parks

Headington Headlines #319

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 22 – 28 May.

I’ve updated my list of election hustings of interest to Oxford East voters. Please let me know of  any others, or if you hear of any candidates confirming they’ll be there who aren’t already listed.

After The Slade, the next phase of Access to Headington will be Headley Way and Cherwell Drive. There’s a public exhibition of the planned works on Monday 5 June at Northway Community Centre, Dora Carr Close, between 2.00 and 6.00pm.

A young woman pedestrian suffered ‘life threatening’ injuries in a traffic accident on the A40 near Headington Roundabout on Friday morning. The air ambulance attended but the casualty was taken by road to the JR hospital. The A40 eastbound was closed for about an hour.

Zippo’s Circus, which was due to make its regular visit to South Park at the end of June, has cancelled. It seems there’s another circus booked in the University Parks immediately beforehand.

Kids of all ages in Marston have a brand new zip wire to play on. It’s in Croft Road Recreation Ground, and has been a pet project of Independent Councillor Mick Haines.

An HMO in Holley Crescent, also available for short-term let on AirBnB, has been labelled a ‘death trap’. The owner is already in trouble with the City’s Environmental Health Department.

The man arrested for the murder in February (see HH 305) of Domingos Ramalho in Windmill Road pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court.

The change-of-use application for the ex-Connell’s Estate Agents to become a hot food takeaway (see HH 311) has been approved.

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

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

  • Frontier Estates Multiple Site London Road / Barton Road
  • Travellers

Headington Headlines #316

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 1 – 6 May.

As my commemorative blog post reports, all the heatpipe roadworks in Headington’s residential streets are finished. Work on Churchill Drive is scheduled to end on 26 May.

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.

In local election week the big news for Headington is that the Headington Neighbourhood Plan @HeadingtonPlan was approved by referendum with an 86% ‘Yes’ vote. It was no change in the County elections here in OX3, and new councillor Mark Ladbrooke was elected for Labour in the Barton & Sandhills Ward by-election following the death of Van Coulter earlier this year.

Read my posts on the results on these links:

The Conservative candidate to stand in Oxford East is Cllr Dr Suzanne Bartington. She is currently Town Councillor for Witney’s East Ward.

Suzanne Bartington
Suzanne Bartington

And yesterday evening the Green Party announced that their candidate for Oxford East is Larry Sanders.

Larry Sanders
Larry Sanders

The vandalised Narnia carvings outside Headington library in Bury Knowle Park have been repaired.

On 27 April between 12:00-1:00 pm police ticketed 15 drivers for exceeding the 20mph speed limit in Old Road (via @RuthWilk).

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

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

  • Headington Plan – what’s next?
  • Revised Proposals for the Development of Holy Trinity, Headington Quarry
  • Iphone found

Headington Headlines #314

TonyOX3

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

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith has announced he will not be standing for re-election on 8 June.

Andrew’s replacement as Labour’s candidate will be chosen by Labour at national level, not by the local party. Andrew was nice about it in a television interview I saw but I can imagine not everyone in Oxford would say the same. South-East MEP @AnnelieseDodds has said she is very keen to be selected, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Artisan distillers @thespiritoftoad who are converting buildings at the top of South Park into a distillery (see the original story in HH 269, 286 and 287) have submitted a planning application (ref: 17/00913/FUL) for the “Erection of Visitor Centre comprising cafe/restaurant, tasting room and bar for distillery and public conveniences”. Fans of the Oxford comma might snort lightly at this point. The picture is from the planning application. The window for comments closes on 15 May.

Back in February last year I reported that an organisation called Chapel Street Community Schools Trust was hoping to open a new Free School in Headington. There were some reasons to be dubious about the proposal, and now it seems it’s not going to happen.

Headington resident Ben McFadyean is one of the leading lights behind a multi-cultural football tournament happening at Iffley Road Sports Ground on Sunday 7 May starting at 9.30am. The winning team in the 8-a-side tournament will be presented with a trophy at the Kassam Stadium.

A voluntary smoking ban in the City Council’s children’s play areas, trialled in Sandfield Road and elsewhere, has been rolled out across the whole city. This includes Bury Knowle Park, obviously. Although vouluntary, the council hopes it will encourage people not to smoke in the children’s areas.

Nasher, aka Brian Nash, guitarist from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, performs @TheMasonsArmsHQ on Saturday 6 May.

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

This is surely a record! For the second week in a row there have been no posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum.