Headington Headlines #147

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 20 – 26 January.

BT removed the unused phone box on the corner of Rock edge and Windmill Road.

Three armed men robbed Stan James bookmakers on Roundway on Monday evening.

A woman’s body was found hanging from a tree in Shotover Country Park last Sunday (19 January).

Homes in Sandhills and Barton suffered a power cut on Thursday afternoon, part of a much wider area including Stanton St John, Forest Hill and Wheatley. The power failure continued through the evening. It was caused by a tree falling on overhead power lines. Local power was restored in the early hours of Friday morning after a generator was shipped in from Bournemouth. And no, I don’t know why Bournemouth.

@RyeStAntony School’s play this year is Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” on 11, 12 and 13 February.

The dugout by the football pitches in Margaret Road Park will be removed at the end of the football season. Complaints of antisocial behaviour have been made, it seems. Elsewhere, Cllr @LaurencePBaxter announced that the City budget for 2014/5 includes a commitment to build a new sports pavilion and community facility there.

Headington’s LibDem Councillors launched a new facebook page.

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

  • Census 2011 statistics by city council ward
  • Quarry Gate pub
  • What did you see last week at the theatre or cinema?
I 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 #75

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.

Horspath reservoir, Shotover – planning appication

It’s a bit outside the Headington area so you may have missed it, but Thames Water has submitted a planning application to construct a second covered reservoir alongside their existing one on Shotover. More correctly referred to as Horspath Reservoir the site is adjacent to the unmade section of Old Road which crosses Shotover Plain before heading down into Wheatley. The land is owned by Oxford City Council. It is in South Oxfordshire District and is designated Green Belt.


Use the zoom icon at the top right of the map box to see all the reservoirs mentioned in a larger map.

The proposal has attracted dozens of adverse comments from local residents in Wheatley and Horspath who are worried about the amount of construction traffic that will need access to the site along narrow local roads. Realistically the only viable access route for heavier vehicles is through Wheatley village: lighter vehicles have the option of reaching Old Road from Horspath via Gidley Way and Littleworth.

There are many documents submitted within the application, all available on the SODC website. The entry page for the application, ref P12/S1147/FUL, is here. Among the papers is a report (“Planning and Design and Access Statement“) from consultants Kember Loudon Williams setting out the need for the extra capacity. In it they say the work will “meet an existing recognised deficiency in the East Oxford area” and provide “capacity sufficient for local needs for the next 25 years”.

Regardless of the almost certainly unrelated recent problems of mains bursts in Old Road residents of Headington and East Oxford should be backing Thames Water’s efforts to secure better and more reliable water supplies in the area. These reservoirs serve, among other sites*

  • The BMW Mini plant in Cowley
  • The JR, Churchill, Nuffield and Warneford NHS Hospitals
  • The Manor Hospital
  • Oxford University’s Old Road Campus (including their own planned developments)
  • Oxford Brookes University’s Gipsy Lane and Headington Hill Campuses
  • The Kassam Stadium

as well as the residential and commercial parts of Cowley and Headington. Although I expect some at least of the major water users have contingency storage to keep them going for a while if the mains supply fails there’s no doubt demand will increase over the coming deacade or two. Security of water supplies is in everyone’s interest who lives or works in the area.

The application is open for comments until 13 September. If you want to express support for the reservoir extension and redress the balance of adverse comments you can do so online using this link.

* Confirmed by Thames Water 23/08/12