There has been discussion before about this site at ward focus meetings and on doorsteps — a house owned by an Oxford resident but which is unoccupied and has fallen into serious disrepair. Requests for improvements to be done have had little effect so the City Council has gone down the legal route of requiring fairly modest works to remedy the adverse impact this has on the conservation area in which the house sits. The deadline recently passed without the owner taking the necessary action.
That is a brief and incomplete summary of the background. The latest is — as many of you could not have failed to notice —  the heavily damaged wall onto Old High Street has been blocked up in the last 36 hours. But this has been done with breeze-blocks which, unsurprisingly, look hideous and out of keeping with the area. Be assured that the City Council has been notified of this latest act.
When Bill Heine, all those years ago now, decided to cock a snook at the planning regime, he did it with an inventiveness which many could feel actually added to the area. A couple of decades on and it seems the ingenuity that Heine had is a thing of the past.
I’ll keep you updated when the relevant officers have investigated.