Northway

Headington Headlines #102

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 4 – 10 March.

A public meeting and presentation on the Haboakus Northway developments was held on Monday evening. Publicity beforehand was limited – it does not appear to have been publicised outside Marston. I wasn’t there but I had a report from someone who was which I’ve added to the blog.

Notes of last week’s meeting which decided to go ahead with a Neighbourhood Plan for Headington are now online.

The owner of the Oxford Food Store (London Road, towards Green Rd roundabout) was fined £750 plus costs for fly-tipping after dumping sheep heads in a lay-by in Wootton. He claimed the devil took control of him but told the magistrate he now feels ‘back to normal’.

Reports of a smokey smell which started on Monday were traced to a fire in a field near Thornhill P&R. Residents in Sandhills and Risinghurst had the worst of it and some complained it spoiled their enjoyment of the best day’s weather of the year so far. It turned out that 40 tons of hay had been burning. The e-dem forum has the story.

Churchill Ward Councillor @MarkLygo shaved his head and beard for charity – the Oxford Children’s Hospital.

There was a robbery in Greggs early on Thursday morning as they were opening the shop. Money was taken but there are no reports of anyone being hurt.

Headington’s newest street, Blackburn Close (the new flats between the Manor Hospital and the London Road) was being landscaped this week in preparation for the first occupants to move in. If you don’t know why it’s called Blackburn Close and what the connection is with Barbara “Walkies” Woodhouse @HeadingtonNews has the answer.

There are reports that the infamous JR/Saxon Way (non-)rising bollards are being replaced.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

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

  • Blockbusters in Headington is closing after all
  • Redevelopment of Northway
  • Northway developments / Greensuare / Haboakus
  • Crown and Thistle
  • Burning Waste at Thornhill
  • Traffic on A40 / London Road increasing?
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.

Headington Headlines #98

TonyOX3

Here’s my rather planning-heavy weekly round-up of local news for 4 – 10 February.

Warneford Lane is closed for resurfacing between Morrell Avenue and Gipsy Lane. The closure is scheduled to last two weeks.

Greg, the Gregg’s pigeon, struck again closing the shop once more.

The multi-use sports facility at Peat Moors (west of The Slade opposite Wood Farm) reopened after a £40,000 refurbishment.

Oxford City Council installed three new bench seats on the pavement up Headington Hill. The bottom one looks out across South Park; the middle and upper ones face the other side of the cutting.

The details of the proposed Haboakus developments in Northway finally went public, though they seem to have sidestepped the Council’s planning search system. Writing on the e-democracy forum Councillor Roy Darke reports that there will be a public meeting in Cowley on 20 Feb – details not yet available. Background and links on the ‘Development‘ page.

The East Area Planning Forum took place in the Town Hall on Tuesday evening. The Committee agreed to extend @Ruskin_College‘s planning permission for new residential blocks. Item 117 in the Council Minutes refers.

@EFOxford want to install a circular stone seat within their own grounds as the piece of ‘public art’ they are required to provide under a planning permission granted earlier. The artist’s proposal looks artistic enough, but is it right to describe it as public? You can comment here.

Martin Young has submitted yet another planning application for 29 Old High Street. This one is for the “partial demolition of existing house and demolition of existing garages and outbuildings. Erection of two storey side and rear extension. Provision of new access, car parking and turning area. Rebuilding of stone boundary wall”. It’s reference 13/00311/FUL, but there are no details yet so nothing to comment on.

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

  • Traffic lights
  • Saxon Way bus gate
  • Redevelopment of Northway
  • Church Bells in Ferry Rd, Marston
  • Badgers
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.

Northway Developments – Haboakus

TonyOX3

Developers Haboakus have finally submitted planning applications for three developments in Oxford. Two of the them are in Northway, the third in Cowley. The applications were submitted at least a week ago (week beginning 31 December or before) but as I write this they still haven’t appeared online.

Who’s Who?

Haboakus is a joint venture. The ‘Hab’ part is TV celebrity architect Kevin McCloud’s company. Hab stands for Happiness, Architecture, Beauty.

Oakus is a trading name of housing asociation GreenSquare, which incorporates what used to be the Oxford Citizens’ Housing Association. OCHAs, presumably pronounced Oakus. Neat, eh?

Tenure

The developers say that most of the accommodation will be affordable housing for rent or shared ownership, with a small proportion for sale on the open market.

On Display

These developments have been much delayed: I first wrote about them in Headington Headlines #3 back in March 2011. I learned that the final proposals were on show at GreenSquare’s offices in Cowley so I went to have a look. I was disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, to find the display consisted of only two small boards on the wall in Reception. There were no plans or technical drawings, only a few rather sketchy artist’s impressions. For what it’s worth I’ve copied the text relating to the two Northway sites.

Westlands Drive

The [project] sits on the corner of Westlands Drive and Sutton Road, next to the Northway Evangelical Church and Plowman Tower. The proposed building is a three-storey mansion block containg 21 one- and two-bedroom flats. The block is in fact two blocks split on either side of a central ‘winter garden’ which allows more daylight and cross-ventilation to all homes and creates opportunities for residents to meet and chat.

Dora Carr Close

[The development] will provide 47 new homes including 15 three-bedroom houses, 4 four-bedroom houses and a four-storey mansion block containing 28 one- and two-bedroom flats. As at Westlands Drive the mansion block has an enclosed winter garden running down its centre. The proposal also provides new state-of-the-art community facilities including a mulit-use hall with improved sports changing rooms, social and café areas, local business units, education and learning space and outdoor areas for growing food. This new venue will have the capacity to host social occasions such as weddings, conferences and sports events.

These are the best pictures I could get of the drawings. There should be better ones once the planning application goes public. You can see the location of the two sites on this map.

The precise boundaries may not be right and I’ll adjust them once the plans are available. [Update 9 Feb 2013: The boundaries shown correspond with the plans published in the planning applications.]

My Thoughts

It’s a bit early to get any real idea what these developments will look like and what impact they will have on the local area. An Oxford Mail report suggested there may still be local opposition. Purely as a first reaction I rather like the idea of the ‘winter garden’ (I would call it an atrium) to bring light and air into the ‘mansion blocks’ (or ‘blocks of flats’). The idea of residents meeting and chatting is the kind of worthy idealism we might expect from Kevin McCloud. It will be great if it happens, but it remains to be seen how realistic it turns out to be.

Apparently the City Council say it takes a long time to get ‘big developments like this’ into the online planning enquiry system. I hope that doesn’t mean the time comes out of the statutory consultation period, but I fear it might. If you know please leave a comment!