Bus shelters – timetable for replacement

You may be interested in the 3 year schedule for replacing bus shelters in Headington. All will have seats, and there is a timetable as follows:

Year 1

Headington Road opp Brookes

Headington Rd outside 192/194

Headington Rd outside 214

Headington Rd outside Girls’ School

London Rd opp No. 25 Dial House

Year 2

Headington Rd opp South Park

London Rd outside outside 133/135 Allen and Harris

London Rd outside 137 Connell’s

London Rd outside 23/25

Windmill Rd adjacent Rock Edge (no existing shelter)

Year 3

London Rd outside 108/110 Marie Curie

London Rd outside 236 Drinks Cabin

The staggering thing I’ve learned about bus-related issues this week is that the County Council pays for the bus stop poles and the timetables, and the City Council pays for the bus shelters. So even though there is information space for the timetables (County) built into the new bus shelters (City), the timetables are still being affixed to the posts (County). Another piece of evidence to support the case for unitary authorities?

Oxford Mail exclusive on the London Road lights

Residents may like to see the Oxford Mail coverage of our endeavours to get the crossing lights repaired in London Road, which was featured in our earlier post.

David and I would like to thank the Oxford Mail for helping us resolve this long-running issue, and also say a big thank you to Len and Audrey and Mrs Cox for assisting with our photo-shoot.

More delays – London Road crossing lights

Bad news everyone, this is the latest news relayed to me by the County re crossing signals at London Road/Latimer Road junction

The signal equipment has been repaired but to carry out the repair the
electrical supply had to be isolated (cut off). It is my understanding
that we are awaiting the electrical company to come out and reconnect
the supply. They had indicated that they would be out on Wednesday but
failed to show up.

Your City Councillors and County Councillors are pressing for urgent action to ensure the crossing lights are up and running without further delay

Your chance to comment on Oxford’s future!

Public consultation on Oxford’s CORE STRATEGY (2026)

The City Council is now inviting residents to make comments on its Core Strategy which outlines the pattern of development it would like to see across the City, and sets out revised planning policy.  This includes the development of housing, retail, leisure, transport and other areas of interest.

The consultation will run from Friday 5 September to Friday 17 September

Please click on the link if you would like to read through the strategy and/or send in comments as part of the consultation.  David and I would encourage as many residents as possible to make your views known – this is your last chance to influence the most important long term planning policy document that we have for Oxford, please take it!!

London Road – traffic/crossing signals out until Wednesday

The signals have gone down at Gipsy Lane and there is currently no pedestrian crossing signal in operation near the junction of Latimer Road and London Road because of damage to an underground cable.

The County Council has called in the signals company to investigate the fault, and unfortunately repairs cannot be carried out until next Wednesday 3 September.

David and I have asked that this work is given highest priority.

Amendment about bus services

I have proposed the following amendment to the core strategy for discussion at full Council tomorrow, and thought I should explain a little about why I’ve done it. The amendment is:

I would like to propose that the following paragraph is inserted into the document just above Policy CS16

“Some existing residential areas currently have poor or infrequent public transport accessibility to key local services (such as a District centre), relative to other parts of Oxford. The City Council will work with its partners to improve bus services to such areas, particularly where this will support regeneration or social inclusion.”

There is already some mention of improving bus links between the proposed district centres, and this will strengthen our case for improving bus links between Headington and Summertown. However, having served on the North East Area Committee and having canvassed across the North East of the city, I recognise that areas like Risinghurst get a poor deal when it comes to bus services in the evenings and at weekends.

Another reason for proposing this amendment is to make sure that areas like Iffley, with a high percentage of elderly residents, stand a chance of getting a regular bus service out of the village. It will also help estates like Rose Hill get a regular bus service to its local primary district centre Templars Square – the new district centres will offer employment, amenities and shops so it’s important that residents in outlying estates with high levels of socio-economic deprivation have public transport to these key local services.

Public toilets

There has recently been lots of email traffic between councillors about the times at which public toilets are closed, and in my experience this sometimes happens (at Bury Knowle Park) before the shops finish trading, which seems to me to be rather a disincintive for people to continue shopping in the late afternoon. I have received the following instruction from a Works Manager which may be of interest to Headington residents and users of the Bury Knowle toilets who come to Headington to work, shop or study.

All public conveniences should be open between 08.00 and 17.00 daily and the supervisory team at City Works have been instructed to ensure that this is complied with.

Gloucester Green conveniences are opened at 07.30 by the car parks security team and are closed by this team at 23.00

There are also 24 hour facilities at Gloucester Green, Westgate Car Park, Magdalen Street East (Ladies) and Market Street

I would be grateful if you would pass on our apologies to anyone that may have been inconvenienced by some early closures.

It seems to me that when Headington is enshrined as a district centre in the new core strategy, one of the minimum service level agreements should be that there is one 24 hour public toilet facility in each district centre. Do let me have your views on this!

Oxford 2026

There will be a meeting of Full Council next Tuesday 5 August to discuss “Oxford 2026: the Oxford core strategy”. This is a very important document as it outlines the planning vision for Oxford over the next 18 years, and discusses, among other things, the proposed development of Headington and its infrastructure. If you would like to see this document, please click on the website link and select the section you want to view under item 4.1.

The document will be formally published on 5 September 2008 and there is still time to contact either Cllr David Rundle or myself if you want us to raise any associated issue at full Council. Any planning policy changes in the future are likely to refer back to this document, so we need to make sure it reflects the views of our Group and our residents. Please let us know if you have concerns about anything in this document.