parking

Headington Headlines #386

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 17 – 23 September .

If you use the Marston cycle path @Marstonbikepath you’ll be pleased to know that it’s been resurfaced between the Cherwell bridge and South Parks Road. When I rode it they were still working on it. The shared section between the two bridges was being laid in gravel on tar. The South Parks Road end had nice smooth tarmac for bikes and gravel/tar for pedestrians, but I gather this may have also become 100% gravel. This seems a strange choice. I hope I’m wrong, but with bikes using it as well as people on foot I’ll be surprised if this surface survives the winter without starting to break up.

The path with tarmac and gravel
The path with tarmac and gravel

The City Council is advertising for a Locality Officer for Barton. A significant part of the job will be working on the ‘Healthy New Towns’ initiative – see my posts Health and Fitness in Barton Park and HH 280 for the background.

The Planning Review Committee meeting to reconsider the refusal of the Swan School application (see this earlier post) has been scheduled for Monday 15 October. Meanwhile, the school is accepting applications for admissions in September 2019. Does it really only take 11 months to build a school and all its associated infrastructure?

Meanwhile a group identifying themselves solely as ‘a group of Marston families’ is calling for signatures on a petition, although they don’t tell you the actual wording of the petition. It just seems to be ‘leave your name and email address if you want the school to go ahead’. The person starting the petition is named as Tessa Clayton; the Swan School has promoted the petition on their own twitter feed. Beware phishing – you might want to read change.org’s privacy policy before clicking to sign the petition.

Cllr Roz Smith reports that the long-awaited rectification of the Latimer Road parking restrictions will happen on and after 1 October. The wrong road markings were painted in after Beech House construction finished.

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

  • Parking Enforcement

Headington Headlines #384

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 3 – 9 September .

1970s Norwegian speedway star Dag Lövaas who rode for Oxford Rebels in 1975 is appearing at @TheAmpleforth in Risinghurst on Friday this week (14th).

The controversial planning application for the new Swan School in Marston was rejected by the East Area Planning Committee on Wednesday. You can be sure this won’t be the end of the story! There’s a good write-up by @OxMailSophieG in the Oxford Mail.

It’s becoming a habit. The Headington Beer Festival at @TheMasonsArmsHQ had, er, run out of beer by Sunday morning. The perils of success!

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

The Headington & Marston e-democracy forum remains comatose with no new posts again this week.

Headington Headlines #381

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 13 – 19 August.

The City’s Executive Board agreed to introduce parking charges at Manor Place Farm, Marston (see HH380). The scheme now goes to the County for consideration and public consultation.

While the lower (western) section of Staunton Road is closed at Headley Way for Access to Headington work, SGN (Southern Gas Networks) is taking the opportunity to replace the gas mains in the road.

Oxonbike, the original bike rental scheme using docking stations, has closed blaming the emergence of the dockless bike schemes.

The mysteriously-disappearing planning application for an extension to the A&E Department at the JR Hospital has reappeared on the City Council’s website. Its reference number is 18/01851/FUL and the close of the consultation period has been put back to 15 September.

In other mysterious planning application news, the controversial Wychwood Lane development in Risinghurst lives on in a vegetative state. The ‘expiry date’ shown on the City’s website keeps being pushed back although nothing seems to be happening. The previous time I looked the date was 31 August; now it’s 15 September. The application itself was strangely omitted from the list of ‘forthcoming applications’ on the East Area Planning Committee’s agenda earlier this month. Is the new expiry date set to allow for the next EAPC meeting on 5 September, I wonder?

Another report of a sliced bike stand in Headington. Be careful where you leave your bikes!

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

There were no new posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week.