That bin is finally on the move! Allegedly…

Bin on the move

Regular website viewers and ward focus meeting attenders will know that ward councillors have spent considerable amounts of time over a lengthy period trying to relocate the litter bin which is presently on the junction of London Road and Kennett Road.

New Headington residents exiting Kennett Road find that the bin obstructs their line of vision when they are trying to simultaneously avoid pedestrians crossing and attempt to pull out into London Road. We obtained an agreement from the County Council that there was evidence to support this and that the bin would be moved.

Time continued to pass with no action on this issue. Following our latest email declaring we would enlist the help of nearby residents and physically move the bin ourselves with full media coverage, it appears that an order for this work has finally been raised. Hooray!

The next question is where to put it. It seems to us that there are lots of litter bins in the central part of the shopping centre, but relatively few from Starbucks and the Royal Standard down to Dorset House. We are asking Street Cleaning operatives for their views – could you suggest a new and more effective site? We’d love to hear from you – either via the Comments button or by email

The bin will be taken away shortly and will be relocated when we’ve all agreed on the most effective location for it. But it’s a welcome start!!

Headington Farmers’ Market

A quick reminder that tomorrow, Friday, it is Headington Farmers’ Market. It’s the place to be! It’s on from 8am to lunchtime and we’re promised aspargus as well as the usual delights of meat, bread and the rest.

Assistance for the disabled in H Car Park

Handrails will be installed shortly at Headington Car Park to assist mobility impaired shoppers to access Waitrose from the disabled car parking spaces. We are grateful to the City Council and the Waitrose store for jointly funding this access initiative, following our intervention on behalf of a shopper who finds the existing slopes too much for her without extra support.

New car parking tariffs

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 As previously reported, new parking tariffs will come into force shortly in the Headington (Old High Street) and St Leonard’s Road car parks. The new tariff is likely to be implemented in 5-6 weeks time.

We are grateful to the residents and businesses who have worked with us to identify and propose a different time slot in the parking charge tariff to Scrutiny Committee and to City Executive Board. There will be a new time slot of 0-2 hours. The charge for this will be £1.20 and it will be reviewed (to make sure it works) in 6 months time. It will be good for businesses because it encourages some shoppers to stay for longer in Headington on their shopping trips to visit more shops and restaurants. It will be good for shoppers because  they won’t now have to worry about rushing back to the car park to feed the meter when they’re in the middle of buying something.

The original charge for the 1-2 hour time slot had been £1.50 so we are pleased that we have negotiated this down on behalf of residents and businesses. There will also be a limited business permit scheme similar to the one in operation at Westgate and more work will be done on this very shortly.

We know that many residents would like to retain a lower rate for very short term parking, and another option we put forward was for two slots of 0-30 minutes, and 31 minutes-2 hours. The Scrutiny Committee felt there was not enough data on how long people park for this to be a viable option at this stage, so we will fight for more accurate data to be recorded

We are also very concerned about Sundays being included in the weekday tariff. Normal rates will apply on Sundays and the Board member stated to Ruth yesterday that any concession to keep Sundays fixed tariff cannot be afforded in the current financial climate. This means that a family parking for 4 hours stay on a Sunday to use the Park’s facilities would be faced with a £12.50 charge, and we think this is unacceptable. We will continue to fight this!

We are aware that this Sunday tariff issue may cause problems for Old High Street residents in particular; they sometimes park their cars in Headington car park and let their visitors use the spaces in front of their houses, because of the lack of resident parking in their area. We are seeking alternative ways of achieving this, possibly by making a business case for allowing OHS residents to park there and display residents’ parking permits as is already the case in another car park. But we will need better data to justify this. Watch this space!

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!