Incinerator Story Continues

At today's Planning and Regulation Committee at the County Council, both applications to build incinerators at Ardley near Bicester and at Sutton Courtenay were turned down. This was in spite of the officers' recommendation which was that planning permission should be granted (subject to a long list of conditions in each case). This is an extraordinary situation. The County's Cabinet had agreed that Viridor at Ardley should be the preferred bidder for the tendering process, but the planning committee has now turned down its application to build the incinerator on the site. It makes you wonder whether the planning decision should have been taken first - who knows?

I doubt the story will end here .... watch this space!

King Alfred's Awards Evening

It was a real pleasure to have been invited to the Awards Ceremony this year held at Centre site. We were all able to celebrate the many outstanding achievements of the students who have participated in so many events over the last year. We even had a couple of renditions from the X Factor. Visit the school's website here where you can also download a copy of tonight's programme.

Community Grants Awarded

At tonight's South East Area Committee we awarded grants to three worthy causes. Firstly, to the Wantage and Grove Street Pastors, who as I have previously reported went out for the first time on the streets of Wantage last Friday. This scheme was awarded £3000 to help provide administrative support and equipment for the volunteers.

£500 was awarded to East Hendred Community Centre towards the cost of replacing fencing on the boundary to Snell's Hall. Finally, £1500 was awarded to the Wantage Betjeman Festival of Literature and Poetry which is a new organisation hoping to set up a new festival to celebrate the work of Sir John Betjeman and other authors and poets with local connections to the Wantage area.

That just about uses up all the funding which we have currently available except for £1000 left in the pot in case any applications come forward which cannot wait until next year.

Double Launch - King Alfred the Great and Street Pastors

Last night I went along to two important events in Wantage which proved to be thoroughly enjoyable occasions. First up was the Vale and Downland Museum, our jewel in the crown of Wantage, where the new exhibition 'Alfred the Great: Warrior and Visionary King' was opened by TV Presenter Phil Harding of Channel 4's Time Team. This is all very timely considering the recent Saxon finds in a local field near Grove - see my previous blogpost. This exhibition will be worth a visit and highly recommended, so try to go along if you can - details here.

Next stop was to Wantage church where we had a commissioning service for the first night of our Wantage and Grove Street Pastors hitting the streets of Wantage. This will soon be extended into Grove. Again, you can visit my previous post telling you all about it. It is always a pleasure to support such excellent initiatives in our community where dedicated volunteers play such an important role. This is an example of where the police and the church can work so well together to achieve a common goal - to make our streets safer places at night. Anyone interested in taking up the challenge can still get involved (details on the link above).

Christmas Tree Blunder!

Well, we have discovered that the culprit responsible for chopping down our Christmas Tree is our very own County Council! The news came as a shock to many of us as we grappled to get to the bottom of the facts. The story was in the press this week and fortunately the council came forward to admit that it was their 'mistake'. According to officers in Highways, they were doing a 'survey' of the village and decided that this tree needed removing because it did not look a healthy specimen. Unfortunately, they did not consult with the parish council beforehand - and we are yet to find out why.

However, the good news is that the tree will be replaced very soon with a bigger tree and we shall have new fencing around it too which should make up for the disaster. We shall hopefully be able to have our carol service around the tree at Christmas after all - though it will have a whole new meaning now!

This story hit the BBC news aswell as our local news (including featuring on BBC South Today) - I think there will be many jokes made about this one for a long time to come!

Grove's Christmas Tree Gone!

Christmas may have come early for someone - but sadly not for us in Grove! Our Christmas tree which had been planted at the end of Vale Avenue only a short time ago has been chopped down and taken away.
(see picture on right).
Every year the villagers have sung carols around our tree, which used to be in Millbrook Square but replaced when Tesco's came. The carol service is arranged by the parish council with the collection funds going to charity.
The tree will not survive in time for Christmas and why would anyone want to do such a thing? It happened at the end of last week because I heard the news when I attended the Grove Parish Council reception on Friday evening. None of us could believe it - so I had to go along to take a look.
Two young girls walking past as I took this photo said "The Christmas tree's gone - oh how depressing!" That just about sums it up! Anyone who saw anything - please report to the police.

Presenting Our Petition for Mably Way

We have collected 1938 signatures on our petition to reduce the speed limit from 40 mph to 30 mph at Mably Way and today we presented this to the Transport Decisions Committee at the County Council.
The photo shows Cllr. Jenny Hannaby and myself just before we went through the doors into the committee room to present our case.
I was allowed to speak for just 2 minutes, but we were both delighted to hear that the Cabinet Member for Transport agreed that this should now go out for formal consultation with a view to this being implemented in the forseeable future.