Birmingham City Council has put the Stansfeld Centre off Quarry Road on the market. They are selling a 250 year lease in a two stage process, inviting bids from which they will draw up a shortlist for final negotiations. As the site has been registered as an Asset of Community Value (see the registration details here) the registrants, the Friends of Quarry Residents’ Association, have six months to try and buy the site. In practice it’s more likely that they will try to find a developer with whom they can partner so they can have control over the woodland area and the developer can build houses on the area covered by the existing buildings. This doesn’t rule out the possibility of Oxford City Council being such a partner, or being a joint partner with a specialist developer or builder. Details of the sale procedure and much more detail about the development possibilities of the site are here on Birmingham City’s website.
Quarry
Headington Headlines #200
Another milestone reached – the 200th edition of Headington Headlines! There’s nothing particularly exciting to mark the occasion, but here anyway is my 200th weekly round-up of local news. It covers the week 2 – 8 February.
The persistent rumour that the Post Office might move into the Co-op was given some weight when local Councillor @RuthWilk confirmed that the Co-op “had expressed strong interest” in the idea.
As I reported in HH197, work on the Dora Carr Close development in Northway is starting. Architecture students at @Oxford_Brookes are designing and making a hoarding for the site “where people can share their view about the new development”. I think they mean ‘view’ as in ‘opinion’: it will be interesting to see how this plays out, and whether the local graffiti artists will allow others to join in. You can follow the students on twitter at @NewNorthway.
As mentioned last week, Johnsons Cleaners closed on Thursday. They have moved to Summertown.
Construction has started at the JR of a new ‘Welcome Centre’ which will include an M&S Simply Food shop and an M&S café. However, the site works mean that all the disabled parking spaces right next to the main hospital entrance have been lost. Although the disabled spaces in the nearby car park are rarely all taken, it does mean that disabled access will now be more difficult for some.
The Quarry Hollow street sign by the Chequers was hit by a car and broken on Saturday. Councillor @RosalindRogers is looking concerned and is on the case. She has the car’s registration, so if it was you I’d come clean now!
Active posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:
- Funding for eDemocracy.org
- Pub on Barton Park?
- Review of Housing Policy
- Loss of trees in Headington Quarry
- Does anyone know
Headington Headlines #196
Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 5 – 11 January.
The resumption of roadworks on both sides of the Headington roundabout led predictably to big traffic delays. They are likely to continue until May/June.
Then there were two stories about parking associated with the road works. In Windmill Road, single yellow lines appeared without warning across several residents’ parking places. People were understandably upset, especially as they had paid for permits. It turned out it was all a mistake and the suspensions have been, er, suspended, though they might be reinstated sometime in the future if Windmill Road becomes a diversion route while the London Road works continue. I hope that’s clear.
The second story broke in the Streetlife forum that operates in the Marston/Northway area. Again, parking restrictions appeared apparently without warning. Investigation by @theabingdontaxi found that the statutory notice fixed to the lamposts explains that this is a temporary measure and not enforceable without accompanying signage and that it’s for the duration of the London Road improvement works. I imagine this is again a restriction that will be invoked if the need arises.
And it looks like still more roadworks, this time for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists in Headington centre. @TheOxfordMail reports that @OxfordshireCC will start work this month to eliminate the flooding problem on the corner of London Road and Old High Street (not Windmill Road as stated in the article). I seem to remember that engineers have diagnosed a collapsed sewer as the cause of the problem, although the fall of the road surface needs re-setting too. @RosalindRogers has been campaigning for this for a long time!
Tesco announced the closure of 43 unprofitable stores. We don’t know yet if Headington (@Tesco6880) will be one of them, nor whether Tesco will now scrap plans to open on the old Friar pub site in Marston.
The Holy Trinity Preservation group is holding a public meeting on 22 January at @TheMasonsArmsHQ to discuss the revised plans for extensions to the Church. All welcome.
As the general election campaign juggernaut begins to rumble into motion, I wrote a short summary of the candidates so far declared in the two Oxford constituencies, and made a handy twitter list for you to follow if you don’t want to miss a word, at least from those of them that are on twitter.
And finally….. a tree blew down in Valentia Road in the storms.
Active posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:
- Parcel Couriers
- Maps
- New Headington bus routes
- Revised Proposals for the Development of Holy Trinity, Headington Quarry
- Parking on pavement
- Barton Road Park