Old Road cycle route

At a meeting of stakeholders this morning at Cheney School, many people expressed frustration that developer money still had not been spent to improve cycling routes in this area.

There was widespread support for a 20 mph speed limit on Old Road, possibly enforced by a time over distance speed camera.

Another suggestion was made to remove the central white line from the middle of the road which reduces the sense of certainty that encourages drivers to speed.

Everyone wanted to support Cheney School’s cycling to school policy.

The suggestion to put in speed cushions or raised tables was not so popular.

Another suggestion was to enable cyclists to bypass the queue at Windmill Road junction by using a cycle track painted on the footway which would drop away to the advanced stop line marked on the road.

County officers were asked to look into ways of obtaining extra funding for improvements along this busy stretch of road which serves the Churchill Hospital, Cheney School, the University of Oxford, and Oxford Brookes University.

Uneven pavements

At Thursday’s meeting of the CNHRA, residents told me that the repair and maintenance of uneven pavements is even more important than the repair and maintenance of roads.

Certainly, if there is any question that a pavement is so uneven that it is causing a tripping hazard, it is really important that the Council is notified about it.

In Headington, we have a lot of problems with “root heave” which is damage caused to pavements by the roots of nearby trees. A resident recently let me know about a case of root heave in Latimer Road (top end near the old Dorset House Site on the corner of London Road), and I contacted the officers to arrange for this section of pavement to be ‘ramped’ – that involves putting a layer of tarmac across the top to make sure the pavement surface is even.

DO YOU THINK IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO SPEND MONEY ON REPAIRING PAVEMENTS OR REPAIRING ROADS?

I would be interested in your comments!

If you know of a particularly unsafe stretch of pavement that we need our City Works managers to investigate, please let me know by clicking the REPORT A PROBLEM button on the left hand menu .

Do you want a parcels collection point in Headington?

There have been a lot of emails on this issue lately on the Headington and Marston e-Forum. People are saying that they are having difficulty collecting undelivered parcels from Sandy Lane, Littlemore, and would like to be able to pick them up from Headington Post Office instead.

Do you think this would be a good idea?

Have you had problems contacting the Collection Centre in Sandy Lane? If so, I’d like to hear about it, please!

If a significant number of people are concerned about this issue, we will try to facilitate a public meeting

Latest planning applications

Three planning applications have been lodged in our ward during the week 30 December – 5 January, they are in St. Anne’s Road, Windmill Road and Dunstan Road (Ruskin College). If you want to see these in full, please click on Planning applications in the centre tool bar.  All three have been delegated to planning officers. Last date for comments/objections is 30 January