swan school

Headington Headlines #388

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 1 – 7 October .

In an incident that will play into the hands of the anti-Barton Park campaigners in Northway, a 13 year old boy was injured three weeks ago when he was hit by a car at the new light-controlled crossing on the A40. The car driver didn’t stop and the police are belatedly asking for witnesses or information.

A new Couch to 5k programme started on Thursday at Bury Knowle Park. It’s probably not too late to join in; this well-established programme is designed to get you fit with a gentle progression up to running 5 kilometres.

I went to see A2Dominion’s pre-application exhibition of their plans to redevelop the Ivy Lane flats at the JR and to build some new accommodation on Churchill Drive. My brief report is here.

A small scheme (planning ref: 18/01964/FUL) to widen the access to Headington School from Headley Way was approved this week. The wider opening will mean vehicles can drive in from Headley Way without having to wait on the road if another vehicle is trying to get out. The drawing below, submitted as part of the planning application, seems to show that the changed layout won’t interfere with the new cycle track to be built as part of Access to Headington.

Widening access from Headley Way
Widening access from Headley Way
Click for full-size pdf

The papers have been published for the Planning Review Committee meeting on Monday 15 October to review the refusal of planning permission for the Swan School. The recommendation is to overturn the earlier decision and grant permission.

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

  • Swan school planning application review

Headington Headlines #387

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 24 – 30 September .

There will be a public exhibition of plans to redevelop the Ivy Lane flats on the JR site and build more homes at the Churchill. The exhibition is this Tuesday (2 October) from 4 – 7pm at Arthur Sanctuary House, Sandfield Road.

St Andrew’s School @sasastandrews1‘s bid for Tesco ‘Bags of Help’ funding was successful. They can now set up a mobile library!

The refurbished Six Bells pub in Quarry had a soft opening on Friday with a good report from @RosalindRogers. The full opening is expected this week.

Is this the end of rogue parking in Latimer Road?

A technical omission in the original planning permission for Barton Park means the City Council will have to try to amend the timetable for ‘reserved matters’. They will be hoping there are no objections, otherwise there coud be a lengthy delay.

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

  • Swan school planning application review

Headington Headlines #386

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 17 – 23 September .

If you use the Marston cycle path @Marstonbikepath you’ll be pleased to know that it’s been resurfaced between the Cherwell bridge and South Parks Road. When I rode it they were still working on it. The shared section between the two bridges was being laid in gravel on tar. The South Parks Road end had nice smooth tarmac for bikes and gravel/tar for pedestrians, but I gather this may have also become 100% gravel. This seems a strange choice. I hope I’m wrong, but with bikes using it as well as people on foot I’ll be surprised if this surface survives the winter without starting to break up.

The path with tarmac and gravel
The path with tarmac and gravel

The City Council is advertising for a Locality Officer for Barton. A significant part of the job will be working on the ‘Healthy New Towns’ initiative – see my posts Health and Fitness in Barton Park and HH 280 for the background.

The Planning Review Committee meeting to reconsider the refusal of the Swan School application (see this earlier post) has been scheduled for Monday 15 October. Meanwhile, the school is accepting applications for admissions in September 2019. Does it really only take 11 months to build a school and all its associated infrastructure?

Meanwhile a group identifying themselves solely as ‘a group of Marston families’ is calling for signatures on a petition, although they don’t tell you the actual wording of the petition. It just seems to be ‘leave your name and email address if you want the school to go ahead’. The person starting the petition is named as Tessa Clayton; the Swan School has promoted the petition on their own twitter feed. Beware phishing – you might want to read change.org’s privacy policy before clicking to sign the petition.

Cllr Roz Smith reports that the long-awaited rectification of the Latimer Road parking restrictions will happen on and after 1 October. The wrong road markings were painted in after Beech House construction finished.

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

  • Parking Enforcement