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 April.
As the heatpipe works on the London Road continue, we learn that the finishing touches to the road surfaces in Highfield will mean more road closures – albeit brief – in early May. The work is to re-lay sections of tactile paving and to reinstate the road surface on a section of All Saints Road which Vital Energi say they are “not happy” with. For full details follow this link.
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.
After a long absence from the news 29 Old High Street is back!
The recently-enlarged Manor Surgery in Osler Road [*whispers* which has already been open for about six weeks] will have a Grand Opening on Saturday 13 May. @AndrewSmithMP will do the honours and there will be tours of the building, meet-the-doctors sessions and refreshemnts. It all happens between 11.30 and 13.30.
The Desi Lounge restaurant, ex-Bar Meze, seems to have been short-lived. There’s a landlord’s Possession Notice in the window.
Your weekly round-up of local news for 27 March – 2 April.
Last week I was premature in announcing the end of the heatpipe works in Headington’s residential streets, but now it is indeed true. Not that all the work is complete – parts of Churchill Drive will be closed until the end of May, and the work to link the heatpipe across the London Road starts today (3 April) and continues until 28 April. Details of what the London Road work involves are here.
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.
Staying with roadworks, here’s the latest from the County on the Access to Headington work on The Slade. It’s due to start in a week’s time, on 10 April.
The by-election in Barton & Sandhills following the death of Van Coulter will be on 4 May, the same day as the County elections & @HeadingtonPlan referendum. Labour have announced their candidate, Mark Ladbrooke. Here he is in the Oxford Mail in 2013 as an NHS union ‘strong man‘, and in February this year as Secretary of a group opposing the changes in the NHS. Nominations close tomorrow (Tuesday) and I’ll give a full list when I have it.
Some people will have three ballot papers that day. Everyone gets to vote in the County Council elections; Barton & Sandhills will vote for a new city councillor; and everyone living in the Headington Plan area will be able to vote in the Plan’s referendum. I understand the referendum will offer a simple ‘YES/NO’ answer to the question “Do you want Oxford City Council to use the Neighbourhood Plan for Headington to help it decide planning applications in the neighbourhood area?”. The results of the referendum and the by-election are expected overnight on 4 – 5 May. Poll cards have already been issued.
This week’s scheduled meeting of the East Area Planning Committee has been cancelled due to ‘lack of business to discuss’. Which means there’s still no decision on the Wychwood Lane development application on the boundary of the C S Lewis Nature Reserve in Risinghurst.
An unexpected story broke with speculation that OUH Hospitals might be offered land at Wick Farm to build staff accommodation, car parking and care facilities. The land is in South Oxfordshire DC and I don’t know whether it is earmarked for development in the new Local Plan they are working on, so for the time being I think any claims should be treated with caution.
More gratuitous vandalism this week. All the windows of the library bus at St Nicholas Primary School in Marston were smashed overnight on Monday, and the school’s CCTV cameras ripped out.
The Garden flower shop turned yellow in support of @OUFCOfficial‘s appearance in the final of the Checkatrade Trophy against Coventry at Wembley on Sunday. Sadly, the match ended 2-1 to Coventry.
#COYY at The Garden, Headington shops
Another takeaway food shop in Headington? Planning application 17/00639/FUL is for a change of use of what used to be Connell’s Estate Agents (before they moved up the road) opposite Skipton Building Society from “Estate Agent (Use Class A2) to Hot Food Takeaway (Use Class A5)”. The applicant, Mr Selahattin Kaya, used to run a restaurant company called KARAZAN Ltd which was voluntarily dissolved in 2011. The consultation on the application closes on 27 April.
While we’re on the subject of food outlets, Dragon Express, who are taking over the old Rose Tree Restaurant, have applied to remove the outdoor seating and reinstate the area as ‘public highway’. I can’t remember ever seeing anyone sitting out there anyway, but perhaps I was never there at the right time.
My favourite Headington-related tweet:
Here’s a rare look inside our Headington New reservoir whilst it’s drained for inspection. pic.twitter.com/xJ2NZJheaE
Your weekly round-up of local news for 20 – 26 February.
There was a further heatpipe meeting with Vital Energi on Thursday. They are making good progress with just a few delays. My note about this and how they will manage the London Road work is here.
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.
After Jacobs Chop House became Jacobs Brasserie, another restaurant has changed its name. What was Bar Meze is now Desi Lounge Thali & Grill House. According to Wikipedia, thali is an Indian style of serving a selection of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, astringent & spicy foods on one plate. The Oxford Times carried an article about it including some words from the owner.
Vandals did some damage with cans of paint and smashed a defibrillator at Marston Saints Football Club in Boults Lane, Old Marston last week. It happpened overnight on 13/14 February.
At its meeting on Tuesday the West Area Planning Committee approved the installation of a memorial to Oxford men who died in the Spanish Civil War. The memorial will be erected at the bottom of South Park by the International Brigades Memorial Trust (IBMT) @IBMT_SCW who are raising funds to pay for it.
As expected, the County Cabinet voted to sell the Harlow Centre site in Marston to the Government and contribute £2m towards the construction of a new free school – the Swan School – on condition that the Education Secretary seals a funding agreement with the River Learning Trust.
The roadworks at the junction of Old Road and Gipsy Lane are virtually complete, but there are a few snags which I think could have been avoided with better supervision of the work.
@OxfordCity impossible to access new cycle track on Old Rd without stopping in busy road to get up kerb. Result: cyclists will stay on road. pic.twitter.com/HV0YPkQfb2
The new Aldi is going to open on 9 March. It’s where Curry’s used to be on the small trading estate on Horspath Driftway where Homebase is.
I don’t know when it started, but Aviva are running a ‘new’ bus route through Headington, the X8. It follows a similar route to the 280 joining Thame to Oxford Railway Station, but unlike the 280 it misses out Wheatley. Two early buses run Aylesbury – Thame – Oxford, missing Haddenham as well as Wheatley, with two making the return trip to Aylesbury at the end of the day. The Aylesbury – Oxford journey is 7 minutes shorter than the 280; the Thame – Oxford trip 6 minutes shorter.
X8 bus route through Headington. And X13?
This twitter conversation harks back with regret to the good old days of the Manor Football Ground and the pubs fans used to visit.
Police helicopter action over central Headington on Saturday prompted some chat on twitter, culminating in an appeal from the police for information about a missing man. He was found safe on Sunday.
