be affected. The full schedule of works and timings as they stand at the moment are on the project’s website.
Heatpipe Street Surgery in Sandfield Road
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.
The civil engineering contractors @C_A_Blackwell preparing the @BartonPark_ site for the housebuilders reported that the major earthworks are completed and that their work on the A40 junction is complete apart from some minor work to be done in the new year. This coincided with the removal of the 30mph speed limit around the new junction.
There were reports of ‘vandalism’ – or just plain stupid behaviour – at the Access to Headington roadworks at the Gipsy Lane/Old Road junction. Lights, barriers and signs were turned round or moved.
Headington library re-opened on Wednesday after being closed while the boiler was repaired.
I wrote another instalment of the story of the planning application to build next to the C S Lewis nature reserve in Risinghurst.
The thread “Lime Walk Planning Permission for THREE storey block of flats” in the H&M e-democracy forum is about 91 Lime Walk. The application is to demolish the existing bulding and to build in its place a 3-storey block of 9 flats. This is the house in question.
91 Lime Walk (pic: Google maps)
My favourite Headington-related tweet of the week:
Work in the public realm on the heatpipe project, or hospital energy project to give it its proper name, is about to start again. It’s been confirmed that work on the JR Temporary Car Park will begin on 14 November and work on the residential roads on 28 November. In a letter distributed to Highfield residents the Trust says:
[Work will] begin on 28th November 2016 and run until 13th April 2017 in Highfield and finish 19th May on Churchill Drive. Vital Energi is now using three dig teams, which has halved the original schedule. Vital Energi and Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) are also working very closely with Access to Headington and the Winvic developers to ensure that all our works are coordinated. On 28th November, work will commence at two locations: All Saints Road junction with Barrington Close onto Lime Walk (where there will be temporary three-way traffic lights) and from Latimer Road down to the junction with Latimer Grange.
You can read the letter to residents here. It will be distributed more widely later this month.
