Oxford Mail story about an incident in Bury Knowle Park

Headington councillors are asking the Oxford Mail reporter concerned to give evidence for wording in his article that may not be factually correct according to the full police report given to us by our neighbourhood police team. We have been advised by neighbourhood police that the incident is being treated as a serious assault, but not a racist one, but will update this website when we have spoken to the journalist.

Update

The Oxford Mail has provided councillors with information received from Thames Valley Police. We are asking the police for a definitive statement and will post it when we have it.

Stef Garden is elected Headington’s new City Councillor!

 

The Headington Lib Dem team is delighted that our colleague Stef Garden won yesterday’s by election yesterday and would like to thank all who voted.

The result is:

Stef Garden Lib Dem 949     

Labour candidate 419

Conservative candidate 124

Green candidate 67

36.6% turnout was higher than expected

Stef says: “I’m so honoured to represent Headington. Thank you to everybody for their overwhelming support. Now the hard work really starts but I’m up for the challenge!”

Noise complaints

Last year, the City Council received just under a thousand complaints through its out of hours service or online. Add to this several hundred enquiries made by telephone, face to face or as part of general nuisance or anti-social behaviour complaints, and it’s not surprising that noise is the number one cause of complaint.

It has several teams who act on noise complaints:

  • the Business Regulation and Miscellaneous Licensing team deals with commercial pollution, including noise
  • the Private Sector Safety and HMO Enforcement teams deal with serious housing-related nuisance
  • the Community Response Team deals with domestic noise and low level anti-social behaviour
  • the Anti-Social Behaviour Investigation Team deals with more serious levels of anti-social behaviour.

Outside normal working hours a rota of officers from these teams provides the out of hours noise service.

There are no fixed limits for what noise levels are considered acceptable, meaning the teams need a good understanding of the legal framework around noise nuisance and the ability to make accurate sound measurements.

Breaking. Night-time road closures in central Headington from 9/5/18

Signs have gone up to say that London Road closed for 3 nights 20:00 – 05:00 starting 9/5/18 between Headington traffic lights and the petrol station. Here is our latest information from the County’s Access to Headington team.

Stephen Road access will be maintained but from the Windmill Road direction only.

Windmill Road/London Road will be gated and manned for local access.

Access to the petrol garage will be maintained until 11pm.

 

A&E/Emergency Services

Blue lighters aware inc. SCAS and JR – signed via bypass

 

Through  traffic

Eastbound London Road: Diverted via Headley Way

Westbound London Road: Diverted via bypass

 

Local traffic

Lime Walk: Access via Old Road (or other local road)

New High Street: We’ve cancelled the one way so will be accessed from Bateman Street

Osler Road: Access via St Andrew’s Road

Kennet Road: Access via London Road as normal (through gated closure)

Stephen Road: Access via London Road as normal (through gated closure)

Headington Lib Dems celebrate local election successes

Ruth, Altaf and Roz are pictured above after the votes were counted for Headington Ward last night, we’re not sure who was the most exhausted after Election Day!

Altaf was re-elected with a huge majority, and later in the evening Roz learned that she had won a seat from Labour in Quarry and Risinghurst. (photo below courtesy of the Oxford Mail). This means Roz is now both the County Councillor for Headington and Quarry, and the City Councillor for Quarry and Risinghurst.

There was another very encouraging result for the Lib Dems in Headington Hill and Northway where our new candidate Guy Garden beat off the Conservatives to gain a creditable second place.

Altaf says, “I am deeply grateful to the people of Headington for their support and I will do my best to represent them and take action on their concerns.”

Please click on the link to see the results of the local elections held yesterday. The Green Party retained only two seats of the four they had previously held so Labour’s majority has increased by one overall.

Tackling Headington’s dog fouling problem

Dog fouling is definitely on the increase according to the responses to our street surveys. Together with the City Council there is to be a new initiative in the area as detailed below. Before anyone asks, yes we are aware of dog fouling in other areas too (and particularly in New Headington) but this is a good start. We are not publishing dates and times for obvious reasons!

There will be three operations focusing on three hot spot areas.

  • Margaret Road Recreation Ground and surrounding Streets.
  • Franklin Road and Surrounding Streets
  • Pitts Road and Surrounding Streets

The operation will include carrying out enforcement action, updating the area with the PSPO enforcement information and hand delivering educational letters to local residents to areas that overlook green space areas.  

This will be a high visibility operation.