DON’T PRICE OUT HEADINGTON!

We are working with Headington’s businesses to get an important message across to  the City Council’s  Executive Board members..

We must keep decisions on parking charge increases local!

The Town Hall is putting the viability of Headington’s shopping area under threat. Oxford’s Labour City Council is proposing to take the decision about car parking charges away from the local area and to introduce a huge hike in charges for Headington’s car parks.

Their plans will increase the charge by up to 100%: that means parking for 2-3 hours will go up from £1.50 to £3.00

We urge the the City Council’s Executive to see sense and:

  1. Keep local decisions locally, being made in meetings in the local community
  2. Back-track from the proposed hike in car parking charges that can only hit trade in Headington at a time when the Council should be working with local businesses to help improve the economy, not planning to undermine it

We support the petition that local businesses are asking customers to sign – if you feel strongly too, ask to sign the petition at shops in Old High Street and London Road

And another thing to consider…the tariffs will now run Mon-Sun till 8pm not Mon-Sat (till 6.30 pm) with a fixed charge on Sundays. This will hit the pockets of Sunday customers and those shopping in the evenings or using the car park to attend meetings at the Baptist Church Hall hard!

Latest on the Waitrose development and Old High St. Car Park

We have been informed that the developers have allocated an area for
disabled parking and can also confirm that they have cross hatched four
bays, allowing traffic to flow more freely around the car park.

We are waiting for an instruction to confirm that it is possible to remove a
section of the car park wall to allow access onto the footpath.  

The disabled parking could then be relocated
over to that area so customers with walking difficulties will have a
shorter distance to walk to gain access to Headington.

Over the last couple of days council officers have indicated that the general
situation does seem to be improving. This seems to be confirmed by a
reduction in complaints. Officers will be visiting the site again next
week to check on the progress made, and update us on developments

Latest on Old High Street Car-Park

The situation is still not wholly satisfactory but some progress is being made. Some signage is up and more is promised. The contractors also accept the need to improve disabled facilities, in terms of both spaces and access.

Another issue has been raised and that is pedestrian access to the car-park now that the entrance from Dead Man’s Walk (next to the Park) is now blocked off by the contractors’ compound. The suggestion has been made that part of the breeze-block wall at the top end of the car-park is knocked down for the duration of the works and replaced by the builders at its end. So far, I’ve only heard support for doing this. Can anyone see any objection?

We’ll keep you posted!

Old High Street car park latest

David and I are being updated several times a day on the situation with regard to the Old High Street (Waitrose) car park.

Signage is going up over the weekend which will help a great deal as motorists get to grips with the temporary relocation of disabled parking spaces and the recycling bins are moved to a temporary location. Officers have requested that Waitrose creates disabled access at the entrance to the car park, albeit temporarily until the usual disabled car park spaces are back in operation after the refit.

Many of the bulkiest delivery vehicles have now departed, the heaviest of these were delivering materials to construct and fill the compound near the store

A complaint was made by a resident that some of the contractors were parking in the car park spaces but were not displaying permits.  This was investigated and it was established that the builders doing this had paid by the Ring Go system, so payment for parking had indeed been made although a paper ticket was not displayed. We have requested that the number of car park spaces is monitored closely over the period of the refit; we are aware that three cars were queuing for places on Friday lunchtime at a busy period when some extra car park spaces were coned off temporarily to allow turning space for the larger lorries.

The City Officer responsible for liaising with Waitrose over the development is Andrew Bradfield-Barnes: he is away for a week’s holiday after Easter but if you have any concerns, please contact either David or myself, or Andrew’s deputy Jason Munro who is working on the Easter bank holiday weekend and all of next week. His office number is 01865 252489 and his email is jmunro@oxford.gov.uk.

Please copy David and myself into any emails you send Jason as we want to ensure that all complaints and concerns are receiving prompt attention, our email addresses are:

david.rundle@oxfordlibdems.org.uk

ruth.wilkinson@oxfordlibdems.org.uk

Headington Car Park

What’s happening to the car park on Old High Street? Several of you have noticed that it’s been taken up by lorries and contractors’ vehicles today. Here’s what I know is going on:

Waitrose are re-fitting their shop and the vehicles belong to their contractors. They came to an agreement with the City Council that, for the period of the re-fit, which will take a month, they will have use of a small part of the car-park. 70 out of the 110 spaces should still be available for users and it is anticipated that that will be sufficient for the expected usage. (Waitrose, by the way, are paying the going rate for using the car-park). The recycling bins are also being moved to near the Bury Knowle wall for the interim.

Obviously, what happened today wasn’t in line with the agreement: most of the car-park was taken up and one observer has called the scene ‘organised chaos.’ Council officers have been promised by the contractors that this was happening because it was the first day; I have asked them to provide firmer reassurances that this is a one-off and that they will be keeping to the agreement.  They have also been reminded that they need to put up notices explaining what’s going on and, in addition, to provide disabled access, as the usual route next to the shop is going to be closed. When we hear more, we’ll keep you informed.

I have also more to report on Waitrose’s plans so keep looking for the next post!