After lying dormant while all the parties got their act together and the lawyers gave Vital Energi their opinion, the Trust and Vital are starting to move. They held two drop-in sessions for interested locals yesterday (Weds 18 May) which they say were well-attended. When I visited the exhibition at the JR in the afternoon people were dropping steadily in a few at a time.

With the help of their planning consultants they are now almost ready to submit what they hope will be the final and definitive planning application for the street works to lay the pipeline. They expect to do this in June, with a decision following in August so that work can start in September. Construction should last 32 weeks.

As expected, the proposed route  for the pipeline will now run from All Saints Road via Lime Walk to Old Road instead of using Stapleton Road. Lime Walk (the southern half – the northern half isn’t directly affected) will be able to stay open with traffic lights controlling alternate flows. Disruption to Old Road will be reduced because a shorter stretch will need to be excavated. Apart from this the rest of the project is as it was before.

As reported elsewhere, Lime Walk residents are beginning to ask about compensation for the disruption, with payment for permanent traffic calming measures being a favorite. No doubt there will be more about this at the next Stakeholder Liaison meeting early in June.

The display panels from the exhibition are here, and you can send your own comments to the Trust and Vital by 27 May (link on the same page).

Vital Energi and the Hospital Trust are preparing to submit a new planning appplication for the heatpipe work between the JR and Churchill hospitals. Before making the formal application they have arranged two drop-in sessions for the community to see the proposals and discuss them with project staff.

The two sessions are both on Wednesday 18 May:

• 0830 to 1100 at the Churchill Hospital League of Friends Café (go in the Main Entrance and turn right), and
• 1500 to 1930 at the JR League of Friends Café (go in the Main Entrance and straight ahead).

The official notice is here, but note that the afternoon session has been extended to 7.30pm to allow people to visit after work.

I couldn’t go to the latest Energy Project Stakeholders’ Liaison meeting last Thursday, but a report in The Oxford Mail and information from people who were there confirms that Vital Energi have withdrawn their current planning application covering the street works. It seems they’ve now admitted publicly what we knew privately, that they haven’t constructed a heatpipe through an established residential area before and have never been challenged to submit a planning application. It makes me wonder if any of the parties are asking what the experts in the Carbon & Energy Trust who brokered the scheme have to say about their role in setting the scheme up in the first place.

Anyway, Vital have now called in the professionals and engaged planning consultants Turleys to draw up a new application. This will seek approval for the heatpipe to take a new route. Instead of going from All Saints Road to Old Road via Stapeton Road, the pipe will continue to Lime Walk and then go along the southern half of Lime Walk to Old Road and then to Churchill Drive. I understand they believe Lime Walk is wide enough not to have to be closed to all traffic, which would have been the case in Stapleton and will still be true for Latimer and Sandfield Roads.

The Oxford Mail reports that Vital Energi are now saying “the rough schedule at the moment is to put an application in again in May and then after comments and committee to hopefully start work at the beginning of September.” Whether all parties can be clever enough to avoid the heatpipe and Access to Headington work clashing remains to be seen.