Joint Ticketing on the Buses Coming

Today it was announced that two of our main bus companies are joining together to offer joint ticketing in Oxford. Read all about it here

This should make life so much easier for people travelling in and around Oxford, especially during the time when major changes are happening in the city centre under the Transform Oxford scheme. I have been calling for this to happen for a long time, since I first put a motion to the County Council during April 2008. This was reported on my blog and I have had several meetings with people including the bus operators themselves to help make this happen. Let us hope that it won't be too long before we see this Smartcard system expand beyond the city into other areas like ours.

Update - Charlton Exhibition Cancelled

Just heard that this evening's exhibition at Charlton Parish Hall on the Vale's development proposals which I referred to on Monday has been cancelled due to the bad weather. It will be rescheduled in future, will update new date when available.

More Snow!

Looks like we have had another 5-6 cm of snow overnight here in Grove.

The photos give an idea of the state of the roads this morning around Denchworth Road and Brereton Drive area.

See my post from 6 Jan here for information sites.

Concessionary Travel and Educational Achievement

Today was the first full County Council meeting of 2010 - so did we get off to a flying start? Well, perhaps it could be described as one step forward and two steps back. I put down a motion on concessionary travel, in the hope that when the administration of this national scheme becomes a function of the county council, we can ensure that all schemes, including community travel can benefit. This would mean that any future government would need to fully fund the scheme which is currently operated by district councils. There is an e petitition here which I urged everyone to sign.

I was hoping that we would get some consistency across the county so that whether you have a good bus service, or have to rely on a voluntary or community transport scheme, everyone could use their concessionary passes. By writing to the Department of Transport, we would be making representation now in advance of taking over this function in the future. As expected, the ruling group did not support the motion, but at least I raised awareness of what could be achieved if we acted now.

During the afternoon, we had the second of our themed debates. This time it was the turn of the Labour group, who chose Educational Achievement as the topic. The County has not been doing too well here, especially compared to our statistical neighbours, so the idea was to try and raise expectations especially within our schools. Again, many words were spoken on the subject with a whole range of contributions from the floor. At least one thing is certain from this new way of engaging councillors at council meetings - so far, we are getting much more interest from all councillors of all political parties. What will happen to all our ideas and suggestions - who knows? I am watching all of this with much interest to see if we can really make a difference or will it be business as usual.

You are free to read my speeches online. One thing I do enjoy about full council days is carefully researching and preparing my speeches and hoping that someone somewhere is listening!

Your Vale - Your Future

Residents should be aware that there are consultations going ahead on possible sites for new housing and shopping developments in the Vale. Click on the Vale's website to find out more.

There are various exhibitions taking place across the district, but local people can go along to the exhibition which is taking place at Charlton Parish Hall, Wantage on Wednesday 13th January from 3.30 - 7.30pm. One of the proposals is to locate 1500 dwellings north east of Wantage in association with a new relief road north east of the town which will have an impact on the whole area.

Comments on the proposals can be sent in via the website above or by email to: planning.policy@whitehorsedc.gov.uk or by post to: Abbey House, Abingdon, OX14 3JE by Friday 29th January 2010. Any queries then telephone: 01235 540496 or 540511.

Shivering in Grove

An exceptionally cold day here in Grove. The Benson measurements show that it has been about -2 degrees C for the last few hours, but that wind chill!!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is an iconic one from the NASA Earth Observatory showing the snow across Great Britain on 7 January. This image was taken by the Terra satellite from an altitude of about 700km above the Earth.

Snowfall in Grove

Well it looks like Grove had about 9cm of snow overnight - according to the amount on top of cars and signs.

As shown here, the roads in the Denchworth Road/Brereton Drive area are covered in snow and there were few cars around earlier this morning.

Latest information on road conditions, school closures, etc., can be found on the County Council website here.

Travel information can be found on the BBC Oxford site here .

Live rail information for Didcot trains can be found here.

The local (Abingdon) weather forecast is here.

Oxfordshire Views

The New Year has started with a cold snap, but this has bought some wonderful clear views across Oxfordshire. Here are some from a walk I did the other day. The first photo shows Westmill Wind Farm taken from Coleshill Park, which is on the B4019 close to the Wiltshire border. More information on the wind farm can be found here. The second photo shows a wintry view of the huge 13th century barn at Great Coxwell - well worth a visit and details can be found here.

Floodwatch Continues

With the snow and rain over the last few days, we have continued to remain on Floodwatch in Grove and Wantage around the Letcombe Brook. Check details here. Today has been beautiful and sunny, but cold in the bitter wind.

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2010.

Now that we have just left the "noughties", does anyone know how we should refer to this second decade of the 21st century?

Wantage Boxing Day Mummers Play

Here are some photos taken today at the annual mummers play outside The Bear in Wantage. A mummers play has apparently been performed locally every year since 1977 and there were two other performances today in Faringdon and Childrey. Much of the play consisted of the skirmishes between King Alfred and the Napoleon look-a-like, Beau Slasher, finishing up with Old Father Beelzebub commenting on the issues of the day and some Morris dancing.

More information on The Wantage Mummers can be found here.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone in Grove, Wantage and the surrounding villages a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2010. Here is a wintry picture of Wantage Church after the recent snowfall and a picture of Grove from earlier snowfall in February 2009.

Meteor Hunting near Grove

Last night, we went outside as far away from the street lights as possible to see if we could find any evidence of the Geminid meteor shower. This is caused each year by the Earth travelling through a stream of debris left behind by an asteroid. The night sky started off clear and we managed to see several shooting stars, which we assumed to be Geminids, before the clouds appeared.

The shower is supposed to reach it peak tonight (Sunday) and into Monday morning. Best place is to look south at 45 degrees. See here for more information on how to observe.

Apparently, Hatford, near to Stanford in the Vale, is one of the few places in Britain where a meteorite - a meteor that has survived to make impact with the Earth's surface - has been recorded (in 1628). See this local history article from the Vale & Downland Museum for an account.

Threat to the Sweatbox

Today Jenny and I met three young people from the Sweatbox Union Youth Forum at County Hall who were speaking at the Childrens' Services Scrutiny Committee. This is because of the proposed cuts in youth work funding, which the Conservative controlled County Council is considering as part of its budget setting exercise.

Scrutiny committees are currently meeting to discuss where savings can be made and committee members can contribute to the debate. The budget will be set at the full council meeting in February next year.

The young people made an excellent presentation to the committee and were given a round of applause. The members round the table seemed suitably impressed and certainly did appear to have been convinced of what a valuable asset our youth centres are. I also spoke at the committee arguing the case that the Sweatbox is one of the few facilities which we have in our area and serves a huge population from Grove, Wantage and the surrounding villages. My email box is becoming full of concerns on this matter since the campaign to save the Sweatbox was launched in Wantage at the Dickensian evening. If you would like to support their campaign, then do email occ.feedback@oxfordshire.gov.uk and copy in myself at zoe.patrick@oxfordshire.gov.uk or you can respond to the comments on this blog.

Dickensian Evening in Wantage

An excellent turn out and the weather just held off.

The Queen Visits Oxford

Today Her Majesty the Queen visited Oxford to officially open the Ashmoleum Museum. I was fortunate to be one of the guests at this event and it was a real pleasure to be there representing Oxfordshire. She was taken on a tour of the galleries before officially unveiling the plaque. Readers of my blog will know that this is the second time I have visited and seen the transformation of the museum since its £61 million refurbishment. I hope readers will find the time to go and take a look at some of the world famous exhibits beautifully displayed inside.

The story is reported here.

Christmas Tree Returns

I was delighted to find that our Christmas tree has been returned at long last after the County Council's blunder which was reported on my previous blogspot. The news was reported nationally (again). If Grove will be remembered in the future, then it will be because of our Christmas tree (but we are not a town!)

Hopefully villagers will gather at the Christmas Carol Service which is scheduled to take place on Thursday 17th December at 7pm. Lights are being switched on this Sunday at 5pm. It should add a little cheer for us all as Christmas approaches.

Wantage Festive Preparations

Here is a photo of King Alfred inspecting this year's newly installed Christmas tree in Wantage Market Square. This year's Dickensian Evening will be on Friday 4th December at 6 - 9 pm. Details can be found here.

Oxford Cancer Centre - Open Day

On Saturday, I went along to the Open Day at the new Oxford Cancer Centre at the Churchill Hospital. It was a very interesting day and we were able to visit the complex of operating theatres where the highlight was the laparascopic - or keyhole - surgery suite and the daVinci robotic surgery system (left photo). We were even allowed to test our own skills at keyhole surgery... although I hasten to add on non-animate objects!

Also on the tour, was the radiotherapy department where we saw a CT scanner as well as the linear accelerators used for treatment. There are six of these electron accelerators, which generate high energy X-rays, in their own separate rooms(right photo). They can swivel through 180 degrees to direct beams from different angles. Of course, all of this high-tech equipment and advances in treatment has to come at a price - worth remembering when politicians talk about NHS funding. The Oxford Biomedical Research Centre was also open... although we ran out of time.

It was certainly good for local people to be able to make this "behind-the-scenes" visit of these major new facilities for our region. The staff and volunteers had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to welcome everyone and make the day informative and demystify the difficult area of cancer treatment. More information can be found here and here.

Large Hadron Collider and Oxfordshire

Congratulations to all at CERN with the circulation of two beams of protons after the successful restart of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Having lived in Geneva for some time (my husband is a particle physicist), it's quite astounding that many years later I am sitting in Oxfordshire and writing this blog post using the World Wide Web - another technological advance from CERN.

Another Oxfordshire connection? We should not forget that the county hosts two research centres working on experiments at the LHC: Oxford University (ATLAS and LHCb teams) and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (ATLAS, CMS and LHCb teams).

One of the great accelerator pioneers of all time, Sir John Adams, also worked at both Harwell and Culham in between his stints as Director General of CERN. Today, we have the legacy of the John Adams Institute in Oxford.

If you want to follow further progress at the LHC, go to http://twitter.com/cern or http://public.web.cern.ch/public/