Dorset House open for business next week!

Dorset House development

Student room at Dorset House

Dorset House is soon to open its doors to its first intake of students, with the first arrivals expected next week. We look forward to welcoming them to Headington. The building was handed over last Friday.  The ‘house in the corner’ is not part of the student accommodation and there are on-going conversations about whether or not it should be incorporated into the site in some form.

Study bedroom at Dorset House

Student room at Dorset House

We have already met CRM staff on the site and have put them in contact with a number of local residents’ groups and managers of nearby residential accommodation blocks, local businesses and external agencies including police, churches, etc.

There will be 313 students in all, only one will have a car and that is because that student is disabled.  Many of the incoming students are international students which will make for a cosmopolitan environment, and will also mean that many will arrive by public transport.

The postgraduate students and final year students’ accommodation is nearest local residents in Latimer Grange, and the Year 1 and younger students will have rooms at the London Road end of the site.

There is an accommodation manager and her deputy, plus a team of 4 student wardens who are being recruited today.

Anyone with concerns about noise nuisance (and we hope these will be few) should ring the duty warden number. We shall publicise this number when we have it. If there is any problem in getting the noise nuisance dealt with, then the complaint should be escalated to the Accommodation Manager Emily Wright who works on-site full-time during office hours.

Emily is going to attend our next Ward Focus meeting at William Osler House, Osler Road on Tuesday 16 October from 6.00-8.00 pm and will give a short talk to ward residents about how Dorset House is managed. As always we invite you to come along and ask questions!

Residents Name That Street!

After some discussion by residents at yesterday evening’s Ward Focus meeting, the suggestion of Blackburn Close for the new development was unanimously agreed. Congratulations to Gill Clarke for suggesting the new name.  Residents wished to honour Mrs Blackburn who had lived and owned a house on nearby land for a great many years, “she was a good person and took in all stray animals.”

Nuffield Health, Green Square and Oxford City Council planners have already endorsed the suggestion and the naming will go ahead.
  
Feltham Construction got a favourable mention by residents,  the development has gone very well and community relations throughout the project has been very positive. The construction firm has received a good report from the  Considerate Constructors’ site visit too. The building work is currently on schedule and should be completed in December ready for people to move in next January

North Place improvements

In response to requests from tenants, we have asked council officers to make a site visit to North Place on Friday afternoon to assess whether the following improvements can be made:

  • a sign to show that parking is for residents only
  • a second disabled parking space to be marked out
  • a bench to be installed

Ruth will be there from 14.00

Consultation period starts for Barton West

The six-week consultation period for both the Barton Area Action Plan and for the Sites and Housing Development planning policy will run from Friday 10th February to Friday 23rd March.

Consultation at this stage will be more formal than at the previous stages, as Council has now agreed the draft plans and is seeking representations on the soundness of those plans.  They will be running a ‘duty officer’ type of arrangement on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons throughout the consultation period so that members of the public with queries about either document can come in to the customer service centre at St Aldates Chambers to talk through their questions/concerns with an officer.   They will be doing a large mail out (electronically where possible) to organisations and individuals on their consultation databases, and in addition will be circulating a leaflet to all households in the Barton Area Action Plan area to keep them as informed and up-to-date about the AAP as possible.

Following the consultation, officers will produce a summary of the representations received and the main issues that were raised.  This will accompany each document, and the supporting evidence base, when it is submitted to the Secretary of State for examination.  It’s intended that the  Barton examination will go first and may be completed before the main summer holiday period (although this will of course depend on the number/complexity of representations received, and how the Inspector wishes to handle the examination).   The Sites and Housing examination would then follow in the autumn, although again the precise timetable is dependent on the Inspector.

Manor Ground development: work starts next Monday

Ruth joined around 20 local residents at the meeting held by Green Square and Feltham Construction on 12 January. We discussed the new development of 27 flats, and more specifically how much extra construction traffic will be in and out of the site, at what times, and how noise and disruption can be minimised

Andy will be the site manager, and his name and mobile phone number will be displayed on the signage at the junction of London Road and the Manor Hospital delivery road from Monday 16 January.

The duration of the works will be 43 weeks. The schedule for works is still being finalised. Next Monday there will be one delivery from two different lorries with essential workplace units and groundworks will start next Wednesday. A crane will be located on site for some of the works. Timber frames will start to go up in late April/early May and the outside of the building is scheduled to take five weeks.

Construction will take place between 07.30 and 17.00 Monday to Friday with no weekend working (except in emergency) but vans will arrive on site from 07.00. Contractors have been advised to avoid delivering to the site between 08.00-09.00 and after 15.00

Access to and from the site

The private road from London Rd (next to Shell garage) will be made two way -access will be supervised by a Feltham employee.  It will be used by hospital delivery vehicles IN as normal,  by all construction vehicles IN and will be used OUT by any construction vehicle that cannot exit the site via Osler Rd. Special procedures will be put in place when very large vehicles enter the site, and the route for incoming works traffic will be from the Green Road roundabout down London Road.

Concerns raised by residents are being addressed. If any resident believes that sub-contractors are parking outside the site in their residential street they should report this to Andy in the first instance. If these issues are not resolved, or if vehicles are continuing to park illegally in neighbouring roads such as Beech Road or Osler Road, please inform Ruth and David and we will press for further action.

Ruth queried the egress of construction traffic (white vans) from the Osler Road exit as there is already traffic congestion and a history of near misses. Green Square are asking Feltham to come up with a scheme that restricts egress of construction traffic out of this exit – one possible solution is for all site traffic to exit the site between certain times via the private road, supervised by the site manager. We will keep you updated on this.

We have ensured the police, County Parking, Highways, the JR, and the bus services have been informed. If you would like further notes of the meeting please let us know, we will be contacting neighbours shortly to make sure everyone knows what’s going on.

Consultation on housing policy and sites for development NOW OPEN

The draft Housing Strategy has been approved by councillors for public consultation. Once the feedback has been analysed the Housing Strategy for Oxford 2012 – 2015 will be approved for publication. The strategy outlines the housing priorities for Oxford over the next 3 years and beyond and sets out the challenges faced by the City Council in meeting these.

Click here to take part in the consultation on the Draft Housing Strategy which ends on 12 February

New Brookes courses for GreenSquare tenants

Oxford Brookes has teamed up with Oxford & Cherwell Valley College and
the Workers Education Association to sign an agreement with Green Square to develop and run a series of courses for their residents.

The scheme aims to involve more residents in planning and to
create opportunities to build their personal and community development
skills. The soon to be constructed social/affordable housing at the Manor Ground will be managed by Green Square.