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.
Your weekly round-up of local news for 10 – 16 September.
The planning application for the Swan School, refused by East Area Planning Committee last week, has been called in by city councillors. This means the application – and the refusal – will be reconsidered by the Planning Review Committee. For more information see this post.
The Big Draw organisation is putting on another pavement chalking event in Headington centre next Saturday, 22 September.
Campaigners hoping to re-open the Somerset pub on Marston Road opened a ‘pop-up pub’ opposite the site for a few hours on Sunday.
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!
Your weekly round-up of local news for 27 August – 2 September
The planning application for the proposed new Swan School in Marston goes to the East Area Planning Committee on Wednesday (Agenda item 3). Agenda item 4 covers the demolition of the Meadowbrook Buidings and provision of temporary buildings. Under item 3 the report says “Officers consider that the proposal would accord with the policies of the development plan when considered as a whole and the range of material considerations, on balance, support the grant of planning permission.”
The 17th Headington Beer Festival is on next weekend @TheMasonsArmsHQ. It starts on friday 7 September.
The Mosaics/Barton Park development continues to make progress. I’m told all the first town houses have been sold. There’s a new boardwalk parallel to the Bayswater Brook, though you can’t see the water from it, and a small playground for small children beside the flood storage pond.
Rerouted buses using the Saxon Way entrance to the JR to avoid Access to Headington roadworks are being blamed for the road surface breaking up.
With the City Council in the news for contracting the letting of an upmarket apartment in the Town Hall to a local estate agent who in turn advertise it on AirBnB, @HeadingtonNews has been looking at AirBnB properties in Headington.
The city council is preventing new HMOs in saturated areas such as the Gipsy Lane estate, which may explain why there are at least twelve Airbnb properties there. Here is “Valentia Lodge” at £405 a night: https://t.co/joEr9cjDSC
Police are monitoring South Park and Headington Hill Park in an effort to clamp down on drug dealing. They ask anyone who sees anything suspicious to contact them by phoning 101.
The Marston cycle path will be ‘rejuvenated’ this week. The County Council says “The resurfacing will take place in the week starting 3 September, and the path will be completely closed on 6 and 7 September. There will be alternative routes for cyclists during this short closure period.”
Marston’s Independent Councillor Mick Haines has published the second book in his ongoing biography series. I understand it’s currently only available via his daughter’s facebook page; I haven’t got a link for that. [Update 1700 03/09/2018 I now know that Mick’s new book is not part of his autobiography. It is “a fictional story based in Oxford in the 1950s and 60s”. Three pounds of the five pound cost is being donated to Cancer Research.]