Wantage Town Juniors Awarded Grant

Wantage Town Juniors (formerly Wantage Concords) have been awarded a £2,000 grant from our County Councillor Community budget fund towards portable lighting units for Tugwell Field.  The lighting units will allow childrens' teams to continue to train during winter evenings.  The opening of Tugwell Field as a football nursery for the younger age groups means that there will be additional capacity in the club for more children to train.  This is a thriving football club who have 140 boys and girls on the books from Wantage, Grove and surrounding villages. The club has a wider fundraising scheme to develop the site and to construct a building to provide changing rooms and other facilities.

I have already funded £1,500 towards Grove Challengers' portable goalposts as you will have seen in my previous post.  This means that both clubs will have benefitted from this fund to enable them to provide addtional resources for their local teams.  We all know what a valuable asset these clubs are for the wellbeing of our young people in the community.  Councillor Hannaby and myself have managed to pool our budgets for many of our grants to enable the money to go further.  I have two more applications waiting approval as the money has to be allocated by the end of February.  If these are successful, then my funds will be all used up.

White Horse Crescent Improvements

Another scheme I have been able to fund through my Area Stewardship Fund is the improvement to the area at the end of White Horse Crescent near to the access to the garages. Unfortunately, the Parish Council was unable to maintain the grassed area (see photo left) due to it being badly rutted by drivers either parking or driving over the grass.  A resident had placed a stone at the end of the grass to try to prevent this, but this did not really solve the problem. 

After discussions with the Parish Council and local residents, it was decided that the best solution would be to continue with the blocked paving, which made up the parking area at the end of the close.  By extending this, it meant that no maintenance of the area would be needed, and any cars parking on it would not damage the grass.  Obviously, it is a pity when we have to lose any of our green space around the village, but if the grass is so badly damaged that it begins to look an eyesore, then it becomes impossible to maintain.  This then ends up becoming neglected and not the pleasant green space it was intended to be. 

New Dropped Kerbs on Newlands Drive

One of the things that can frustrate pedestrians is the lack of dropped kerbs at appropriate places on the footpath networks in Grove and Wantage. A good example in Grove is shown in the bottom two photos where the footpath between Shepherds Close and Churchward Close used to just terminate on either side of Newlands Drive. In fact, I think the footpath was forgotten about by the original developers and not completed properly.

I am glad to report that (as the top two photos show) I have just been able to arrange for this particular case to be rectified. This is one of the latest works completed using my County Councillor's Area Stewardship Fund. I hope that this will make life a lot easier for wheelchair users, disabled and elderly pedestrians and those who use pushchairs and prams... especially in their route up to the shopping precinct at Savile Way.  With the current wintry weather, many people are preferring to leave their cars at home when they do their local shopping.

Big Freeze Continues

The big freeze continues and driving on country roads might be tricky as the photo above of the road between Grove and Denchworth illustrates. Today, I have been walking around Grove doing casework and the main roads seem to be pretty clear. If you wish to find out more information about the travel situation in the county including roads which have been gritted, please check out the County website here. There is also information about the latest school closures.  It is also worth listening to Radio Oxford on 95.2FM as well because these are announced on a regular basis.  Regular travel updates are also broadcast.

If you are planning to travel by bus, do check the bus companies own websites (some links are listed on my blog on the left) to ensure there are no major disruptions to your journeys.

Land of Ice and Snow

Well, the snow today is dominating both our local news and our local views. The photos above show Wantage looking very picturesque this afternoon. I also like the photo below, which shows the De Havilland Venom at Grove Technology Park flying low over the snow!

Wintry Weather

It was a wintry start this morning, so here are some local views of Grove. The photo on the left shows Letcombe Brook, which is still high after all the recent rain, and the picture on the right shows the Millennium Stone on the green.

As always, local travel news can be found here and any Oxfordshire school closures here. News of the situation on trunk roads and motorways can also be found here and the live departures/arrivals from Didcot railway station can be found here.

Cow Lane Cleared

Today, I can report that the huge fly-tip of soil and debris that was blocking the track from Grove to East Hanney along Cow Lane has at long last been removed.  Residents will recall that I reported this on my blog in November when I wrote about the importance of Cow Lane as a "green amenity" for local residents and also reported on the new by-way sign that was erected after I had requested a replacement.  The obstruction had been there since last summer and it took some time to get the district council to organise its removal and we have still not been able to firmly establish where it came from.  

The photos above show how much earth had to be removed and the subsequent improvement - I understand that it amounted to approximately 60 tons.  I met a dog-walker whilst inspecting the site and she was certainly pleased to be able to access the bridleway from Hanney to Grove once again without having to scramble over the mound!  The route would be even better if we could fund a gravel surface along the parts that are heavily rutted.