shark

Headington Headlines #75

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 20 – 26 August —

Oxfordshire County Council which runs Thornhill and Water Eaton park & ride car parks is proposing to introduce charges for parking longer than 11 hours (parking is currently free). The plan is to charge £3 for parking from 11hrs up to 24hrs and more thereafter. The move is intended to deter/raise revenue from people who use the car parks for commuting into London. The proposals are open for consultation: you can give your views here. Report from BBC Oxford.

New tenants have moved into @Bill_Heine‘s shark house in New High Street. The Oxford Times carried a profile piece. You might find the very last sentence surprising!

Teenager Abu Bakkar who had been missing from his home in Barton was found safe and well on Wednesday.

Twelve cyclists were each fined £30 for cycling on Headington pavements.

What seems to have become the annual Foodies’ Festival took place in South Park over this weekend.

I blogged about Thames Water’s plans to extend the reservoir on Old Road at the top of Shotover (Horspath reservoir). Wheatley folk are understandably concerned about the construction traffic and have registered their views on the planning application. Some balance from the areas of Oxford which will benefit (Headington/East Oxford) wouldn’t go amiss – links in the blog piece.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

Headington and Wilk give voters a real choice. My story; hometownstation.com/index.php?opti…

— Mark Archuleta(@Mark_Archuleta) August 21, 2012

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

  • Thornhill Park & Ride: proposed charges for 11+ hours
  • walking dogs in Bury Knowle Park
  • It’s no fun visiting BKP Library if you are disabled!
I try to cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Headington Headlines #73

TonyOX3

There’ll be no Olympic gold letter box in Headington, but here’s my weekly round-up of what else was happening over the period 6 – 12 August —

Andrew Topping, manager of estate agents Breckon and Breckon is heading a new lobby group “to help keep the area’s shopping district vibrant”. The group is a reincarnation of an earlier group, Business Headington, which lapsed a while ago. The new group has adopted the same name.

A woman had her handbag snatched in Sherwood Place, Barton on Wednesday 1 August. @TVP_Oxford appealed for information.

The Headington Shark celebrated its 26th birthday on Thursday with a street party organised by @Bill_Heine. I put together a storify timeline about it, including some pictures.

Earlier on Thursday the BBC’s Frank Gardner reported live from Sandfield Road on the 1 o’clock news, covering the story about body parts retained at the JR Hospital.

The Oxford Family Sports Day took place in Bury Knowle Park on Sunday (yesterday).

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

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

  • Empty shops in Headington
  • Puddles Outside Waitrose
I try to cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Headington Headlines #51

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 20 – 26 February —

Headington Headlines is one year old this week. My first round-up of local news covered the week 21 – 27 February 2011.

Starting with news from the retail sector, just over a year since it closed the Londis on the corner of Windmill Road re-opened under new ownership on Saturday. The same day @LazyGamerUK held a ‘pre-launch’ event prior to opening fully next week. There’s been some discussion of the shop’s prospects on the e-democracy forum under the ‘Costa Coffee‘ thread, oddly. Go down to the post dated Feb 21 09:09 for the first mention.

A shark to rival @Bill_Heine‘s has appeared outside Posh Fish as part of the redecorations after their fire. [Hooray! – Ed] Council planners are going to decide whether it needs planning permission. [Boo! – Ed]

Meanwhile, Marston residents are threatening to boycott Tesco when the new store opens on the site of the old Friar pub. Nearly 200 people attended a protest meeting.

Headington Action held an informal meeting on Monday to discuss how to encourage people to hold street parties this summer.

On Tuesday local Councillors for Headington Ward held a Ward Focus meeting at Headington School, focussing on cycling issues. You can read their report here.

Marston & Northway Neighbourhood Policing Team carried out an operation to enforce the ‘Access Only’ restrictions in Elms Drive, Marston on Thursday. One vehicle was given a ticket. @TVP_Marston reported bin fires in Stockleys Road on Saturday and asked for any information. Phone 101 if you can help.

Several groups are threatening to invoke the Town Green legislation to protect bits of land affected by the Barton West development plans. Northway Residents’ Group will try to protect land between Foxwell Drive and the A40 which would be affected by one of the access links, and Barton residents want to protect the Barton nature park. Technically separate but still tied in to the same development, Friends of Old Headington are campaigning to have Ruskin Fields declared a Town Green in an effort to thwart Ruskin College’s hopes of developing the site.

This map shows the location of some of the places mentioned in this report.

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

  • The Friar Pub Marston and Tesco
  • Costa Coffee
  • New Lime Walk and All Saints junction “improvements”
  • Peacocks

I try to cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.