Future plan for Bury Knowle Park

Following on from discussions with the Friends of Bury Knowle Park, and comments made by Park users, the City Council has put together a draft management plan for Bury Knowle Park which you may like to read. To see the full document, please click here

If you have any comments or suggestions you would like to contribute to this plan, then please contact Friends of Bury Knowle Park at buryknowle@googlemail.com by 9 December or drop a line to David and Ruth

Community message: prevent car crime

The incidence of theft from motor vehicles in the Oxford City area is showing signs of increasing and as we move closer to the festive season the opportunities for theives to break into cars will become more frequent.
Please try to combat this type of crime by never leaving valuable and attractive items on display in your vehicle, most especially when it is left unattended.
If you see anyone acting suspiciously around parked vehicles or properties, please do not give a second thought to phoning the police on 999.
You prompt action could help the police to apprehend a criminal or prevent a crime taking place.
Many thanks for your continued support.

Help plant bulbs in Bury Knowle Park on Sunday!

Sunday 29th November 2009

2 pm

Bury Knowle Park

Come and help plant spring bulbs!

All welcome

 

We’ve got 500 bulbs to plant

 

  Meet in front of the Library

Bring your own tools, gardening gloves etc

 

Children must be accompanied/supervised by an adult

 

Then come in the spring and admire the bulbs you’ve planted!!!

 

 

For more details about Friends of Bury Knowle Park, click here

Reporting stolen bikes

There has been a rise in cycle thefts around Oxford, including North Headington. If you want to report a lost bike, email eastoxfordbikedatabase@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk . Please provide details about the cycle including frame number, colour, make and any distinguishing features. This data will be input onto a local police database and the police will run a check when they stop a thief on a cycle. It doesn’t matter if the cycle is worth £20 or £2,000. If you would like the police to engrave your bike with a postcode then please email the Headington North neighbourhood team to arrange a time for them to visit you.  (see details on the central orange menu bar)

Pissed off with toilet closures?

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If you would like to sign a petition against the closure of public toilets in Oxford, including the toilets at Headington Hill Park, please click on this link.

David and I are campaigning for improvements to be made to our existing public toilets and for opening hours to be extended – if other councils can manage this for less money, then we think Oxford City Council should too

Parking permits in Lime Walk

Objections to the proposal to exclude two properties in Lime Walk should be made to the County Council no later than 10 December –  the address is given below

THE OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (HEADINGTON CENTRAL)

(CONTROLLED PARKING ZONE AND VARIOUS RESTRICTIONS) (VARIATION No.10) ORDER 20**

 

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Oxfordshire County Council proposes to make the above mentioned Orders under Sections 32, 35, 45, and 46 of and Parts III & IV of Schedule 9 to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and all other enabling powers. 


The effect of the proposed Orders will be to amend

 

1. The City of Oxford (Headington West) (Controlled Parking Zone) Order 2000 (as amended) and revoke the Oxfordshire County Council (Headington West) (Controlled Parking Zone) (Variation No. 6) Order 2009, effectively replacing Schedule 7 Part A; and;

 

2.  The Oxfordshire County Council (Headington Central) (Controlled Parking Zone and Various Restrictions) Order 2005 (as amended) revoking the Oxfordshire County Council (Headington Central) (Controlled Parking Zone and Various Restrictions) (Variation No.8) Order 2009, effectively revoking and replacing Schedule 4 Part A.

 

 The effect of the proposals is to:

 

1     exclude the following properties from eligibility for residents and visitors permits in Headington West : Acorn Cottage (2A Finch Close), 50 Grays Road (Flats A, B, & C) and 1A and 1B Old Road.

                            

2.   exclude the following properties from eligibility for residents and visitors permits in Headington Central: 50A and 50B Lime Walk, 119A, 119B, 121A, and 121B London Road.

 

Documents giving more detailed particulars of the proposed Order are available for public inspection at County Hall, New Road, Oxford OX1 1ND from 9.00 am to 4.30 pm Monday to Friday during normal opening hours.

 

Objections to the proposal, specifying the grounds on which they are made, and any other representations, should be sent in writing to the Director for Environment and Economy (ref. MJR/TRO) at the address given below, no later than the 10th December 2009. The County Council will consider objections and representations received in response to this Notice. They may be disseminated widely for these purposes and made available to the public.

Dated:     15th August 2008

 

Huw Jones, Director for Environment and Economy, Oxfordshire County Council, Speedwell House

Speedwell Street, Oxford, OX1 1NE.

Tree officer wants your views

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David and I respond to a large number of enquiries about trees, and appreciate that residents are very concerned and upset when a well-loved tree is felled because it is diseased.

As you may recall, I asked at NE Area Committee if we can have tree matters discussed on a forthcoming agenda. This is to let you know that one of the Council’s Tree Officers will attend the NEAC meeting in December to respond to any questions about tree-related planning issues which have arisen in our local area.

The officer would like to know what information we would like him to bring along to the meeting. If you have a planning-related concern about trees that you would like to raise, please can you let David or me know by 30 November so that we can alert him in advance?

Margaret/Wharton Rd proposals shelved

Cllr Roz Smith and I made a site visit to Wharton Road/Margaret Road recently and a number of local residents came along gave us their views. We sent the feedback we’d had both from the site meeting and from emails sent to us by residents of nearby roads, and the County has decided not to proceed with the proposed works.  

A substantial number of people we spoke to felt the proposed build-out in Margaret Road would not be a cost-effective use of money which could be better spent on infrastructure improvements elsewhere.

Having analysed the responses from local people, the County Officer has said they will be undertaking an improvement to the Margaret Road/York Road junction instead, and are hopeful that this will take place in this financial year.

Your local councillors are pressing for a lollipop crossing person in Margaret Road following discussions with parents of children who attend Windmill School – at the moment this is looking promising, but we must wait and see.

Trial road closures will NOT go ahead

As you know, local councillors were asked just over a week ago to provide comments on the suggestion of trial road closures in Highfield and I advised the County that I would be collating responses and getting back to them by the end of this week. However, to my surprise and (to be honest) annoyance, the County has not waited for that feedback but announced a decision. The e-mail  which I have just received sets out in detail their argument and decision. To cut the chase: the County has decided not to carry out trial closures in the Lime Walk area, primarily  because of lobbying from the emergency services.

Many residents  have expressed an opinion on this issue. Some  will be relieved, others dismayed, others downright angry — there is a wide variety of views within the area to be affected by the closures and adjoining streets. Some will feel that the area has been robbed of possible closures after the press coverage a couple of months back but, as I have said before, the newspaper was misinformed by the present MP for Oxford East: he went to the press claiming that trial closures were definite without either having a written guarantee that they were to take place and without thinking through the controversy his action would cause. He should have known better. But that is behind us and the question now is how we move forward.

I am determined that we do not lose the opportunity actually to get measures to help the Lime Walk area. I have represented Headington for over seven years and in that time I have seen detailed proposals drawn up, then torn up, followed by a refusal to consider any changes in the area. What has happened has now put the issue back on the agenda and we must capitalise on that. The County is now, after years of saying ‘no’, offering to come up with measures for the area, within what seems to me a curiously short time period. I welcome that but what I will welcome more is fuller consultation with all local residents so that they can be engaged in the solutions to the problems that they have to face.

I and my ward colleague, Ruth Wilkinson, will be meeting members of the Highfield RA traffic group later this evening. We expected the meeting to be about our response to the County in consulting on trial closures. The agenda will be different now. What remains the same is my determination — and that of everyone around the table, I am sure — to get to solutions of the situation and not to allow this very real issue once again to disappear from the County’s view.

As always, if you want to contact me or Ruth, please do drop us a line.