Cllr Keith R Mitchell CBE
This page was last updated
29-01-2011
The views expressed in this Blog are mine and do not necessarily represent County Council policy
Banbury Fire Station Open Day Lynda and I visited the Banbury Fire Station Open Day today. The fire station was bustling with local people. Children were clambering inside fire engines and having their photographs taken; there were fire safety and road safety displays; there were displays of various Fire & Rescue skills including rescue from the fire station tower; there was also a selection of items for sale with all proceeds to The Fire Fighters Charity. We were warmly welcomed by Malcolm Jones, the Station Manager who was newly arrived from Birmingham and was very enthused about the community involvement of Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service.
Belcher's Bridge I have an agreement with our Jack Russell terrier. He likes going for a walk; I enjoy a pint at lunch time. So, when I am working from home, I walk him along the canal towpath from Nell Bridge Lock to the Great Western Arms between Aynho and Clifton. He is learning to enjoy sitting in a pub, particularly when the customers fuss him!
After Nell Bridge Lock, there is the diamond-shaped Aynho Weir Lock and then a good walk until you come to Belcher's Bridge. This is a lift bridge but was badly damaged when a boat crashed into it some time ago. British Waterways have done a great job, if a slow one, in refurbishing the brickwork and now constructing on site and lifting into place the new wooden lift bridge. Here is a picture, care of The Oxford Mail, showing the work in progress.
Watching how they constructed a temporary dam to work on the brickwork was interesting. Then, carefully constructing the bridge which came in 40 pieces and lifting it into place with a crane was a fascinating exercise.
If you park at Nell Bridge and walk south along the footpath, it will take you just half an hour to reach The Great Western Arms which I can greatly recommend. Alternatively, you can drive directly along the Aynho/Clifton/Deddington road but you won't get to see Belcher's Bridge or the varied wild life along the canal.
Congratulations to Peter Barwell of Bloxham who has managed to raise £3,000 in advertising revenue from local businesses to support the Oxfordshire Museums Council brochure which will continue to be produced to help tourism in Oxfordshire and support local, voluntary museums like the Bloxham Museum. Special thanks to Bloxham Mill, Bloxham School, Bicester Village, Oxford Airport, Smiths of Bloxham and Stagecoach for supporting the publication with full page advertisements. As Peter Barwell said to me "We are all part of the big society now".
No Cold Calling Zone County Council Trading Standards tell me they are considering introducing a "No Cold Calling" Zone in the Twyford part of Adderbury village.
The purpose of ‘No Cold Calling’ zones is to discourage cold callers from specific residential areas - usually a street or small cluster of houses. The introduction of the scheme provides householders with the opportunity collectively to discourage the often-unwelcome practice of cold calling. The zones are visibly identified by overt signs and by each participant displaying a sticker on their door. Residents are given information on how to deal with cold callers should the signs be ignored.
Trading Standards recently considered applications for new No Cold Calling Zones and had a good response from both Crime Reduction Officers and members of the public. There was an application from the Twyford area of Adderbury although, sadly, it was mmisdescribed as "Twyford, Banbury".
Applications had to be submitted including evidence to support the request, such as number of distraction burglaries, rogue trader activity and vulnerable residents. A questionnaire will be sent out to residents of each new zone in the next few days and if officers receive a favourable response, the new zones will be created in October/November 2010. I will keep you posted.
A plea to Adderbury residents. There is no such place as "Twyford, Banbury". We live in one village called Adderbury, within the County of Oxfordshire.
One million pounds to fund social housing in Bloxham There is an interesting snippet from the Banbury Guardian this week.
The Homes & Communities Agency has agreed funding of £1.3 million for 17 social rented and 7 shared ownership homes on the Milton Road (south) site in Bloxham. This site is immediately opposite a green field site where Cherwell District Council permitted a development of 74 homes in 2007, including 22 affordable homes. I hear there are quite a few single mothers on this site, desperately isolated because of the paucity of the (hourly) bus service into Banbury and Cherwell have now repeated the mistake with 61 houses, including 24 affordable ones on the south side of the road. It is doubly sad because the new government has axed the top-down housing targets that forced councils like Cherwell to give planning permission willy-nilly to any application that helped them to meet their housing quota. Here is my letter to the Banbury Guardian.
Sir
I note Cherwell District Council’s delight (Banbury Guardian 19 August 2010) at securing £1.3 million towards the cost of affordable housing in Bloxham. While I don’t doubt the need for affordable housing in the district, I do fear that their smug delight will not go down well in Bloxham where this housing estate is likely to prove a blot on Bloxham’s landscape, will add to the congestion on the A361, will increase the pressure on Bloxham’s primary and secondary schools and will not provide sustainable living for the residents likely to be placed in the social and shared-equity homes on this estate. In their headlong rush to meet housing targets that have now been removed by the new government, Cherwell planners turned a blind eye to the non-sustainability of building on this side of Bloxham, given there is only an hourly bus service from the centre of the village - and quite a distance from this estate - into Banbury.
Some time ago (10 April 2007 to be precise) Cherwell planners allowed 74 houses (with 22 affordable ones) on the north side of the Milton Road, extending the village envelope right up to the parish boundary. More recently (26 July 2010 to be precise) they gave permission for a further 61 houses on the south side, including 17 social rented and 7 shared equity homes. I suspect quite a few of the occupants of these affordable homes on both sides of the Milton Road will not be able to afford cars and will be dependant on an hourly bus service into Banbury. Not good enough, Cherwell. I am afraid the County Council budget for subsidised bus fares is going to be under pressure already and will not be able to take on fresh needs unless they are funded from developer contributions in perpetuity.
In any case, if the architectural quality of the 61 new homes on the south side is as dismal as the 74 on the north side of the Milton Road, they will do nothing positive for the quality of Bloxham village.
As ever
Keith R Mitchell
Keith R
Mitchell
CBE
Member for Bloxham Division
Comprising Adderbury, Bloxham, Bodicote, Milcombe & Milton
Village surgery today in the
Horse & Groom at Milcombe
A very quiet Saturday morning. I had no villagers at my surgery and I was the only customer in the Horse and Groom for the 90 minutes I spent there. This is a great village pub - use it or you risk losing it.
Meeting with Friends of Adderbury Library Support Group I had a useful meeting with some key members of the local library support group. We are in for some real belt tightening across all of the County Council's budgets. The library service is no exception and I wanted to explore with the Friends Group their capacity to increase support for our local library as the County Council's spending power is reduced.
Planning for adverse weather The Local Government Association has recently published a report into the severe weather earlier this year. It is entitled Weathering the Storm and contains some interesting suggestions to improve national and local government's ability to respond to the sort of weather conditions we endured in January 2010.
Village surgeries today
Bloxham 9:30 am to 10:30 am - no takers; Bodicote 10:45 am to 11:45 am - my
usual pensioner who comes for an update and a chat; Adderbury 12:00 noon to
1:00 pm - a chance to catch up with District Cllr Rick Atkinson who had a
queue of people with Cherwell issues; Milton 1:15 pm to 2:00 pm in the
convivial surroundings of The Black Boy inn and with the benefit of wi-fi to
access the internet and send some e-mails and update my web site.
I wish our village halls had wi-fi as good as our local pubs!
M40 Junction 9 improvement scheme starts If you are likely to use Junction 9 on the M40, allow extra time because the first phase of improvement works is under way. Here is the web link.
Car share scheme on-line The County Council has launched an on-line car share scheme. Liftshare, the private firm running the web site, estimate that the average commuter saves £780 pa by sharing a regular journey. This is the web site address.
Road Safety Casualty Reports 2009 For those interested in road safety statistics, here is the Road Safety Casualty Report for 2009.
Bloxham Parish Council The Parish Council met tonight. I attended. Attached is my County Council report and Lynda's District Council report to the Parish Council. The Bloxham Parish Plan Questionnaire - Feedback and Action Plan was presented to the Parish Council. You can view it here.