This feature in today's Witney Gazette
set the webmasters imagination going
Team cycles 150 miles in
support of workmate
A team of RBS workers cycled 150 miles from Banbury Cross to
Charing Cross and raised £13,000 for the Pancreatic Cancer Action charity.
The three-day cycle ride was in support of their work colleague and friend
Wendy Butler who is terminally ill with pancreatic cancer. Their ‘Corporate
Dynamos’ team of seven started their journey by calling at Wendy’s house
near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire on Friday, July 8, and ended at Charing
Cross station in London on Sunday, July 10. Wendy, human resources
director for RBS Bank corporate division in London, thought she was fit and
healthy until a routine check-up four months ago revealed she had pancreatic
cancer that had spread to her lungs and liver. Surgery is not an option for
the mother- of-two.
Ali Stunt, of Pancreatic Cancer Action charity, and
herself a rare survivor of the disease, said she was thrilled that Simon and
the team had raised such a significant sum.“As a charity we are determined
to ‘change the numbers’ and create greater awareness of pancreatic cancer
amongst the general public, medical community and government, ensuring more
people are diagnosed earlier in time for surgery. Wendy is such a wonderful
person, her strength of character and zest for life is impressive,” she
said.
Simon Eacott who is RBS corporate division’s director of
change management, said it was a great team effort. He said: “We are very
grateful for the generosity of all our supporters in helping the important
work of Pancreatic Cancer Action and supporting our very special colleague
Wendy who is an inspiration to us all.” To support the Corporate
Dynamos visit
www.charitiestrust.org/members_data/event/corporate_dynamos/index.htm
Liz Leffman reports on Dean Pit
latest
Dean Pit and Greystones came up at the full council meeting at West
Oxfordshire District Council on Wednesday 27th July. There was a lot of
discussion, and it was denied that the closure of Dean Pit will cost £1
million. So maybe we have been misinformed. We are asking the county
council to confirm how much they have budgetted for the closure, so we
shall see.
The discussion centred on the cost of keeping Dean Pit open, with claims
from Conservative councillors that it would need a major upgrade costing
up to £1 million. But our enquiries have revealed that the only upgrade
that the Environment Agency require would be an improvement to the
drainage system, so that instead of draining to a soakaway, water would
be held in a tank which will extract pollutants such as oil, and clean
water released into the gorund. The tank could be emptied regularly and
does not need to be connected to mains drainage. It is hard to see how it
could cost anywhere near to £1 million, and it is quite likely that if the
site were moved to Greystones, the same would be needed.
Oh, and how would the new site at Greystones be paid for? According to
West Oxfordshire, with a grant..... from the county council, who are
closing Dean Pit!!! So a massive saving for taxpayers, then.
Hopefully our District Councillors had something to
say this time round. ED
Also, there are still
some places on lessons w/c 1 August and 8 August.
To find out more, visit The Lido, call 01608 643188 or visit
www.chippylido.co.uk
Press Association.
Quotes of the Day July 23rd
A real feat of engineering''- Sarah Burton's
description of the wedding dress she designed for the Duchess of
Cambridge.
It's a terrible shame that these spivs have brought the town's name
into disrepute'' - Former town councillor Gerry Alcock on the
so-called Chipping Norton set.
As the guy walked up I could see he was heading for
Rupert so I shouted 'Careful'. I don't know if that was a bad thing to
do. Within that room and for everyone watching, it tilted the balance
of sympathy in Rupert's direction. He was a victim'' - Journalist Nick
Davies on the Rupert Murdoch foam pie incident.
I'm still growing up, and when you're working every
day, you don't really get a chance to figure out who you are. So with
the time off, I'm able to think, pray and just kind of grow up'' -
Teenage singer Justin Bieber, who is taking a month off.
Readers
from a few years back will remember that the Parish Pump is where your editor digs
up the dirt on important local issues and ends up getting the handbag
treatment from Cicely Maunder. Speaking of whom...would you believe she is
at it again. Last week Cicely marched into the shop of the lady organising
the "Stop Sainsbury's" campaign and suggested that as a conservative party
member the said shopkeeper should consider saying less in public about the
Sainsbury issue. So is it true that supporting the Sainsbury's bid is now
official Conservative policy? Could it have anything to do with all the
lovely goodies Sainsbury's have promised the District Council - not to
mention offers to contribute towards youth clubs, roundabouts, libraries, town hall roofs
etc As Parker Knoll left town axing 5oo jobs WODC presented them with a
farewell gift worth millions when they allowed development of a large part
of their site for housing. It was a solemn part of that deal that 5 acres
would be retained for small business units. Now that commitment has been
dumped and WODC are in deep consultation with Sainsbury's about a
supermarket. This is not just general pre-application chat but serious
negotiation. For example the precise route which delivery lorries are to
take has been agreed. For the life of me I don't know why but a little bird
tells me they will be required to enter town down Banbury Road, negotiate
the double roundabout and go back up London Road. Can this possibly be true?
Not quite. Sainsbury's have been persuaded to pay for a complete
reconfiguration of the double roundabout - including using half the green
area in front of the cop shop - just to make things easier for Sainsbury's
delivery lorries. But things do seem to be getting
confused. At the "Stop Sainsbury's" public meeting held last Thursday,
Councillor McHugh reported to the meeting that he had been talking to the
Chairman of the Uplands Planning Committee - Councillor Haines - who had
told Patrick that he was personally opposed to the Sainsbury's scheme and
all the officers were as well. So in Patrick's judgement there was nothing
to worry about. This was actually the first time that Councillor McHugh has
ever opened his mouth in public so we would like to believe him but we do
wonder whether perhaps Patrick has got the wrong end of the stick. The
Co-Op were out in force at the meeting. Faced with the charge of being
an expensive store the half a dozen "suits" from the Co-Op said they were trying hard
but admitted they would never compete with the big boys on price because
they simply lacked the buying power. A slightly batty lady with an American
accent said she was representing Transition Chipping Norton (pardon??) and
said their research showed price wasn't important. It was all about the
range of goods on offer. (Yeah right) Nonetheless the Co- Op hoped Chippy
would remember what good citizens they had been - taking over the Post
Office and all. They would be making technical objections to the Sainsbury
scheme but relied on townspeople raising their own objections in their own
words. They would be very happy to pay for posters , leaflet distributions,
and any research designed to oppose the Sainsbury application. The Chairman
should have immediately kicked that offer straight into touch. However there
wasn't really a proper Chairman - only Ken Norman proving once again what a
great stand-up comedian he is but just how hopeless he is at politics. But
even Ken was not as ridiculous as the oleaginous Will Barton offering to
help local traders prepare their objections to Sainsburys. Surely none of
the businesses in town could be so daft as to have any confidence in Will's
advice He after all was responsible with his old mentor Mary Neale for
engineering the collapse of our Chamber of Commerce, then organising the
useless Partnership as well as failing to come up with any
employment-generating projects to utilise £400,000 which was on offer from
the County. This time round he seems to have just been sent along as Barry
Norton's nark. But the Co-Op hadn't finished with their surprises. They warned us
that they were putting in a second planning application - with the objective
of increasing the selling area on the ground floor level of the Beales
Department Store. The arcade will be eliminated and incorporated into the
store as selling space. A new entrance from Top Side will be created further
along - through the chemists perhaps?? That idea will go down like a lead
balloon in the town. The arcade has established itself as one of the most
useful and agreeable spots in the town centre. I do feel sorry for the
Chippy Tories having to defend the outrageous policy U-turns which the Tory
district council keeps making. Here's another one. Having provided cast iron
reassurances that Greystones would never be used as a rubbish dump (I can
vividly remember Councillor Biles scoffing when I made the suggestion to her
recently) they have now decided to put in a planning application for just
such a development. WODC rigged the whole thing last Wednesday. On the
morning of the actual Cabinet meeting they circulated the proposal as a late
extra agenda item. As a result many councillors were not aware the item was
on the agenda at all. I know that Eve Coles, Patrick McHugh and Hilary Biles
did not attend the meeting. Not sure about Annie but I doubt she was there.
She is usually away with the fairies. It seems very likely that this last
minute proposal was discussed with nobody from Chippy present. As Glyn
Watkins points out in his splendid letter to the Daily Mail below a dump at
Greystones would have the laughable effect of moving an eyesore away from
the PM's backyard and dumping it on Jeremy Clarkson's doorstep. There could
be some sharp talking at the next picnic get together of the Camerons and
the Clarksons. A rubbish dump at Greystones would have the effect of making
it virtually impossible to sell Greystones House for commercial use. This is
a project which the Town Council have been working on for more than two
years The Town Council spent considerable sums on sorting out conveyancing
issues and the District Council were familiar with all the details. This
was a period when various representatives of WODC were denying that
Greystones would be used as a dump. In retrospect this now looks like
deliberate misrepresentation. Any price paid now for Greystones House will
be derisory. The Muslims in town have always shown interest in the building
as a potential mosque but have not been able to raise the asking price. Well
this could be their big opportunity. Try an offer Mr Hassan. Lots of
criticisms about the new Town Council. Nobody knows who the Mayor is and
from all accounts most of the guests for free booze at his Mayormaking were
from out of town. His penetrating remarks about the Chipping Norton Set
being nothing sinister - just a group of friends meeting for supper have
made him look a bit naive. And what about discipline - apparently an
incredibly small number of councillors turned up to the Civic Sunday
Service which has caused much comment. The 2011 class of Tory councillors
need some more coaching on what is expected. Step forward Cicely who once
gave me a real tongue lashing for missing a Remembrance Day service. I hope
she plans to be as tough on the new Tory councillors as she was on me!
However one area attracting lots of compliments is the new allotments regime
where apparently the complaints of the allotment holders are being taken
seriously for the first time in years. Well done Mr Davidson. However, lots
of complaints about performance at the new hospital/care home. Not many
people seem to be finding the First Aid unit actually staffed and I've been
told often that the physiotherapy unit doesn't have its act together yet.
(Who exactly is monitoring all this? And just what is the League of Friends up
to these days?) Someone who works at the Care home was rung
up in a panic over the weekend and asked to come in because the care home
was running on just two staff for 36 patients. OK its holiday time but the
picture building up is not encouraging. Lovely new building and a staffing
shambles. Years of argument and lots of people still think the hospital
is not a serious project. But then lots of people also warned that the Order
of St John have virtually no experience in running a hospital. Hands up who knows what Glyme Hall is. Its the new £1m community
centre building - paid for by central government - and now handed over to a
Board of Trustees who have to find the money to run it. A bid for £28,000
from a County Council fund towards first year costs has just been approved
so thats at least a start...but more fundraising and hiring out is going to
be necessary. So who exactly are the Trustees and who are the members of the
Youth Committee ? Who has been presented with a £1m chunk of real estate and who
banks the £28,000. In the best Chippy traditions this is all secret. Some
recruits were made at the last Town Council but apparently - despite his
protestations at election time of deep concern for the youth of the town -
David Lydiat could not be persuaded to serve - even when virtually ordered
to do so by Hilary. Is the Board of Trustees truly representative? Are the
Labour party represented? We should be told - after all its all public
money.
Letter from ex-Councillor
Glyn Watkins
Dean Pit
closure will mean 36-mile trip
RESIDENTS
are calling on a council to halt the closure of a ‘rubbish tip’ serving
thousands of people — including Prime Minister David Cameron. From
September, householders in Chipping Norton and the surrounding area face a
round trip of up to 36 miles to dispose of junk, after the Dean Pit facility
is closed.
The campaigners say the decision affects
about 22,000 people who live within a nine-mile radius of the recycling
centre, including Mr Cameron, who lives in Dean. The move is part of
Oxfordshire County Council’s waste strategy to close two of its eight
recycling centres to save £750,000. A centre at Stanford in the Vale is also
due to close, but the council plans to open a £3m flagship recycling centre
in Kidlington next year.
Earlier this week, campaigner Liz Leffman
handed a petition of almost 2,000 signatures to the county council’s cabinet
in a bid to get its decision to close Dean Pit over-turned or delayed. Ms
Leffman, of Charlbury, said: “The county is proposing to open a new
recycling centre in Kidlington, except it’s a very long journey between
Chipping Norton and Kidlington. The worst thing is it won’t be open until
April next year, and that looks doubtful as they haven’t got planning
permission and they haven’t put the contract out to tender. The chances are
there will be no recycling in the area for six months.” She said residents
faced the round-trip of up to 36 miles, compared to four miles.
In a separate move, West Oxfordshire
District Council has agreed to look at creating a recycling centre on its
land in Greystones, in Burford Road, Chipping Norton. The council would have
to submit a planning application, and if approved, say it could open this
autumn.
Ms Leffman said: “On the whole we would
welcome this plan as an alternative to having to travel to other sites
across the county. However, if the idea is to close Dean Pit and move it
three miles up the road, then that would be a poor deal for local taxpayers,
and we will continue to campaign for Dean Pit to stay open.”
A county council spokesman said Dean Pit
would close at the end of September as part of the new household waste
recycling centre strategy. “If WODC open their own recycling centre, this
could be an effective replacement which is closer to a local centre of
population.”
Immigration raid at Cafe
le Raj
SIX
people were arrested in immigration raids in West Oxfordshire last night.
Four Bangladeshi men were arrested at Café Le Raj in Horsefair, Chipping
Norton, two for overstaying visas and two for entering the country
illegally. Two Bangladeshi men were arrested at the Jaan in Oxford Street,
Woodstock, one for overstaying his visa and the other for entering the UK
illegally. The UK Border Agency said a third man was found to be working
illegally but was not arrested as he has an outstanding application lodged
with the Home Office.
Others were arrested in related operations
in Henley and Twickenham at the same time as the Oxfordshire raids, 6.30pm
on Thursday. Three men were arrested for at Cafe Le Raj in Henley and six
were arrested at Twickenham Tandoori.
The agency said all restaurants were
believed to be linked through their ownership and owners could be fined up
to £10,000 for each employee arrested. Those arrested in Chipping Norton and
Woodstock are in detention pending their removal from the UK. Their
employers have a right to show whether right-to-work checks were carried
out.
Chippy woman fights for life after
three-car crash
A
woman from Chippy was fighting for her life last night after being cut from
the wreckage of her car. The woman was airlifted to hospital with
life-threatening injuries yesterday after a crash between three cars.
Emergency crews were called to the collision on the A361 near Chipping
Norton shortly before 8am. The woman was driving a silver Daihatsu, which
was involved in a collision near the B4026 with a blue Renault Clio and red
Ford Fiesta. She was cut from the car and airlifted to the John Radcliffe
Hospital to be treated for serious head, chest and leg injuries. Police
described her condition last night as “critical”. Two other people were
taken to the Horton Hospital in Banbury by ambulance. Their injuries were
believed to be minor. Fireman Malcolm Jones, who attended the incident,
said: “The force of the impact had significantly deformed the vehicle and
crews worked in unison to release the casualty who was quickly removed and
conveyed to hospital.” The road was closed for five hours while
investigations were carried out and debris removed.
Tuesday 26th
July Update A woman left with severe head injuries
in a horrific three-car crash on the A361 last week remained last night in a
critical condition at the
John Radcliffe Hospital’s neurological unit. The woman, who has not been
named, was airlifted to hospital on Thursday morning, after the silver
Daihatsu she was driving was involved in a collision with a blue Renault
Clio and red Ford Fiesta close to the junction with the B4026. A
Thames Valley Police spokesman said the woman remained in intensive care
and her family was maintaining a bedside vigil.
WODC DUMP
ON CHIPPY YET AGAIN
Despite all the denials we have received that WODC were
planning to use Greystones as a waste dump, it all turns out to be true
after all. Tory toff Lord Chadlington has spent a fortune on research and a
PR campaign to close Dean Pit. Now we are suffering the consequences. The
Rugby Club, the Chippy Swifts, The Bowls Club are to get a huge rubbish dump
as a neighbour - just as some of us predicted. At today's Cabinet the
following proposal was put forward....
RECOMMENDATION
(a) That approval is given to enable the
submission of a planning application for the development of a household
waste recycling centre at Greystones, Chipping Norton;
(b) That authority be granted to spend up
to £10,000 on the appointment of a planning agent, if necessary, to be
financed from existing WPEG grant funding; and
(c) That a further detailed report be
brought back to Cabinet setting out the options for the site and the
business case.
BACKGROUND
1. Greystones depot sits beside the A361 on
the Chipping Norton to Burford road. It ceased being used as an operational
depot in the 1980s. There are five building units on site and
currently only one is let. This results in an income of around £3000 per
year.
2. It is intended to relocate a small
street cleansing operation currently occupying a building in Albion Street
into one of the units. Even with this the site will have a significant
amount of unused capacity.
3. Oxfordshire County Council is closing a
household waste recycling centre in nearby Dean (Dean Pit) on 30 September.
The creation of an alternative site would provide an alternative for the
local community. Oxfordshire County Council’s Waste Management team are
supportive of this proposal.
4. Cabinet is requested to note that a
fuller report on options for the Greystone site will be submitted to a
future meeting, as reflected in the Cabinet Work Programme. The purpose of
this report is solely to enable preparatory work to be undertaken so that in
the event of a decision to pursue the use as a household waste recycling
centre then the scheme could be progressed without undue delay.
The Editor comments:
Users of the Sports grounds will - with every justification - be up in arms
about regular traffic along the access road - a constant stream of cars and
HGVs
This will make the
sale of Greystones House impossible. I hope the Town Council is getting a
claim for compensation prepared
I hope our District Councillors kicked up a stink at the Cabinet meeting.
Everybody should ask Annie what she had to say on our behalf.
Has anyone told Mr
Clarkson about this ? He is going to have a great view of the dump from his
terrace. Not sure what his mates in the Chipping Norton Set will think about
that. Perhaps he will agree to be Patron of the newly-formed "No Rubbish at
Greystones Action Group" (NORGAG)
Thursday am: The plot gets thicker and
dirtier. Apparently this was a late addition to the agenda. The proposal was
e-mailed to councillors at 9.30 am on Wednesday morning. THIS MUST BE
AGAINST PROCEDURAL RULES. At least one
District Councillor from Chippy was not even aware it was being discussed.
In the discussion the petition organised against the closure of Dean Pit was
used as evidence that the people of Chippy were very unhappy with the
closure and were demanding a replacement facility. This all beggars belief.
God knows what WODC think they are doing to this town. The Mayor needs to
get a strong protest into his chum Barry PDQ. But that would probably mean
that he wouldn't be invited to Lord Chadlington's next garden party (For new
readers information. Lord Chadlington is the owner of Dean Manor. He is also
the President of the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association. He
commissioned a PR campaign and some research to persuade WODC and OCC that
Dean Pit should be closed. The Prime Minister also has a house in Dean. Lets
hope there nave not been any "inappropriate" conversations between council
officials and prominent Dean residents)
Summer
Open Evening
Ball Colegrave is
the leading supplier of bedding and pot plants to the professional
horticultural industry. The Summer Open Evening is being held on Wednesday
27 July and this is the only date this year that the grounds will be open to
the public. Visitors are welcome to view the spectacular trial grounds,
colourful gardens, patio displays and possibly the largest display of
hanging baskets and containers at their leisure from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00
p.m. You will also have the chance to see the 8 acre display of
horticultural delights and to preview the new plant varieties that will be
available in garden centres from Spring 2012. Tickets cost £2.00 with
children under the age of twelve admitted free. A contribution from the
admission fees will be made to our local hospice, Katharine House, and the
David Colegrave Foundation. Light refreshments provided by an outside
caterer will be available for purchase, but you are welcome to bring your
own food and drink if you prefer. Contact Sharon on 01295 814 702 for more
details.
info@ballcolegrave.com
Ball
Colegrave Ltd Milton Road West Adderbury Banbury OX17 3EY
Conmen preying on
Oxfordshire’s elderly hit record levels
REPORTS
of conmen preying on Oxfordshire’s elderly and vulnerable have hit record
levels, it emerged last night. Rogue trader teams were inundated with more
than 500 scams last year, almost three times the number of reports compared
to four years ago.
The Oxford Mail has learnt organised gangs
have conned victims out of £816,456 in the 12 months to April this year. In
2007, there were only 182 reports of scams, compared to 524 in 2010/11.
Deputy chief executive of Age UK Oxfordshire Penny Thewlis said rising cases
of doorstep crime was worrying. She said: “Rogue traders pose a
persistent threat to older people, and this significant rise in doorstep
crime rates is a real cause for concern. However, we believe older people
can protect themselves from scams if they have the right information and
advice. Do not be pressured into making any payments, particularly in cash,
or signing any documents until you have had a chance to think about it, or
discuss it with family or friends. Do not let yourself be rushed and do not
be afraid to ask a salesperson to leave. If they refuse, call the police.”
ROGUE traders who conned pensioners out of
more than £800,000 were jailed for seven years, following trading standards
investigations.
In May 2010, Scott Jackson and Mark
Shepherd were jailed after targeting an elderly academic and a dementia
sufferer in Oxford in a three-year scam. In March 2004, they told
85-year-old dementia sufferer Mary Turpin that one of her chimneys was
tilting and some roof tiles needed replacing at her North Oxford home.
Jackson, of Willow Street, Leicester, and Shepherd, of The Beeches
Caravan Site, Chipping Norton, repeatedly told the former Oxford High
School teacher that the house required maintenance work. Over 15 months she
paid them a total of £364,906 for work which should have cost just £30,000.
The following year, the conmen targeted
81-year-old retired Oxford University academic Dr Francis Marriott, who
lived in Botley. Dr Marriott paid out £506,880 for building work, which was
later assessed as being worth no more than £55,000. Shepherd was jailed for
four-and-a-half years after admitting fraud, obtaining property by
deception, two charges of obtaining money transfer by deception, and
attempting to obtain property by deception. Jackson received a
two-and-a-half year sentence after admitting two counts of obtaining money
transfer by deception and a charge of attempting to obtain property by
deception.
Letter from
Simon Kelner Editor-in-Chief of The Independent
Any morning now, we're
going to wake up to the following news story: "The phone-hacking scandal has
claimed its highest-profile victim yet with the shock news that God has
decided to resign."
"In a televised
statement, God said that after hundreds, if not thousands, of years in which
his integrity has not been questioned, the latest revelations have made it
impossible for Him to continue His work without the distraction of being
dragged into the ongoing investigation. If Rupert Murdoch is ultimately
responsible for the hacking scandal, said God, then someone has to take
responsibility for Mr Murdoch, and that has to be me. I have always known
that the buck stops here. Sources close to God say that He was particularly
upset that the town of Chipping Norton (people who live there regard
Oxfordshire as "God's own county") has been dragged into the scandal. He has
always been rather partial to "Chippy", as He calls it, and regards it as a
model for the English market town rather than as a byword for scandal,
privilege and entitlement. I take responsibility, He added, for creating a
landscape so alluring, yet so close to both London and Daylesford Organics,
that it was inevitably going to be attractive to media types who have
nothing more on their minds than a little light networking over the weekend.
Visibly moved during his resignation address, God said that, having
withstood the adverse publicity of wars, famines, floods and earthquakes, He
found it baffling that a scandal which hadn't caused death and destruction,
and in which nobody was rendered homeless, should bring about His downfall.
His friends claim that He feels let down by his public relations advisers.
One said that He is particularly angry that the Archbishop of Canterbury has
been absent from the airwaves, given his usual readiness to comment on any
subject in the news. God concluded His address by pointing to some of His
recent achievements - like the victory for goodness on The Apprentice, and
the 93rd birthday of Nelson Mandela - and simply added that He wished His
successor well..." And now back to John Humphrys, who's interviewing Theresa
May.
Chipping Norton hacked off
with link to scandal
THE
real Chipping Norton set is standing up to be counted after becoming fed up
the town’s name being linked to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
Residents fear the town’s reputation is being tarred because of the links to
the area of the so-called “Chipping Norton set”. The group of friends is
made up of key movers and shakers, including Prime Minister
David Cameron, who is the town’s MP, former newspaper executive Rebekah
Brooks and News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth.
Chipping
Norton resident Keith Ruddle, 61, (pictured left) a member of the
team of volunteers who produce the Chipping Norton News newsletter, said:
“There has been obviously a lot of press about the Chipping Norton set and I
think a lot of people in the town get a bit cheesed off to be honest.
Chipping Norton itself is a working Cotswold town with a lot of history and
heritage. A lot of the attention has been around a small number of
individuals who don’t actually live in Chipping Norton, they live out in the
sticks.”
Former town councillor Gerry Alcock has
also become increasingly annoyed with the link to coverage of the hacking
scandal. He added: “I think it’s a terrible shame that these spivs have
brought the town’s name into disrepute. It’s appalling. They have got
nothing to do with the town and the town has got nothing to do with them.”
Mayor Chris Butterworth added: “The
residents and town council, and the people who work in Chipping Norton, are
the real Chipping Norton set.”
Mr Ruddle yesterday offered Mrs Brooks a
job at the newsletter after she resigned as chief executive of News
International on Friday. Chipping Norton News is published monthly by a
20-strong team of volunteers and has a circulation of about 2,000. Dr Ruddle
said the experience would help the former editor of The Sun and News of the
World “get back to the basics” of journalism.
Girl Guides Brownies and
Rainbows end their year with a party
Celine Johnson ( Left) presented with
her girl guide badges.
Girl Guides Brownies and Rainbows with
their team leaders at the end of year BBQ and swim at the lido.
Pictures by Joe Johnson
"The music has been good
all day. quality and variety."
"It was a great atmosphere on a lovely sunny day.
Lots of food and drink and people relaxing in the sun".
(Thanks to Glyn Watkins for the pics)
Phone-hacking connection
is Chipping Norton's unwanted claim to fame
Graeme Garden and other residents say they would prefer it was on the map
for reasons other than 'sleazy journalism'
Photograph: Sam Frost for the Guardian
As
the strains from the Chipping Norton Silver Band faded away, the writer
and comedian Graeme Garden leapt on to the stage. "So, what do we think
of being associated with the Chipping Norton set?" joked the Radio 4
panellist and founder member of The Goodies. The crowd, gathered for the
town's festival, looked rather bemused. "In favour?" asked Garden, the
master of ceremonies. A couple of muted cheers. "Against?" Even feebler
boos. Indifferent, it seemed, was the answer from the hundreds gathered
in the market square to celebrate their community. Last week's
tumultuous developments in the phone-hacking scandal have put this West
Oxfordshire market town firmly on the political map. In the scenic
countryside that surrounds the town resides a powerful political and
media elite. Dinner and garden parties bring together neighbours such as
the prime minister, David Cameron, whose constituency home is just four
miles from that of Rebekah Brooks, the beleaguered chief executive of
News International.
Ten minutes'
drive away live Matthew Freud, the PR guru, and his wife Elisabeth,
daughter of Rupert Murdoch. At the heart of the Chipping Norton set,
their influence is immense. But, until the recent News of the World
drama turned a harsh spotlight on this Cotswold coterie, Chipping Norton
seemed blissfully unaware it was at the centre of much intrigue.
"I can think of more acceptable reasons
for Chipping Norton to be put on the map, rather than through any
association with sleazy journalism," said Garden, who has lived here for
30 years. "But Chipping Norton will get over it. I speak as one not
invited to any of the powerful parties. Not one of the set. None of them
are here, are they?" he said, casting an eye over the crowds sitting on
straw bales and wandering through the numerous fund-raising stalls as
local musicians performed, "Do you think they will turn up?"
Before this week, few in Chipping
Norton knew their neighbours included the striking, flame-haired Brooks,
former editor of both the News of the World and the Sun. She lives two
miles from the town, in a luxury barn conversion, with her second
husband, Old Etonian Charlie Brooks, the former jockey, horse trainer
and now thriller writer. It was at their home that Cameron was guest at
a Christmas get-together that included James Murdoch, chairman of News
Corp. A full guest list has never been disclosed, despite numerous
inquiries by the Guardian after it discovered the dinner took place.
That discovery came just after Vince Cable, the business secretary and
no fan of Rupert Murdoch's, was relieved of his responsibilities to
decide on Murdoch's attempt to take full control of BSkyB. Brooks,
it would appear, is rarely, if ever, spied shopping on Chipping Norton's
picturesque but modest high street. This week, with her photograph
gracing every front page the good folk of Chipping Norton certainly all
now know of her.
"We would prefer to be put on the map
for more positive things," sighed Chris Butterworth, the town's mayor,
wandering round the raffle and cake stalls. I don't really know what the
Chipping Norton set is. We're not part of it anyway," joked the
Conservative councillor. "I am sure it is just an informal thing. I
don't think it is sinister in any way."
His wife, Sue, the mayoress, believed
it had all been taken out of context. "Surely people are allowed to have
supper at Christmas with their neighbours" she said. Neither had seen
Brooks in town. "I don't think many people knew she even lived here
until all of this," said the mayoress. "Such a lot has been made of the
celebrity factor. But we have a lot of well-known people in the area …
because it is a beautiful place, and people are allowed to get on with
things."
One of the
better-known personalities living nearby is Jeremy Clarkson, the Top
Gear presenter and Sun columnist. It was at his Chipping Norton home
that Brooks met her second husband, Charlie, an old pal of Cameron's.
The prime minister even turned up for the launch of his latest thriller,
Citizen. Cameron's close social links with the "set" are further
evidenced, reportedly, by his willingness to appear as Top Gear's The
Stig in a video tribute at Clarkson's 50th birthday party. The prime
minister has also been known to go riding with Brooks.
The leafy lanes around the town are
also home to Charles Dunstone, the Carphone Warehouse boss, Alex James,
the Blur bassist, and the millionaire property developer Tony Gallagher
who bought his 17th century estate from the Tory-turned Labour former
minister Sean Woodward. Cameron's aide Steve Hilton lives nearby in a
barn conversion in Burford.
At the local Chequers pub, David
Hawker, local resident and constituent, believes the prime minister
might want to put some distance between himself and the set. "It's not
ideal for the PM. He's a good chap in my view. But, as things have
turned out, he will want to distance himself in order to be seen to be
impartial." But other are less tolerant and are annoyed at the way their
town has acquired recent fame. "Chipping Norton has been on the map for
a lot better things throughout history," said Don Davidson, an
independent councillor, former town mayor and one of the festival
organisers. It should be known for what we are seeing here today. Real
community spirit. Rather than for the outrageous things that have been
taking place at Wapping".
!0th July 9.41 am. Above the
rooftops of Chippy
Thanks to Heather Hayes from Bliss Mill for the photo
Parish
councils are to be given sweeping new powers to run their local
neighbourhoods - including licensing pubs and bringing in parking schemes
Parish
councils are to be given sweeping new powers to run their local
neighbourhoods - including licensing pubs and bringing in parking schemes.
Local communities will also be able to operate libraries, museums and even
deal with low-level anti-social behaviour under “power to the people”
plans to be announced on Monday. The Sunday Telegraph understands
that the driving force behind the coalition’s flagship public services
white paper will be new moves towards “localism” and away from top-down
“Whitehall knows best” approach. Senior government courses say this will
mean devolving powers as far down as possible - to small neighbourhood
bodies such as parish councils and their equivalents.
Currently parish and town councils deal only
with such minor issues as allotments, public toilets, pathways, village
halls and litter.
However, the white paper will propose a big extension of their powers
which would effectively see small groups of local residents take over
responsibilities which are now held by larger bodies such as town halls
and county councils. They could rule on licensing hours for pubs and
clubs, bring in new traffic restrictions in towns and villages, including
speed limits, and run parks and leisure facilities.
A coalition source said: “We want people
to be given the green light to take over local services to ensure they are
run by the local community, for the local community. We need to end once
and for all this way of making decisions from the top down and assuming
that Whitehall or county councils know what best suits individual
neighbourhoods. Parish councils can do all that.”
Ministers say the proposals will build on
plans already announced to let neighbourhoods take charge of planning -
with residents given the chance to approve or reject neighbourhood plans
in local referendums.
The white paper will also commit
ministers to investigating ways of making it easier for groups of people
to band together to run local services. It will propose allowing
individuals to be given cash budgets by the government to buy services for
themselves rather than being dictated to by local authorities in several
key areas including treatment for the elderly and those with long-term
health conditions, ad the parents of special-needs children.
BRING
IT ON!
How
Ronnie Barker swapped comedy for antiques
IT
WOULD be difficult to imagine Russell Brand or Ricky Gervais taking a break
from stardom to stand behind the counter of an antiques shop in deepest West
Oxfordshire. But that is what comedy legend Ronnie Barker chose to do after
deciding he had had enough of television comedy, which he considered
increasingly vulgar. Bad language and gags about bodily functions were
repugnant to this national icon. And after creating and writing so many
jokes and sketches, and appearing in such massively successful shows as
Porridge, The Two Ronnies and Open All Hours, Mr Barker had also come to
believe his own well of humour was drying up. “I’d run out of ideas, and to
be honest, I’d done everything I wanted to do. And I’m sorry to say the
material coming through wasn’t such good quality,” he reflected, when asked
why he had withdrawn at the height of his fame. He had settled in the small
west Oxfordshire village of Dean, the perfect home for a man determined to
disappear off the professional radar. He would also realise one of his few
unfulfilled ambitions, to run his own antiques shop.
He opened it in Chipping Norton’s High
Street, christening it The Emporium. In many ways it was really just an
extension of his hobby of collecting antiques, memorabilia and Victoriana.
It was said his postcard collection alone extended to 53,000 items. The
story of his search for peace in the tranquillity of the Oxfordshire
countryside, before his death, aged 76, in Katharine House Hospice in
Adderbury in 2005, is touchingly told in the biography Remembering Ronnie
Barker, published in paperback this month. Author Richard Webber spent
months tracing Mr Barker’s old school friends at the City of Oxford High
School and people who remembered his early acting career.
Once the star unwittingly bought an antique
cabinet from a man who turned out to be a convict. “The crook was apparently
dressed in his blue prison uniform and home on leave when he duped Barker
into buying the item, which resulted in Ronnie being questioned by police
and released without charge.” Then there was the time when the shop was
visited by two under-cover Sun reporters, who offered Mr Barker a silver
salver, which had been valued at about £1,000 by a leading auction house.
When he offered them £20, the Sun ran a story highlighting the difference
between its value and Mr Barker’s low offer. The little shop run with his
wife Joy, who died last year, closed in 1999. Troubled with diabetes and
heart disease, toward the end he would put off seeing friends because he did
not want them to see his weight loss.
But Prof Ronald Spiers, who retired to
Chipping Norton, recalls seeing Mr Barker at the local branch of Barclays
just months before he died. He said: “I remember waiting in a queue when
Ronnie came out from an office with a young attractive manageress, who had a
bundle of files under her arm. She was leading the way and turned to Ronnie
saying, ‘ I’m afraid this is something we’ll have to go upstairs for.’
Ronnie replied, ‘Oh, it’s a long time since anyone said that to me’.” The
whole bank queue erupted, little suspecting they may well have witnessed the
great Ronnie Barker’s final performance.
What a
bloody cheek!
COMMUNITIES
should consider buying their own road salt to combat snow and ice, according
to Oxfordshire’s deputy chief fire officer. Colin Thomas told a review into
planning for severe winter weather that bags of salt could be stockpiled by
communities for use in case delivery lorries could not get through.
Oxfordshire County Council also pledged to
have more staff available to answer calls for assistance and to work more
closely with the Highways Agency to keep major roads open. Mr Thomas said
there was a “potential for communities to stockpile more salt, but at their
expense”. He told councillors looking into the authority’s preparations
for wintry weather: “The idea [is] to enhance that community’s resilience.
If the network is jammed, getting salt out is difficult.” The authority has
already said it has no plans to provide more roadside salt bins.
Spokesman Owen Morton said: “We’re
currently reviewing how we manage these grit bins, with the aim of providing
a more reliable resource for use by local communities.” He added: “There’s
nothing stopping local communities and parish councils from stockpiling
additional salt to fill these bins, at their own expense, to ensure they are
better replenished.
Summertown Liberal Democrat councillor John
Goddard told the Oxford Mail: “The availability of more grit is welcome.
Having to pay for it is not. If grit is needed, then it should be provided
by the county council. We all pay our council tax.”
Alice
Powell credits Oxfordshire for motorsport career
Renault
UK driver Alice Powell says living in Oxfordshire has helped her to progress
in her motorsport career. Williams, Renault and rally specialists Prodrive
are all based in the county, and Powell, from Chipping Norton, trains at
Renault in Kidlington. "I'm near Renault and Silverstone is just up the
road, so I'm really lucky as it's definitely helped me in my career," she
told BBC Oxford.Living here definitely has advantages, it's easier to make
contacts."
The 18-year-old added: "I'm quite lucky to be able to
train at Renault, training there with F1 trainers and making good contacts
is fantastic. It's a great help to use their equipment too, so it's
definitely a big plus." Powell is the only woman competing in the Renault UK
championship this season and believes the sport needs more female drivers.
The sport just needs a female role model to be successful so more women can
come and join in," she said. We have got more people coming through like
Danica Patrick
and Pippa Mann, so people like that
can open door for other females. Obviously being the only girl gets good
attention because you're a woman in a man's world, but you still have to
prove yourself.People outside will says 'she's just a girl,' but I proved by
winning the BARC last year that it's not just a man's sport."
How Hilary has
fought for the Youth Centre
"Localism" and the "BIG Society" are the new buzz words. When
OCC decided to cut youth service funding in Chippy it looked certain that
the new Youth Centre under construction would turn out to be a white
elephant. Hilary Biles stepped in and made a personal commitment to find a
way of using the facility - with volunteers, fund-raising, sponsorship, and
renting rooms to third parties. It looks as if she will succeed. Anyway
Hilary has so impressed the top brass at the County Council and they are so
proud of her that they submitted a Report about her project to the recent
Local Government Association Conference. (As you read this remember that
this is the same lady who was sacked by Barry Norton from the WODC Cabinet
for fighting to protect from cuts a crucial fund to help maintain community
halls in the District). Here's the County Council report.
Chipping Norton Youth
Centre
Chipping
Norton is a town of approximately 6,000, 17 miles north of Oxford. In 2010 a
successful bid was made to Partnership for Schools to co-locate Chipping
Norton Young People’s Centre and the County Council’s Adult Learning Centre
in brand new premises. Subsequently, in the face of financial pressures,
Oxfordshire County Council redesigned the delivery of services for young
people and in Chipping Norton council youth provision was withdrawn. This
decision not only threatened the ongoing delivery of youth services but also
made the County Council potentially liable for £800k if the building was not
completed or used for the original purposes.
The response of the
local councillor, Cllr Hilary Hibbert-Biles, Conservative (pictured left),
was to take on personal responsibility for ensuring that the building would
be completed on time and that ongoing management and operation would be
community-led. The scale and complexity of this project meant that a
successful outcome was far from certain and the visibility of Cllr
Hibbert-Biles leadership meant that failure would be personal. Indeed at
many points along the journey failure seemed the most likely outcome.
Officers struggled to
make the shift from requirements for a council-owned and run building to one
that is community-led. This particularly applied to the Council’s Adult
Learning service, that took time to understand the difference between
sub-leasing from the new management committee rather than being responsible
for the operation of the centre. Faced with delays caused by Oxfordshire’s
normal working practices but which threatened the building being completed
and opened on schedule, Cllr Hibbert-Biles escalated issues to senior
officers, Cabinet members and the Leader.
As officers began to
shift to make the necessary changes to processes and policies, Cllr
Hibbert-Biles spent much of her time communicating with members of the
community managing expectations, explaining delays and maintaining the
necessary support. Using her local knowledge and networks she brought
together District and Town councillors, the local Police, school, church and
others to form a management committee.
The building is now on
track to open on schedule in September 2011 with a community-led management
committee and an application has been submitted to Oxfordshire’s Big Society
Fund to support the first year of operation after which point the centre
will become self-financing.
Key learning: There are many
lessons that can be drawn from Cllr Hibbert-Biles work in Chipping Norton
not least that vision and tenacity are necessary attributes for the
councillor as social entrepreneur. What strikes most forcefully, though, was
the scale and complexity of the project and the personal and political risks
associated with failure. In a non-localist world, Chipping Norton would
simply have had to accept that its new facility was not going to be built.
In Oxfordshire, a council determined to support local councillors and the
communities they serve to take on a greater role in the design and delivery
of services, there was the opportunity to save the centre. To make good on
this opportunity though Cllr Hibbert-Biles had to assume visible local
leadership. These kinds of opportunities, and the risks associated with
them, are a corollary of localism. Whether or not to take them on, and how
to make a success of them if they do, are challenges that will increasingly
face councillors as social entrepreneurs.
Chipping
Norton 'one of safest places to live in country'
CHIPPING
Norton is one of the safest places to live in England and Wales, according
to chief inspector Colin Paine (pictured left). He told members of the town
council at a meeting last week that maintaining the very low level of crime
was quite a challenge because one or two incidents could significantly push
up the percentages.
The West Oxfordshire police chief, who took
up his post in April, said: “Policing will be dealt with in a robust way. I
want officers to be friendly and approachable and have good relationships
with the community, but crime must also be dealt with quickly before
evidence and witnesses start to disappear.” Crime figures for burglary
throughout West Oxfordshire rose significantly in the 12 months to April
2011 but recently, because of cross border co-operation and following a
number of arrests, he said the level had now fallen again.
After the meeting the chief inspector spoke
of the effects of the budgets cuts imposed by Government because of the
national economic crisis. He said Thames Valley Police was being forced to
make savings of £55 million over four years. The overwhelming majority of
the savings is coming from the restructuring process, which has saved £16m
already.” More savings, he said, were being made by forces sharing services,
such as IT departments. The good news is that the number of frontline
officers has been maintained.”
Chf Insp Paine said he could not guarantee
the situation would not change in the coming years and that some reductions
in police officers could occur.
The webmaster writes:
This isn't what the Police were telling us when they wanted the town
to spend £16,000 a year on closed circuit TV cameras in the town centre!!
Fight to
save Dean Pit has 1,000 backers
MORE
than 1,000 signatures have been gathered by campaigners against the closure
of a household waste recycling site. Chipping Norton town councillors are
backing the bid to urge county councillors to think again over the closure
of Dene Recycling Centre, near Charlbury. Town councillor Eve Coles said:
“We are strongly against the proposal to close Dene Pit. We want the county
to reconsider its decision. I have already got plenty of signatures to hand
in to the council offices next month.”
Spearheading the campaign is Liz Leffman.
She said: “We fear that closing Dean Pit will encourage fly-tipping and
generate more traffic on the roads travelling greater distances to the next
facility.” Dene Recycling Centre is set to close in September but
campaigners are to present county councillors with their petition at the
next full council meeting on July 28
The picture shows Liz Leffman who is a
LibDem campaigning for Chippy Hospital a couple of years ago
When
landscape gardener and Daily Telegraph reader Robert Caswell won a
place on a STIHL Experience Day and was asked to test out STIHL’s
KombiSystem range of garden equipment, he couldn’t believe his luck.
Robert and and his business partner son, Mark, already use some STIHL
tools for their family garden and their work, but they were particularly
interested in STIHL’s ingenious KombiSystem range. One of five powerful
petrol KombiEngines can be used with any of the 12 easy to attach
KombiTools, including hedge trimmers, a pole pruner, grass trimmers, and
bristle brush.
“We were delighted to be asked to test the
KombiSystem because of its versatility and the large range of attachments
available,” said Robert, 55, who lives in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
One of our vehicles is a small van and because you can break the
KombiTools down into a small length and an engine, it’s ideal for us. Now
we’re planning on buying more of the tools to use with it.”
Robert has found the leaf blower
particularly useful: “It’s quite a big piece of kit, and while most are
hand-held, the KombiTool blower’s shoulder strap makes it more comfortable
to use and more powerful than others,” he said. We also wanted the
brushcutter and chose the one with a blade and not a trimmer line because
it gets through thick weeds like cow parsley, thistles and docks.” Next
Robert wants to buy the pick tine for digging over flower borders: “It is
excellent because you can reach into the borders standing up, instead of
having to get on your hands and knees,” he said.
Robert
finds the STIHL equipment he already owns to be easy to use and hard
wearing. “We’ve had tools for 15 years and they’re still going strong.”
Because we use our equipment five or six days a week, it has got to be
reliable.”
It’s two
Goodies to be true for hospice
FAMOUS
faces from the world of television and sport united at a charity cricket
match in aid of Katharine House Hospice. Household names including Star
Trek’s Sir Patrick Stewart and The Goodie’s Graham Garden and Tim
Brooke-Taylor, came together for Sunday’s fundraising event at Enstone
Cricket Club.
Villagers from
Enstone, including Sir Patrick, took to the field representing the Katharine
House Hospice team while their celebrity opponents made up the Goodies
team.Sir Patrick said: “I’m sacrificing myself today for a good cause, but
as someone who was born not far from the birthplace of
[former Yorkshire and England cricketer] Geoffrey Boycott I’m hoping
something will have rubbed off.” Excluding Sir Patrick, the Katharine House
Hospice team was made up of members of the Enstone Cricket Club, while the
Goodies welcomed the experience of former England cricketers Neal Radford,
Neil Smith and Devon Malcolm.They were joined by soap actors including Ryan
Philpott (Eastenders), Charlie Dale (Coronation Street) and Richard Avery (Emmerdale)
and presenter Jonnie Irwin of A Place In The Sun – Home And Away.
“It’s an absolute privilege to play this
kind of game of cricket, but to have any sort of contribution towards a
hospice is an honour beyond words because it’s something I feel very
strongly about,” said Mr Irwin. If us coming here and having a great day of
cricket benefits others than we are very lucky.”
The match was organised by the Lord’s
Taverners, which was founded for avid cricket followers to encourage the
participation of disabled and disadvantaged people in a wide range of
sports. Mr Brooke-Taylor and Mr Garden did not take part in the match, but
took to the sidelines to cheer on the teams. Mr Garden said: “As an Enstone
man I have got split loyalties with my team of the celebrities playing
against my home team of Enstone. The match, which was won by the Goodies,
was preceded by a marquee lunch and followed by a charity auction with lots
including a 2005 signed Chelsea shirt. To date, £3,000 has been raised from
the event to support the work of Katharine House Hospice.
Chairman Neil Gadsby said: “This has been
an absolutely wonderful day from the Lord’s Taverners and local people. It’s
another example of people who step forward with fantastic fundraising ideas,
not just from time to time, but on a regular basis to keep the hospice
going.”
Claire
wins National Time Trial
Claire Sadler
(38), from Wilcox Road Chipping Norton, represented Thames Valley
Police in the Emergency Services National Cycling Time Trial
Championships, held in Yarm, Cleveland on 25th & 26th June. Claire
won both the ladies 10 mile time trial and the 25 mile time trial in
fairly windy conditions with a time of 25:25 for the 10 mile event and
1:02:52 for the 25 mile event. Claire who works in IT Training for
Thames Valley Police, was delighted with her wins.
Cameron
protege loses his figures
BEDBLOCKING
in Oxfordshire’s hospitals has got drastically worse in the past six months,
new figures show. The Department of Health figures put the number of
patients who were well enough to go home but couldn’t because the correct
care was not in place for them, at 129 on one day in May – up from 89 in
December. The figures showed the number of days people were stuck in
hospital was 4,012 days last month, compared to 3,077 days six months
previously.
Yet Arash Fatemian, (pictured above) the county councillor
responsible for social care, who six months ago
pledged an improvement,
disputed that bedblocking was getting worse in the county. He told the
Oxford Mail last night there had been a ‘downward trend’ in the number of
people according to internal Oxfordshire County Council figures, but a power
cut that hit the city yesterday meant he could not produce them
Webmaster adds: Arash
was elected to the County Council in June 2009. His website says: "Since
April 2010 I have been the Executive member with responsibility for the
Adult Social Care policy of a high profile, top-tier council at a time of
fast-paced and radical national change" Less than a year to the cabinet.
Election to Cabinet in nine months...What kind of fast track is this guy on?
Lets hope he's up to the job. Did he get the vacancy on the Cabinet created by the
dismissal of the outstanding Ian Hudspeth who had the audacity to challenge
the Leader of the Council.
Christopher Shale,
the Chairman of the Local Tories who
sadly died at Glastonbury over the weekend said in his leaked report on the
state of the Conservative party in West Oxfordshire: the local party
appeared "graceless, voracious, crass, always on the take", and needed to
radically change. Looks as if the Tories have lost someone who really knew
what he was talking about!
A
19-year-old was cautioned for possession of a small quantity of cannabis
after a raid in Horse Fair, Chipping Norton, on Wednesday 22nd June. He was
also given a caution for handling stolen goods. Sgt Colin James, of Thames
Valley Police said: “What this shows is that if people give us information
they will see us act upon it.”
Vandalised. The Speed Camera on
Worcester Road
Thanks to Kristel Withers for the pic.
A
new map has been produced showing all the cycle, bus and train routes in
west Oxfordshire. Councils, cycle groups and
environmental organisations
have come together to produce the map.
ONLY one
problem as far as Chippy is concerned!!
Richard Fairhurst -
webmaster of the Charlbury website and guru of all things bicycling writes:
The Oxford Mail are being a little
creative in describing it as covering "all the cycle, bus and train
routes in west Oxfordshire". It doesn't and it was never meant to. It's
actually the "A40 corridor map" - i.e. Witney, Carterton, Eynsham.
We put in Woodstock as well because there was a little spare space and
lots of people commute from there to Oxford by bike. The front cover
carefully says "Carterton, Eynsham, Witney and Woodstock" and not "West
Oxfordshire"! As you've observed on chippingnorton.net in the past, people
don't generally commute from Chippy by bike - unlike the other four
settlements - so the same type of combined bus/train map wouldn't be
relevant. (There are, of course, already free bus maps for Chippy from
both OCC and Stagecoach.)
It didn't cost WODC anything - I did all the cartography for free, the
research was done by volunteers too, and we used the Ordnance Survey's
new royalty-free data for the basemap. We're now working on a
leisure-focused cycling map for the whole
district which will include Chippy quite prominently - in fact, one of
the key people contributing to it is from Chippy.
cheers
Richard
David
Cameron's neighbours vent anger at
pothole fix outside PM's country pad
DAVID
Cameron’s neighbours are furious after the road outside his country pad was
resurfaced while theirs is still blighted by potholes. Despite huge council
cutbacks, workmen completely relaid the quiet country lane outside the
PM’s £2million constituency home in Oxfordshire last week. But motorists on
nearby roads have to make bone-jarring journeys on routes pock-marked with
holes
Neighbours of the Camerons’ in
the village of Dean, near Chipping Norton, say their roads now resemble “the
surface of the moon”. Former school cook Jenny Bodman, who said Oxfordshire
County Council had told residents it lacked funds, fumed: “It gets you
niggled, we’d like answers.” But the council insisted: “We respond to
reports of potholes and generally go out and fix them daily. If you’re
looking at favouritism to Mr Cameron, that’s not the case.”
What the Daily Mirror
obviously didn't know was that there was a big summer bash at Dave's on
Friday evening for local Tory bigwigs. Goodness knows what Cicely would have
said if the road was in a mess. She obviously got Highways jumping.
Mo’s joy at
Parkinson’s poetry prize
A
69-year-old grandmother-of-six has won a prestigious award for her poetry
despite battling with Parkinson’s. Mo Browne of Chipping Norton scooped the
London and the South of England People’s Choice prize in the 2011 Mervyn
Peake Awards.
The awards are organised by Parkinson’s UK
and judged by the Peake family, in memory of the late illustrator, writer
and poet Mervyn Peake. They celebrate the creativity of people with
Parkinson’s in art, poetry, photography and digital art. Mo’s winning poem
Waltzing Dream is about a dream she had. She said: “It was a wonderful
dream, waltzing with a particular person in a hotel foyer. My poem is about
hope and the joy of life. I was delighted to get the award. This shows
having Parkinson’s does not have to stand in the way of creativity.”
Mo was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s in
2006 when she was working as a hospital secretary. Mo’s prize is to have her
poem featured in the charity’s 2012 calendar.
Waltzing Dream
He draws her to him
in the hotel foyer:
Gathering sheaves.
Her left arm, bent,
lies on his right,
elbow poised;
her fingers winter on
his shoulder’s ledge.
She turns her face away,
ballroom-dance style,
hand clasped in his:
snail in its shell.
His pale skin is cool,
woman-smooth.
He smells of sea-salt,
roasted almonds.
Violins play pianissimo:
music of the spheres.
Seven girls,
smiling, sit and watch
from deep arm-chairs.
Wall-lamps fling up
Vs of light.
He bends forward,
scoops her close.
Breaking all rules,
she looks at him,
then beyond at
skeins of birds
flying mutely
in distant skies.
They sway into a waltz,
sweeping wide,
closing into gyres
at the turns.
Shifting in the cradle
of their arms,
They merge, become
a double helix.
He slows the pace,
leans towards her:
“Better! Its getting
better and better!”
She says nothing
but feels a surge
of joy she’s never
known before.
Dreaming, she knows
she’s in a dream.
Waking, she holds
the story tight.
FORMER CHIPPING NORTON SCHOOL PUPILS TAKE ON
JAYBEE APPRENTICE ROLES
Two former
Chipping Norton school pupils are proving that apprenticeships are still
alive and well in the modern workplace after taking up roles at Jaybee
Motors Renault in Banbury. Ryan Hanks, aged 17, recently started at Jaybee
as a parts apprentice while fellow Chipping Norton School alumnus Michael
Nurden, aged 20, also from Chipping Norton, has just started his first
year as an apprentice technician in the service department. After leaving
school,
Ryan worked for another dealership, but moved to Jaybee to start a
three-year course with on-site training and classroom-based instruction.
His current job sees him working with parts deliveries, sorting out stock
and dealing directly with Renault customers. His colleague Michael left
school and took up an apprenticeship in agricultural engineering but came
to Jaybee on work experience and was offered a three-year training
placement.
Colin Corne, Aftersales and Marketing Director at Jaybee Motors, said:
“Staff training is a priority at Jaybee, and we see it as essential in
ensuring that we offer our customers the very highest standards of
customer care. Investing in apprentices’ training has brought enormous
value to businesses such as ours by ensuring a high skill level,
productivity and staff retention.”
Renault
apprenticeships last three years and combine workshop experience at a
Renault dealership with classroom training. he apprenticeship leads to a
National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level Three technical certificate
that is internationally recognised by the motor industry. For more
information, visit Jaybee Motors at Oxford Road, Bodicote, call 01295
227100 or visit www.jaybee.co.uk
or look for Jaybee on Facebook and Twitter
An appeal from Liz
Leffman
who is organising the campaign against closing Dean Pit
Hi Gerry
We have a total of 1157 signatures on the Dean Pit petition
so far, and 120 people have signed the petition on OCC's website. A very
large number of these are Chippy residents, so a big vote of thanks to you
and Eve for this.
Now we want to get a letter-writing campaign up and running
- the cabinet member for growth and infrastructure, Lorraine Lindsay-Gale,
lives in Dorchester so has no experience of the impact that the closure
may have on this area. We need to tell her! If as many people as
possible send letters that will have a big impact and will support the
petition when we present it. People can write to her by e mail at
lorraine.lindsay-gale@oxfordshire.gov.uk, or by mail at County Hall
New Road, Oxford OX1 1ND
If people write by e mail it would be helpful if they could
copy me at
lizleffman@clothesource.net so I know what has been sent
Many thanks for your help with this
Best regards
Liz Leffman
So are
the surgeries moving or not??
The
White House Surgery in Chipping Norton must move to meet present needs and
future competition, according to doctors. Plans to demolish the surgery at
White House and replace it with seven homes have been re-submitted to West
Oxfordshire District Council because the plans were running out of time. The
doctors were granted outline planning permission in 2006, but because of
various setbacks, the detailed plans were never finalised. Now the
applicants are going all out to get the plans submitted to health chiefs by
September.
Practice manager Tony Love said: “The White
House Surgery premises are no longer fit for purpose. We are unable to
expand as we are surrounded by closed boundaries. We are restricted in
offering new services as we do not have the room. A new surgery would
provide a modern spacious establishment allowing the surgery to expand its
services with improved access and parking. We would like to provide the town
with the primary care facilities it deserves.” He said the planned
re-location, within the grounds of the community hospital near Rock Hill,
would strengthen the bond between the surgery and the hospital, and provide
the hospital with close GP support. “It will provide the town with a
flagship health campus,” Mr Love said. He said that the other surgery in the
town, West Street, was in the same position, but by the time of going to
press, there was no comment from doctors.
Chipping Norton mayor Christopher
Butterworth said: “I think the general feeling is that if one surgery moved
out of the town, it would not be too bad, but if both moved there would be
some opposition.”
MAYOR
TAKES UP A FIRM POSITION ABOUT SAINSBURY'S
Sainsbury’s has opened a public consultation
inviting people to comment on early proposals to build a new store on the
former Parker Knoll site in London Road. The proposals have been cautiously
welcomed by Chipping Norton Town Mayor Chris Butterworth, who supported
additional jobs for the town but questioned the use of the existing
brownfield site. He said: “This is a sensitive issue with the school right
next door, because with a large number of cars [visiting the shop] the
traffic would be come a greater problem. The idea is to build a store which
is 80 per cent food and 20 per cent non-food items. One of the main concerns
of Chippy is that the 20 per cent of non-food sales could detract sales from
the town centre. However we hope that people who come to do their shopping
at the new site would then move down into the town centre and use the shops
there. There is also the issue of the fact that originally the site was
supposed to be for light industrial use. But of course we would welcome the
addition of all these news jobs.”
Graeme
Garden gets an OBE
Comedian Graeme Garden gave
himself a gong in an episode of hit 1970s show The Goodies and now he has a
real one. Mr Garden, 68, from Enstone, near Chipping Norton, now has an OBE,
for services to light entertainment. He lives with his wife Emma and the
couple have a son Tom, 26.
Mr Garden, who is in the middle of
recording a new series of the Radio 4 show Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue, also has
a son and a daughter from his first marriage. He said: “This is a great
honour. When The Goodies was on, I awarded myself an OBE on one of the shows
to tease Bill Oddie, who had been recognised for his wildlife work, so it’s
great to finally get a real one.” Mr Garden, who suffered heart problems
several years ago, gives talks to help fundraising efforts for the Oxford
Heart Centre.
Pictured: Graeme
supporting the hospital campaign in the town a couple of years back.
MATTHEW PRATLEY PUT AWAY
FOR THREE YEARS
A
“PARASITIC criminal” defrauded an 83-year-old Parkinson’s sufferer of
thousands of pounds and stole cash from his own elderly relative. Matthew
Pratley “deliberately targeted elderly, frail and vulnerable people” as he
took about £7,000 from a retired Oxford University academic and then burgled
his 84-year-old great aunt. The 38-year-old was jailed for three and a half
years at Oxford Crown Court on Friday after earlier admitting fraud, theft
and burglary. Pratley, from Chipping Norton, began work as an odd-job man at
the Oxford home of Dr Francis Marriott in late 2009. Recorder Richard Hamlin
said in December that year he told Dr Marriott “a bald lie” by claiming his
girlfriend was ill and that he needed money to take her to hospital by taxi.
Dr Marriott, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s two years
ago, handed over his debit card and PIN and between that date and its
blockage by his bank on January 18, Pratley unlawfully withdrew up to
£7,500. Pratley, who was a drug addict at the time, told police that his
victim would let him use the card to pay for maintenance work and food, but
he admitted withdrawing larger amounts than Dr Marriott had sanctioned. When
the card was blocked, Pratley, who has 15 previous convictions, went round
to his victim’s house and demanded a loan of £50 before he was scared off by
neighbours.
Recorder Hamlin praised the “public-spirited” work of
neighbours Ron and Hilda Cook. Having been arrested and bailed, Pratley then
burgled £260 in cash from his great aunt Peg Clarke’s house in Chipping
Norton. Pratley distracted the 84-year-old while his accomplice Gemma
Boswell plucked the money from her handbag. She was jailed for two years at
an earlier hearing. Recorder Hamlin said: “These are mean offences carried
out against the frail and elderly and the sort of offences that cause great
distress.” Outside court Pc Wayne Harvey described Pratley as “a
mean-spirited, parasitic criminal who deliberately targeted elderly, frail
and vulnerable people.”
Station Mill Antiques
back up and running
THE
owner of a Chipping Norton antique shop, gutted by fire last year, is
delighted to be open again after a £300,000 refit. Station Mill Antiques in
Chipping Norton has been given a new lease of life since fire ripped through
the building last September. Ever since the blaze, caused by an electrical
fault, owner Lesley Langer has been toiling to get her business back on
track. She said: “It has been completely refurbished – new everything. A lot
of dealers are coming back and we have also got some new ones. We have a new
tea room and menu, and I am very excited to be opening again. It took
several Cotswold fire crews to bring the fire under control at the time, and
the blaze was so fierce that within 15 minutes flames could be seen shooting
through the roof.”
TERRIFIC RESULT AT MARK
JONES MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT
On Friday, 27th May, the Mark Jones Memorial Golf Tournament & Auction took
place at the Chipping Norton Golf Club, Chipping Norton in aid of Pancreatic
Cancer UK and the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oncology Unit). It was a
fantastic day and evening with 56 golfers and around 80 in attendance in the
evening. There was live entertainment, a great buffet and a fantastic
raffle and Auction, raising almost £7000.00 for the evening plus we still
have many items that came in late to the Auction that we are putting on Ebay,
ie Chelsea Football Memorabilia, etc. that will bring in more money.
Pat on
the back for us all from WODC
West Oxfordshire has almost doubled its recycling rate over the last six
months, with over 66% of the District’s waste now being recycled. Recycling
has increased significantly month-on-month since the District Council
introduced a new waste and recycling service at the end of November 2010,
with latest whole-month figures for April showing that 66% of waste was
diverted from landfill. West Oxfordshire’s recycling rate stood at 34%
before the service was launched.
Cllr David Harvey, West Oxfordshire District Council’s Cabinet Member for
Environment, said: “The Council had hoped that the previous 34% recycling
rate would be doubled within the first year of the new service. We knew that
this was an ambitious and demanding target, so we are absolutely delighted
that this has almost happened within the first few months. Residents in
West Oxfordshire have responded extremely positively to the new service and
we are very grateful to them – this impressive increase would not have been
possible without their fantastic support. With a new service involving
more than 45,000 households we have faced some teething problems. Although
the service is not perfect yet, it is on the whole running smoothly and we
hope to continue building on the success of recent months.”
The new service gives residents more opportunities to recycle and reduce the
amount of waste sent to landfill. In addition to the long-term environmental
benefits, it will also save the Council over £500,000 a year, which will
help it to keep Council Tax bills low for residents. The service saw the
introduction of weekly food waste recycling collections, continuation of
weekly black box recycling collections and optional, free fortnightly garden
waste collections, which have so far been taken up by more than 30,000
households. It also includes fortnightly household rubbish collections for
non-recyclable items.
So
far, 1,656 tonnes of food waste has been collected from homes in West
Oxfordshire and recycled into electricity and fertiliser for farmland at a
processing plant in Cassington, instead of sent to landfill, where it rots
and produces the harmful greenhouse gas, methane. In addition to food and
garden waste, residents are able to recycle a wide range of materials in
their black boxes, including tins, foil, aerosols, plastics, paper,
cardboard, glass, textiles, shoes and batteries.
Craig Cutajar, Contracts Manager for May Gurney, the Council’s waste and
recycling contractor, said: “We’re very pleased to have helped with
increasing recycling in West Oxfordshire and would like to thank local
people for their support. We’ve started using vehicles with separate
compartments for different materials to collect recycling and this means
that more materials can be recycled.”
Man pulls
out knife after theft
Banbury Guardian
Published on Monday 23 May
A SECURITY guard was threatened with a
knife after a man and women shoplifted from a shop in Chipping Norton. The
incident happened on Wednesday May 18 at about 5.50pm when they entered
Boots in the High Street and stole perfume and aftershave testers from the
display stand. The man is aged about 25, 6’, of slim build and had short
spikey light brown hair and a pale complexion. He was wearing a green
thigh-length jacket and dark blue jeans. The woman is of mixed race, 5’9
and about 25 years old, or large build with black staggly shoulder-length
hair. She was wearing a green canvas bag, Anyone with information should
call 08458 505 505 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Conmen must pay back
part of haul
ROGUE
traders who conned pensioners out of more than £800,000 will have to pay
back less than ten per cent of their ill-gotten gains. Scott Jackson of
Willow Street, Leicester and Mark Shepherd of The Beeches Caravan Site,
Chipping Norton (shown left) were jailed for seven years after targeting an
elderly academic and a dementia sufferer in Oxford during the three year
scam. Yesterday prosecutors and defence lawyers struck a deal at Oxford
Crown Court which will see Shepherd pay back £50,000 and Jackson £25,000,
plus his £5,000 gold watch to the victims.
Prosecutor Peter Coombe told the proceeds
of crime hearing that Shepherd, 43, had benefited to the tune of £600,000
from the scam, with Jackson, 41, receiving £200,000. He said prosecutors
wanted to get at least some of the money back for the victims as soon as
possible. He said: “Both men have said in replies to the Crown that they
have no funds.”
Juries in both of the men’s trials heard
how the pair had befriended their victims while the scams were going on. In
March 2004, the two men told 85-year-old dementia sufferer Mary Turpin one
of her chimneys was tilting and some tiles needed replacing at her North
Oxford home.
Jackson and Shepherd, repeatedly told
the former Oxford High School teacher that the house needed work doing to
it. Over 15 months she paid them a total of £364,906 for work which should
have cost just £30,000. The following year, the conmen targeted 81-year-old
retired
Oxford University academic Dr Francis Marriott, who lived in Botley. Dr
Marriott forked out £506,880 for building work which was later assessed as
being worth no more than £55,000.
Last May Shepherd was jailed for
four-and-a-half years after admitting fraud, obtaining property by
deception, two charges of obtaining money transfer by deception, and
attempting to obtain property by deception between March 2004 and November
2008. Jackson received a two-and-a-half year sentence after pleading guilty
to two counts of obtaining money transfer by deception and one charge of
attempting to obtain property by deception.
Judge Patrick Eccles, who presided over
both trials, yesterday agreed to the repayment package and set a date in
December to see how much had been returned. If the two victims want to try
to retrieve any more of their money, they will have to go through the civil
courts.
WODC opposing possible
BBC Oxford closure
Councillors in West Oxfordshire have unanimously agreed to write a letter in
support of BBC Oxford after fears were raised about a reduction in local
television news coverage and radio programming. The Council will send
letters to the head of the local station, the Chairman and Director General
of the BBC, expressing the Council’s strong opposition to reported
restructuring plans by the corporation that may see its offices in Banbury
Road, Oxford, closed and moved to Southampton.
Currently, the local television broadcast from the Oxford office is aired
for 10 minutes as part of the BBC South Today programme at 6.30pm Monday to
Thursday, with the rest of the programme coming from Southampton and
covering a wider part of the region. The entire 6.30pm programme comes from
Oxford on Fridays, along with the late-night daily bulletin at 10.25pm. It
is reported that the move to Southampton would mean removal of the Oxford
slot, with a large reduction in local staffing and the Oxford and District
Branch of the National Union of Journalists warning that this would result
in loss of local news coverage.
Twins are half way to
their target
CHIPPING Norton twins Holly and Louisa Oliver-Hall have
raised £900 towards their £2,000 target in aid of armed forces charities,
Help for Heroes and Combat Stress. The 11-year-olds and their friend Imogen
Carter, also 11, completed the 16-mile walk from Chippy to RAF Brize Norton
earlier this month. The girls completed the walk, accompanied by family
members, via Shipton-under-Wychwood and Burford, in just over five hours.
The youngsters from St Mary’s Primary School are now
hoping that local firms will help them reach their £2,000 target. At Brize
Norton, the girls were met by RAF representatives, Help for Heroes county
co-ordinator Dave Lewis, St Mary’s School deputy head Marianne Ray and her
husband Andy, who is a serving member of the RAF.
Keep Dean Pit Open!
Dean Pit recycling centre is an important facility for people living in
Chipping Norton, Charlbury, Finstock and other nearby villages. Oxfordshire
County Council has decided to close Dean Pit in September 2011, and to open
a new facility in Kidlington in 2012. For people in the area, this will mean
a minimum 40 minute round trip. We are asking the County Council to
reconsider their decision.
Antiques centre rises from the
ashes by Tom Jennings
AN
antiques centre in Chipping Norton has risen from the ashes and is set to
reopen after a devastating fire. Station Mill Antiques Centre, Station Road,
was gutted after an electrical fault in September last year. But, after a
refit costing in excess of £300,000, the new-look centre will reopen on May
28. Owner Lesley Langer (pictured left in the new centre) said: “It has been
hard work, but the centre is completely transformed. “The building is
completely different now. The whole thing is new basically, the only
remaining thing is the structure. She added: “We’re looking forward to
opening very much. I am pleased that some of the older dealers are coming
back. It is a real vote of confidence.”
It has a new tea room and toilet
facilities, a new kitchen and the walls have been knocked through to create
a more open space. The building houses antiques from more than 80 dealers
and is one of the largest in the country. More than 70 per cent of the old
dealers have returned and the centre only has two spaces left to rent out.
But Mrs Langer said seeing the damage last September had been devastating.
She said: “I arrived and there was a lot of damage. It was awful. All the
staff came down as well and we were all very shocked. A lot of the people
have been connected to the centre for 15 years and more, for them it is
their lives and seeing it like that was very emotional.” And she admitted it
had been touch and go as to whether the centre would even reopen. She said:
“Until we found out exactly what happened and whether we would get paid out
by the insurance company, it was very uncertain. A lot of people thought we
would shut up shop, but we have not.”
It took seven crews to bring the fire under
control, and it was so fierce that within 15 minutes flames could be seen
pouring through the roof. About a third of the build and the roof were
destroyed. But concrete walls and the quick response of the fire service
meant most of the antiques were salvageable.
Station Mill Antiques Centre will reopen at
10am on May 28, and customers will be able to enter a prize draw to win
vouchers.
Teen conned OAP over
work
A
CHIPPING NORTON teenager conned a 92-year-old woman out of £850 for work on
her drive, then returned two months later to trick her into making out
cheques for a further £1,400. But Warwick Crown Court heard that, thanks to
the actions of a neighbour, the victim was able to stop the cheques before
Stephen Kerry, who was 18 at the time of the offences, could cash them. The
21-year-old, of Beeches Mobile Home Park, Old London Road, Chipping Norton,
admitted two charges of fraud. He was sentenced to six months in prison,
suspended for two years, and ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work and pay
£850 compensation to his victim, who lives in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The Big Clean-up
Chipping Norton is a smarter town
thanks to the efforts of nearly 90 people who spent yesterday working to
improve the appearance of streets. Volunteers of all ages, including a group
of Explorer Scouts, turned out to collect litter, clean road signs, clear
rubbish from verges, weed pavement edges and tidy up the approaches to the
town where signs were obscured by overhanging trees and vegetation. Over 50
bags of rubbish were collected by the team who were sustained by hot drinks
and plenty of homemade cakes. T-shirts, hi-vis jackets and cleaning
equipment were supplied and these costs were covered by a small grant from
the Town Council plus sponsorship from The Phone Co-op and JTL
Embroidery.Lead organiser Rob Evans hailed the event as a great success.
“We’ve made a visible improvement to the town in just a few hours and, more
importantly, we’ve established that several people are willing to make a
regular commitment to keeping the town
looking its best in future.”
Cornbury Festival stage beckons for
Chippy School groups by Tom Jennings
YOUNG
musicians from Chipping Norton School have been chosen to play at the
Cornbury Festival. Two bands - Jamie and the Giant Peach and Under Duress -
will play at the festival at Great Tew in July alongside artists such as
James Blunt, Status Quo and The Faces. Judges, including the festival
organiser, picked the youngsters from eight bands at the school, in Burford
Road. The bands will open the festival’s Riverside Stage, playing in front
of potentially thousands of people.
One of the winners, Jamie Morton, 16, said: “I am pretty
dazed by it. I was not expecting it at all. But it is a once in a life time
opportunity and I am definitely looking forward to it.” Jamie fronts the
funk/jazz four-piece Jamie and the Giant Peach, alongside Mikey Krzyzanowski,
14, Alex Chastrey, 16, and Tom Bray, 16. Acoustic all-girl band Under Duress
also won the competition. Guitarist and singer Abbie Festa, 14, said: “I
really did not want to enter the competition in the beginning because I was
a bit shy. “But I am really glad we did now and I’m really excited about
playing at Cornbury.” But she said she was “quite nervous” about the
performance and said that the band still needed to finish writing their set.
The group performs “stripped down raw” versions of rock songs, Abbie said,
and also features singers Lana Sumners, 14, and Ellie Quick, 13.
Chipping Norton School headteacher Simon Duffy said: “It
is really exciting. It is good for them and it is a really positive
affirmation of the quality of music at the school.”
This is the third year bands from the school have been
chosen to play at the festival. Festival organiser Hugh Phillimore said: “It
gives local kids a really great opportunity to play on a big stage at a
festival. We have developed a relationship over the years with Chipping
Norton School, and we were really impressed with what a great amount of
students play instruments. I was knocked out by it.” The festival also gives
work experience places to youngsters from the area. Mr Phillimore added: “I
think it’s a good thing to do. I never got those opportunities at school.”
The teenage bands also won the opportunity to get professionally recorded at
a Yarnton recording studio.
The picture shows: Hugh Phillimore, centre, and the
winning bands' members, from left, Lana Sumners, Abbie Festa, Ellie
Quick, Mikey Krzyzanowski, Jamie Morton and Alex Chastrey
FUNNY WAY OF OPENING A HOSPITAL
Think about it. Hundreds of people have marched and petitioned for five
years to keep a hospital in the town. The building is finished,
operational and ready for an official opening. Wouldn't you think this would
be an occasion for a big celebration. Bunting, brass bands, a street party.
After all the last hospital opening was nearly one hundred years ago. An
occasion for somebody to make a public commitment that this will remain a
proper hospital with NHS staff well into the future. Hundreds of people
would have been happy to turn up and celebrate an important step in the
hospital campaign. A chance to thank everyone for helping to make it happen.
Forget all that -
this
opening was a private affair. Nobody without a ticket got past the front
gate. The unveiling of the foundation stone took place inside. No cheering
locals inside or outside - not surprising since the opening had received
zero publicity. No Press Release or photos from the PCT. The Order of St
John - who run the care Home - had a huge number of guests. They had
appropriated the empty land opposite to create a car park and had erected a
marquee in the garden of the Care Home. Clearly all good PR for them. Many
people still have worries whether there is a real commitment from the NHS to
keep all the hospital services there - including intermediate care beds.
This Order of St John jamboree will have done nothing to dispel their
concerns.
Who was there from
the town? My little bird only saw the Mayor Jo Graves, Chunky Townley and
John Grantham. Any others? Impossible to imagine that Eve Coles, Rob Evans,
Keith Ruddle, Bruce and Sheila Parker or the Vicar had not been invited.
Were they perhaps lurking behind a bed pan somewhere.
Hilary Biles -
appearing on Sunday morning (15th May) on the Bill Heine Show on Radio
Oxford - revealed that while David Cameron was opening the new Chippy
Hospital a baby was born. A new mother would not necessarily expect a
visit from the Prime Minister thirty minutes after giving birth. This new
Chippy mum got one! A wonderful, unpredictable and delightfully
non-commercial turn of events.
Now all we have to
do is make sure this place stays a hospital!
Have you got a flair for
fundraising and a passion for the local community?
The Lawrence Home Nursing Team, a charity
providing skilled care for the terminally ill who wish to remain at home, is
looking for volunteers to join its local fundraising support group.
Fundraising is an essential part of the
Lawrence Home Nursing Team who offer their services, without charge, to
anyone living in Chipping Norton and the surrounding area.
If you are enthusiastic and willing to help
run a wide range of functions including teas, barn dances and musical events
or, even organise your own activities, we would love to hear from you. We
are also looking for volunteers to pack and distribute our annual charity
Christmas card.
For further information, contact our
Fundraising Coordinator, Mrs Nikki Knott on 01608 677665.
CONGRATULATIONS TO EVE
Against a massive Tory onslaught Eve retains her District Council seat
and comes top of the Town Council poll. Well done to her!
DISTRICT
COUNCIL ELECTION RESULT
Sue Bartholomew
Independent
537
Eve Coles
Labour
881
Amanda Phyllis Epps
Liberal Democrats
59
Catherine Hickman
The Green Party
94
David Lydiat
Conservative Party
833
.
Election of Town Councillors for
the Chipping Norton Town Council on Thursday 5 May 2011
COLES, Evelyn Mary The Labour Party
Candidate 1265 Elected
GRAVES, Josephine Mary Independent 1170
Elected
BARTHOLOMEW, Susan 1039 Elected
DAVIDSON, Donald Independent 1003 Elected
WILKES, Sarah Jane The Conservative Party Candidate 998
Elected
LYDIAT, David Edward Stephen The Conservative Party Candidate
913 Elected
DIXON, Michael John Independent 883 Elected
HASAN, Tahirul The Conservative Party Candidate 820 Elected
CORFIELD, Alexander Miles Dickens The Conservative Party
Candidate 812 Elected
ROY-BARKER, Anne Kathryn The Conservative Party Candidate 812
Elected
BUTTERWORTH, Christopher John The Conservative Party
Candidate 809 Elected
JARRATT, Peter Martin Independent 748 Elected
HERRIN, Rebecca Elizabeth The Conservative Party Candidate
717 Elected
TYSOE, Michael George The Conservative Party Candidate 713
Elected
WATSON, Charles Neville Richard The Labour Candidate
710 Elected
HEYES, David Marshall The Labour Candidate 683 Elected
KITCHER, James Robert The Conservative Party Candidate 641
YAPP, Richard Lawson Transition Chipping Norton 504
HOMER, Neil Richard Transition Chipping Norton 465
LUNEY, Michael Francis Transition Chipping Norton 491
WIGGLESWORTH, Matthew Richard Transition Chipping
Norton 498
MCHUGH, Patrick 432
Tom Jennings reports the
final WODC result
THE
Liberal Democrats took a hammering in West Oxfordshire, losing almost half
their seats. Group leader Richard Andrews was one of three Lib Dems voted
out in Thursday’s election. The party, the council’s main opposition to
the Conservatives, now has only four of 49 council seats. The Tories
increased their majority from 40 to 44, winning the former Lib Dem seats
and gaining another after an Independent switched sides.
Conservative leader Barry Norton said: “What a fantastic
night for the Conservatives. It’s a ringing endorsement of the work we are
doing for the people of West Oxfordshire. Year after year they have put
their trust in us and we will repay that every time.”
Deputy Liberal Democrat leader Julian Cooper said: “It
was a very disappointing evening for us, there’s no hiding from that. I
think it was national issues to some extent. There are tough times and
tough decisions. We are experiencing major setbacks as the consequence of
being in Government, but we will battle on and we shall be back.”
Richard Andrews lost the Eynsham and Cassington seat and
Liz Leffman failed to win the Charlbury and Finstock seat, after Michael
Breakell stepped down. Peter Madden lost his former Carterton South
seat to Conservative Michael Brennan. Charles Cottrell-Dormer switched
from Independent to Conservative, winning the Tories the Stonesfield and
Tackley seat.
Labour’s Eve Coles retained her Chipping Norton seat,
with 23-year-old Conservative David Lydiat a close second.
In Witney East, Labour’s Duncan Enright received 1,006
votes, narrowly losing to Conservative candidate Sian Davies’ 1,131 votes.
Mr Enright said: “It’s frustrating that we weren’t able to take Witney
East, but we came really close.” He said the left-wing parties had split
the vote, allowing the Conservatives to hold the ward. He added: “It’s
clear there’s majority support for the things we have stood for in the
election. I hope that next time the opposition can unite and fight
together to win.”
The make-up of the council is now 44 Conservatives, four Liberal Democrats
and one Labour. It was previously 40 Conservative, seven Liberal
Democrats, one Independent and one Labour.
Mayor
gets a flea in his ear from the Leader of WODC
Recently the mayor wrote to the Tory Leader of
WODC regretting the fact that Hilary Biles had been sacked from his Cabinet.
(you can read the full text below). The letter emphasised all the terrific
work that Hilary had done for Chippy and the high esteem in which she is
held in the town. At last week's Town Council meeting Barry Norton's reply
was read out. Amazing. None too politely the mayor was told that this
was no business of the Chipping Norton Town Council. The Leader did not know
why they had been discussing it. The question of membership of the WODC
Cabinet is entirely one for the Leader. And as for the idea that the Cabinet
should be geographically representative and include a member from North
Oxfordshire - where on earth did that idea come from?? The Leader would
compose his Cabinet how he likes. The Leader was very miffed that the letter
had been published on chippingnorton.net. In this situation the letter
should have been clearly marked OPEN LETTER and not passed off as a private
one. (what difference does any of that make we ask) Barry accused the
Mayor's letter of being inaccurate without saying how. Cutting a long story
short Mr Norton seemed to be telling both the Mayor and the Town
Council to get stuffed. Surely a taste of things in store over the coming
years.
If you want to read the letter
just pop into the Guildhall and ask the Town Clerk to see it. Its in the
public domain. But nobody is going to give it to me I guess. The Mayor is
in enough trouble.
POLICE LEAN ON THE
WEBMASTER
TO TRY AND CENSOR THE FORUM
I cannot believe I am actually writing this.
Last night I was rung up by the Police who said thay had received a
complaint from Cicely Maunder about a thread in our Forum - "Whats going on
with the Alms Houses then?". She had taken legal advice. As a result the
Police were asking me to remove the following two comments from the thread.
From me (Gerry): The only thing happening is that Cicely is behaving
like a little dictator - but then she always does.
From Noodles: If you are contemplating legal action, think first... i
am sure it would be much cheaper and easier to have Cicely Maunder um
removed
Cicely thought the first comment was defamatory and the second was a
criminal threat.
I told the police officer that defamation is a civil matter and Cicely
should serve her writ on me personally. It was absolutely nothing to do with
the Police.
I asked the Police officer whether he thought there was the slightest chance
that somebody would interpret Noodle's comment as a serious threat. My view
was that they could not possibly do so - considered within the context of
the Forum generally and the thread in particular.
I didn't actually launch into a speech about how surely the Police had
better things to be doing with their valuable time than harassing webmasters
of small town websites - but I nearly did.
Cicely is of course Chairman of the Chippy Tories so she expects the Police
to jump to her tune.
Remembering what happened to my colleague Keith Greenwell recently I am now
expecting a police van from Banbury to appear at my front door any time
soon.
Chippy First pack it in
- with no happy memories
Hooray. Last day of term. Some people have been kind enough
recently to ask why I am not standing for the Town Council again - after
eight years. Well let
me tell you. The reason is incredibly simple. Its all about one incident.
This story is being told for the first time. Not long ago ago I was stitched
up by the then Mayor on a charge that I had harassed the Town Clerk.
He said she had kept a diary of a number of occasions when I had been in her
office alone with her and frightened her by raising my voice. The kangaroo
court was held in private at a Town Council meeting and many of the town
councillors who I had regarded as colleagues - even friends - all jumped on
the bandwagon and joined in a personal campaign which deeply impugned
my character. There was no suggestion that this might not be the whole
story. They were like a pack of hounds after blood. In a harassment
case the first thing that must be done is the anonymity of the people
involved should be protected and both sides of the case must be impartially
gathered. That wasn't the Mayor's way. He openly accused me (without having
bothered to get my side of the story) of something so serious that there was
no point in any discussion. He proposed to call the Standards Board in from
outside immediately. Other town councillors were all egging him on. For me
it was a defining moment. I had spent my life in tough business situations
strongly arguing cases in the face of strong opposition - but I had never
been faced with this sort of personal animosity - dragging my reputation
through the muck. I simply did not want to remain part of a gang of really
nasty small-minded manipulators who were perfectly prepared to punch well
below the belt if it suited their agendas. In the event I said there must be
some mistake. I had a very good relationship with the Town Clerk. We got on
well. This must be a misunderstanding. I needed to talk to her, find out the
problem and apologise if necessary. Which I did. My apology was accepted. I
was extremely grateful that the Town Clerk had courageously dropped the
stance she had previously been "persuaded" into. The whole sordid stitch-up
collapsed and the Mayor had the good grace to resign not long after. I
decided then that at the first opportunity I would get out of this dreadful
council. Not nice people. Not my scene I'm afraid. This whole incident still
makes me angry when I think about it. I'm glad to be going.
This incident came at the end of a succession of equally
nasty trumped-up actions against other members of Chippy First. If you go
back more than eight years the The Town Council was run by an old
guard of chums who just quietly settled things between themselves. The Town
Council wasn't elected. There weren't political parties. Then suddenly along
came a gang of pushy non-establishment people wanting to get their foot in
the decision-making door. The Tories, Labour, the Independents - they all
hated it. Chippy First and chippingnorton.net had to be beaten off.
Any way was OK.
The Old Guard all decided to support a trendy new-fangled organisation
called a Town Partnership. Anyone with half a brain could see that this
whole scheme was dead in the water before it started. Intended to develop
jobs the headmaster was appointed Chairman. Whatever their strengths
creating jobs is not something headmasters know much about. The Partnership
talked for five years and achieved nothing. There was £400,000 available
which was effectively just thrown away. No sensible schemes to use it were
proposed. Councillor Glyn Watkins went to every Partnership meeting. He
carried on nagging for years that the focus must remain on jobs - as the
partnership wandered off into other peripheral areas. He was a real
thorn in their side. Councillor Glyn Watkins wrotea humorous account of the partnership AGM on Chippingnorton.net that
offended the then Marketing Manager’.The Partnership rose as one in
self-righteous indignation.. The headmaster wrote an absurd rambling letter
to the Mayor criticising Chippy First. complaining about the insult and
demanding an apology. Instead of quietly binning this the Mayor
proceeded to circulate the letter to all the local Press. It was only picked
up by the Cotswold Journal and their report made everyone in the town look
totally daft. Major own goal by the Partnership but they were only
interested in damaging Chippy First.
The following year Keith Greenwell - with very good reason - suggested that
the school's GCSE results had been well below par (which they were) His
"attack" created a lot of fuss among the governors. The Mayor publicly
"instructed" Keith to write to the Headmaster and arrange to receive some
indoctrination on why the results were really very good. He had to be
joking.
Well-established council traditions were simply ignored to try and kick
Chippy First into touch. Keith Greenwell did a very successful year as
Deputy Mayor and it is settled precedent that a Deputy Mayor takes over as
Mayor. In Keith's case this tradition was simply ignored and someone else
appointed. This sort of sniping just went on and on and on.
After a year spent working intensively on the
refurbishment of the Town Hall Keith Greenwell gave a final update to the
council. "Is there any reason why there are so many electric plugs in the
kitchen" was the only contribution Councillor Jarrett chose to make towards
the discussion. No thanks just carping. At the following council meeting the
same councillor wanted to know why nobody had explained to him that
Councillor Withers worked for Renov8 - the company owned by her brother that
had submitted by far and away the lowest quote for work on the Town Hall
bar, which they had completed outstandingly well. The quotes had all
been discussed in detail at a Council Meeting and Kristel has been absenting
herself from Planning meetings for the last six months explaining that she
works for Renov8. Councillor Jarrett had apparently not put the bits of the
jigsaw together but he wasn't really interested in doing that. Councillor
Withers was a member of Chippy First so she was fair game.
I won't go over again the appalling treatment which Keith
Greenwell has recently received at the hands of the local police with the
Chairman of the local Tories apparently involved. Letters to the Police from
me complaining how the publicity for Keith's case was handled have been
completely ignored. Its all scandalous but completely consistent. The
local "establishment" have taken every opportunity to rubbish Chippy First
and its members.
The departing Chippy First councillors leave their council
seats with absolutely no happy memories. But don't worry. They will be
around. They will be attending Council meetings and Glyn Watkins will be
writing many more of his satirical reports. Should be fun.
chippingnorton.net will keep its beady eye on things. Your webmaster will
have more time to write more rambling political articles.
A
PROJECT to improve the quality of Chipping Norton residents'
tap water has entered its final eight weeks. By Wednesday,
July 13 miles of old cast-iron pipes under the West
Oxfordshire town will have been replaced and relined. As
well as improving customers' water quality, engineers hope
the improved pipe network will lead to fewer bursts and
leaks. Work has been going on since November and has
involved the use of a number of different innovative
techniques, aimed at reducing disruption and environmental
disturbance. Andy Popple, programme manager for Thames
Water, said:“Our contractors have put in some hard graft on
this project, enduring the coldest start to winter in 100
years, which made things extra tough in the run-up to
Christmas. Equally, we would like to thank the people of
Chipping Norton for bearing with us for the last six
months."
Work has been completed in
Station Road, Wards Road, A361 Burford Road, Churchill Road,
Worcester Road, West Street, New Street, High Street,
Horsefair, West End, London Road, Finsbury Place and Hill
Lawn Court. Albion Road will be closed from Wednesday, May 4
for eight weeks and customers in Portland Place, Rowell Way,
Albion Place, Albion Court, Cattle Market, Glovers Close,
Burford Road, Dickinson Court, Shepard Way, Cooper Close,
Brassy Close, Foxfield, Hithcman Drive, Withers Court, Rock
Hill and Fox Close are likely to experience disruptions.
All businesses, including
the Lido, will remain open as usual.
Super Sole
is British champ
by Russell Smith
Niki
Sole the 20-year-old, from Over Norton, near Chipping Norton
(pictured left) has scaled new peaks by becoming the
British alpine ski champion. She captured the overall title
at Meribel in France after winning two of the five
disciplines. With British No 1 Chemmy Alcott’s sidelined
through injury, she triumphed in downhill and super giant
slalom as well as finishing third in giant slalom. Her
results were completed by a sixth place in the slalom, while
she failed to finish in the super-combined. “I was
absolutely ecstatic,” she said. “It was superb and I am
really, really happy.”
Going into the event, Sole,
who won the British junior title at the same venue last
year, was unsure of how she would fare – especially as she
is now training independently in France. “It is always a bit
of an unknown,” she said. “You are not sure how everyone
else is doing and how you relate to them because I don’t
train in the British system. I train with the French team,
and everyone goes in there to win it and I was just
fortunate to achieve my goal.” Having made her debut on the
Europa Cup circuit this season, Sole had an up and down
time, which meant ending with the British title gave her
special satisfaction. “It has not been a great season
snow-wise in the Alps, so as far as training goes it was
limited, so I was thrilled,” she added. “It was really good
confidence-wise as well for next season.”
Now Sole, who is based at
Champagny in France during the winter, is hoping to continue
her progress with a place in the British squad for the 2014
Winter Olympics at Soshi in Russia her big target. “That was
the first year I competed in the Europa Cup, which is a step
down from World Cup,” she said. “The 2014 Olympics is the
ultimate goal. There is still a lot of hard work to be put
in, but I am progressing. I have still got a long way to go
as far as getting on to the World Cup circuit. Probably in
reality I am a year or two away, but I definitely think I
can achieve that. I have taken a step in the right
direction.” In the meantime, Sole will spend the summer
months fitness training at home or in the Southern Alps of
New Zealand.
I
rarely visit the little theatre in Chipping Norton without
enjoying a drink, or sometimes a meal, in The Chequers next
door. This excellent old-fashioned pub was known to me even
before the theatre opened in 1975: it was in fact my first
port of call on a booze-drenched odyssey a year earlier
around the hostelries of Chippy during which former RSC
actor John Malcolm told me, with many expletives undeleted,
of his and wife Tamara’s bold plans to convert what had
formerly been the town’s Salvation Army citadel. Not a place
he was likely to have much frequented, I remember thinking
as he spoke.
The Chequers had a
conversion of its own in 1991 when it was sold by Ind Coope
Retail and became the farthest flung outpost of London-based
brewery Fuller’s. Reopening the place after tasteful
renovation, company chairman Anthony Fuller rightly forecast
that people were going to ask: “What’s been done to the pub?
Wasn’t it always like this?” The timeless traditional decor
achieved then, with warm fabrics and rugs and a fascinating
collection of old pictures, remains largely as it was two
decades later — in the bar and front rooms at any rate.
Behind, in the conservatory restaurant, there is a more
modern feel.
My preference is always for
the bar, and it was here a couple of Saturdays ago that
Rosemarie and I had a delicious lunch before going next door
to watch the young dancers of Ballet Central on their annual
tour. There had been no plan to feature the meal in this
column, but it was so good that I felt readers deserved to
hear of it. The best part of lunch, for both of us, were our
main courses. Mine was a “casserole of local rabbit”. The
menu might have added, as landlord Jim Hopcroft told me
later, that this rabbit was very local indeed, its passage
to the pot having followed a mismatched encounter with a
ferret belonging to one of the pub’s customers. This
practised killer accounts for the 20-or-so rabbits delivered
to The Chequers each week. Pigeons and game in season come
courtesy of the various ‘guns’ who use the pub. With rabbits
and pigeons both a serious nuisance in the country, it’s a
wonder — given the cheap and healthy nutrition both supply —
that more use is not made of them.
The Chequers’s appositely
named chef Nathan Tuckwell has a super recipe for his rabbit
casserole: the two juicy pieces I had — one of them a
well-fleshed saddle — tasted wonderful in the rich cider,
Dijon mustard and tarragon sauce. Celeriac mashed potato,
and fresh carrots and purple sprouting completed a perfect
dish. Rosemary, meanwhile, was sampling with considerable
delight Nathan’s pie of the day, which happened to be lamb
and potato. A second, chicken and bacon, was also available.
Venison and juniper, and steak and London Pride are other
favourite fillings. And I do mean fillings. These are not
those pitiful apologies for pies in which pastry lid and the
meat beneath are united only moments before serving, but
old-fashioned examples of the piemaker’s art in which meat
and gravy are completely enclosed in a casing of shortcrust
pastry.
In concentrating on the
main courses, I must not, of course, dismiss the rest. My
starter of Italian-style white bean and vegetable soup, from
the blackboard specials, had the fresh flavours of the sunny
south, and Rosemarie’s tarted up prawn cocktail, with added
crayfish tails, was fine for her. Both of us had good fresh
bread. Having met Kingham cheesemakers Karen and Roger
Crudge at a party a few days earlier, I felt I had to try —
not for the first time — some of their excellent products:
buttery Kingham Green, from cow’s milk, and Sarsden
(sheep’s), a similarly hard cheese, rounded the meal off
perfectly.
Lido re-opens for summer
season
The
Lido re-opens for the 2011 season on Thursday 21 April, in
time for the Easter weekend and a week earlier than in
previous years. Children are being invited along on opening
day at 2pm for some Easter fun and games, including an egg
hunt, and the chance to be one of the first swimmers to test
out the brand new slide which has been generously donated by
Thames Water. The new café, now under the management of
Sally Brown, will also be open for tea, cakes and ice cream.
In addition to the usual public swimming, The Lido will
continue to offer free swimming for the Over 60s every
Wednesday morning and is introducing a new Family Floatarama
session very Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 1pm.
Season
ticket prices have been held for the second year running and
still represent the most cost-effective way to swim through
the summer. Buy before 29 April and your name will go into a
draw to win your 2012 ticket – an offer worth nearly £200 if
you have a family season ticket. Season tickets are on sale
now at Jaffe & Neale Bookshop & Café. Alternatively, an
application form can be downloaded at
www.chippylido.co.uk or picked up at the pool after 21
April.
Kebab shop skewered and not welcome in Chippy
A
BID to open Chipping Norton’s first kebab shop has failed
after an outcry from residents. Thirty-six residents wrote
to West Oxfordshire District Council warning the plan for
Horsefair would increase antisocial behaviour, noise,
littering and create cooking odours. They also warned
parking was inadequate. There were fears the shop would
damage trade at neighbouring bridal store The Sassy Wedding
shop. A petition with 57 signatures also opposed the plan
while Chipping Norton Town Council “strongly objected”. The
applicant has said they will come back with a new scheme.
Members of the district
council’s uplands area planning subcommittee rejected the
plan after backing an officers’ report that said it would
have an “unacceptable urbanising impact harmful to the rural
character of the area”. The report did not raise noise or
road safety concerns but said a ventilation shaft would be
an “alien feature” and “detract from the character and
appearance of the area”.
John
Dix, 60, (pictured left) who lives next door to the
planned kebab shop spoke at the Planning Committee,
Afterwards he said: “We are very pleased that they have come
to their senses and rejected it. We were all extremely
concerned. It would have completely ruined our health and
happiness.” He added: “All the smells would have filled the
area. We wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our gardens.”
Sally Jaffé, 79, of nearby Rockhill, said: “I’m very
relieved. It would have been completely intolerable if it
was built. It’s a completely unsuitable site – it’s on a
corner, there’s no parking and it’s a residential area. And
we’ve already got a kebab van.”
The van parks in Market
Street in the evenings. The planning application was to
change the currently empty building’s use from commercial to
hot food takeaway. Committee member Annie Roy-Barker said
she had been assured the wedding shop would move if the plan
went ahead. She said: “This application concerns me greatly.
I really do believe that the living conditions of
neighbouring residents will be materially affected, contrary
to what the application states.”
David Scott, the agent for
the applicant, said: “We believe we can overcome the
understandable anxiety about the effect on the conservation
area, and we will be seeking a meeting with the council to
find a solution.”
Are we being
served?
The
Westgate department store in Chippy has been sold by the
Anglia Co-Op to Beales of Bournemeouth in a deal worth £7.5m
involving 19 Westgate branches. Both firms and a union
believe the deal will bring benefits and job security. About
830 store workers, and Peterborough head office staff, will
transfer to Beales. The company's chief executive, Tony
Brown, said it was a "transformational deal for both
businesses. We are a market town operator, not in the big
cities, and people will be shopping locally more than ever
before, because of the price of petrol."
Anglia is providing upfront
financing, with terms that will see it receive the money
back over the next few years.It has also agreed to provide
financial support for some stores to help Beales return them
to profitability. Beales aims to rebrand the stores over the
next two years.
Anglia chief executive John
Chillcott said: "Combining the respective store portfolios
into one enlarged group makes strong commercial sense for
both parties.It also improves job security and opportunities
for the 900 staff employed in the Westgate stores covered by
the deal."
Sharon Ainsworth, national
officer for retail union Usdaw, said: "The announcement has
obviously come as a shock to members and it will no doubt
cause some degree of uncertainty and worry. However, Usdaw
believes the deal could be in the best interests of staff
and may help secure the long-term future of the business.
Beales is a dedicated department store company with over 100
years of history and experience behind them and they have
clearly been looking for further opportunities for growth."
KEBAB
SHOP APPLICATION REFUSED!
This afternoon (4th April) the Planning Committee finally
found their technically safe reason for turning the
application down. As we all know they are terrified of
applications going to appeal and the planners not having a
watertight case for refusal based on District Planning
Policies. Noise, litter, yobs, smells ..........none of that
cut any ice. It was quite clear that the committee thought
there was already all of that along Horsefair and one new
establishment wasn't going to make much difference. So what
was new today?? This was really fast footwork because it was
obvious that they wanted to turn the application down,
The
Environmental Health Officer had produced a report which
said that the extractor system would only be acceptable if
the vent was 1 metre above the nearest neighbouring
roofline. That would have resulted in a stack that looked
more like a factory chimney. In a conservation area? No
chance. Wrecks the streetscene. Application refused. Still
who cares what the reason was? There is more than one way of
skinning a cat. Well done Cicely and all your mates who were
there in force. Well done Annie who fought a great fight.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
250 Visits a month or it closes.
TOWN
MAYOR RATTLES HIS CHAIN AT BARRY NORTON
Dear Barry Norton
I was asked by the Chipping Norton Town
Council at the Full Council Meeting on
Monday 21st March to convey to you our
very deep anxiety at the news that District
Councillor Hilary Biles has been dismissed
from the WODC Cabinet.
For the last few years Hilary has been the
only member of the Cabinet with a deep and
detailed understanding of Chippy issues. She
has been incredibly helpful and supportive
on a whole range of projects which have
been important to us. To mention just a few
: her work as WODC representative on the
JHOSC was crucial in bringing negotiations
about our new hospital to a successful
conclusion. Her support to keep the grant
subsidies to the Lido and the Theatre has
been unswerving. She was pivotal in securing
funding for the new playground.
Her help to Chippy Swifts and the continuous
pressure on OCC to keep a Youth Centre have
endeared her to younger residents. Getting
pedestrian crossings across London Road has
been warmly welcomed by young mums. Most
recently she steered us through the process
of obtaining £100,000 of grant money towards
refurbishing the Town Hall and we are
indebted to her for steering the complex
deal over Greystones House between Chipping
Norton Council and WODC through the Cabinet.
Hilary's work for the town has been widely
acknowledged and much appreciated. Without
exception people are shocked by her
departure. Many of us wonder where we will
ever find such superb support again.
The concern of the Town Council was
unanimous and cross party. We hope that you
will find it possible at your next reshuffle
to find a slot for Hilary's undoubted
talents once again.
Please be assured that this letter is not
intended to be in any way political. We
would just like Hilary back please!
Yours sincerely
Mike Dixon (Town Mayor)
Road deaths
rise after camera switch-off
DEATHS on Oxfordshire’s roads
rose 50 per cent during the first six months speed cameras
were turned off, police said last night. Road safety
campaigners warned the situation should never be repeated as
police prepared to turn the cameras back on next week. They
were switched off last August after Oxfordshire County
Council decided it would not pay its £600,000 share of their
operating costs. Since then, 18 people have been killed in
road accidents in the county, compared with 12 deaths in the
same period for the previous year. It was the first time
road deaths had risen for four years.
Education
system 'failing children with special needs'
CHILDREN
with special needs in Oxfordshire are being failed by the
education system, according to one mother. The criticism
comes as figures uncovered by the Oxford Mail showed the
county’s special needs pupils had among the poorest results
in England.
But Oxfordshire County Council last night defended its
provision, saying the league tables were worthless. National
tables show that in Oxfordshire, results achieved by
children with special educational needs (SEN) are
significantly lower than the national average at ages seven,
11 and 16. The council said it was impossible to compare
areas, because each set its own criteria for identifying
special needs. School inspectors believe hundreds of
thousands of children are being wrongly assessed under the
SEN system.
Sophie Evans, 36,
from Chipping Norton, (pictured
with Finlay) said she had been forced to move her son to a
private school. Seven-year-old Finlay has conditions
including severe dyslexia and dyspraxia. The council said
everything possible had been done to support him at Great
Rollright School and St Mary’s School in Chipping Norton.
Mrs Evans believes her son’s conditions are so severe that
he should have been given a legally-binding statement of
special educational needs, detailing the extra support he
should get. Instead he was put on the School Action Plus
programme, for pupils with less complex needs. But Mrs Evans
said health and education officials had failed to
communicate about Finlay’s needs. She added: “If the
education people listened properly to what the doctors were
saying, I think a lot of money would be saved. Every single
term, I had to go in and fight for support for Finlay.”
Last December, her father
used money from an inheritance to pay for his grandson to
attend Windrush Valley School, in Ascott-under-Wychwood, at
a cost of £500 a month. Mrs Evans claimed he had made more
progress in one term there than in several years at county
council schools. She said: “I fear there are lots of
children like Finlay whose needs are not being recognised
properly.”
Council spokesman Louise
Mendonca said: “The schools did all within their powers,
given that Finlay was judged not to require a statement. He
was making progress at St Mary’s and the school, working
with the council and four external agencies, responded to
and adjusted support as appropriate.” Prime Minister David
Cameron, who is Mrs Evans’s MP, has vowed to write to County
Hall about her case.
He said: “Of course, no-one
should feel that they have to pay for private schooling in
order that their child should receive quality SEN support.”
National tables show that in Oxfordshire, between 14 per
cent and 18 per cent fewer children on School Action Plus
reach the expected attainment levels than the national
average. Elsewhere results are higher, the council claims,
because children
with
less complex needs are put on the programme. A new
Government policy paper proposes reducing the number of
pupils identified as having special needs, but giving more
support to those who are.
Chipping
Norton School Win Under 15 County Cup Vase Trophy
Back row (from left): Alex Brown, Adam
Burchell, Mark Ferguson, Sam Barnes, Tom Dee, Jack Haggett,
Finn Hunt. Front: Jay Webb, Liam Case, Joe Holland, Jack
Fowler, Tom Empson (captain), Warren Holland, Charlie
Warhurst, Sam Humphries, Dan Austin and Ashley Paige
On Thursday 10th March Chipping Norton
School played Matthew Arnold School In the final of the
Under 15 County Vase Rugby competition. They won the trophy
for the second year in a row. Outstanding performances from
Tom Dee who scored three tries, and Captain Tom Empson who
also scored three meant CNS were victorious by 39 points to
nil. Congratulations to everyone involved. A great
performance!.
Teaching
children to sing
COTSWOLD
music maker Myles Granger wants – in the words of the famous
song – to teach the world to sing. For music teacher Myles
runs a business Mr Myles Music writing songs for children at
his home in White Hart Mews, Chipping Norton. Myles, who
after graduating spent five years teaching in the Middle
East and Far East, developed his skills as a songwriter
after being regularly required to come up with new songs for
his pupils. The 34-year-old, who teaches at Headington
School in Oxford, is a great advocate of teaching through
music.
“If you have a song about
the subject they are learning about, tailored to them, they
will learn more effectively. I will use spelling words to
help with their English and facts and figures in the song,”
said Myles. Not everywhere has the facilities for a
full-time musician and I can’t teach everywhere, therefore
you can access my songs and CDs online,” he said. He loves
the fact that teaching children songs is never the same two
days in a row. We maybe get a bit miserable and cynical but
when you are a child the world’s a very exciting place,” he
added
When
David Cameron furrows his brow and vows, “We’re all in this
together”, is it any wonder that the British people jeer
back, “OH NO, WE’RE NOT!” We know civil servants are no more
likely to axe themselves than turkeys are to vote for
Christmas. Eric Pickles may talk tough, but he is hamstrung
by the Government’s strategy of devolved localism. Is it
really such a good idea to give even more power to the
regions when a sense of grandiose entitlement has spread
like fungus through councils across the land? Suffolk is
closing libraries, has sacked lollipop ladies and cancelled
children’s travel cards. Meanwhile, Freedom of Information
requests reveal that Andrea Hill, Suffolk’s chief executive,
who is paid £218,592 a year, spent £14,188 of public money
on a leadership adviser who gave her lessons in how to
“liberate herself” to do her job better. For £525 an hour
plus VAT, I’m sure we’d all be delighted to suggest how Mrs
Hill might liberate herself. Slashing her own monster pay
packet in half and distributing the excess to starving
librarians would be a start. .
CHIPPY
TORIES SAY : STAND BACK. HERE COME OUR A TEAM
Your webmaster let his little bird out for a
fly around town at the end of last week. The bird settled
comfortably for a couple of hours on top of a cupboard in a
back room at the Blue Boar where the Chippy Tories were
having a secret election campaign session.
Like most Tory meetings these days it was not at all clear
who was in the chair....nominally it was supposed to be
Chris Butterworth, but Cicely (pictured left) kept interrupting (so what's
new?) but the real star of the proceedings was the
recently-selected super-pushy Tory candidate for the
forthcoming District Election. He did all the talking. We
don't know his name yet but he has been helicoptered in from
Yarnton. He has just got himself a degree in politics and is
out to create a big political career for himself. "A very
bright boy" was how my little bird put it. Chipping Norton
is to be his stepping stone. It seems he was found the slot
by his influential dad. A further bit of background is that
the young go-go tyro has got himself some work with Mail
Boxes Etc. - a franchise operation up at Cromwell
Park. All this is exciting stuff - clearly he is far more
whizzy than any candidate that could have been found from
within the town! Unfortunately Bonzo (lets call him that for the
time being) doesn't know anything about local
politics. He presented a grand policy strategy for the District
election. Headlining this was a demand that the District
Council should improve its snow clearing performance. He had
to be told on three separate occasions that snow-clearing
was the responsibility of the County NOT the District. Looks
as if Bonzo might be about to challenge Annie's hard-won
record for gaffes. Apparently Bonzo is set to run the
election campaign (Has Edwyn Stobart been given the heave-ho?
He wasn't at the meeting) and outlined his plans for endless leaflet
distributions and canvassing.
All we really need to know from Bonzo is
whether he supports the stand of principle which Tory County
Councillor Hilary Biles has taken to try and protect some of
the grant funding allocated by the District to local
communities and which got her sacked from the Cabinet. Or
has he been sent to Chippy to toe the party line and whip
the plebs into order ?
The meeting then moved on to passing a
motion of censure on chippingnorton.net accusing the website
of defamation when the webmaster recently suggested in the
Forum that....My little bird
tells me that Cicely Maunder has been selected by the Tories
to stand for the District Council. She would then join Annie
Roy Barker and Patrick McHugh to form the most useless team
that has ever represented any town in the whole history of
local government. What have we done to deserve this?
We await the writ.
But the main business of the meeting was
to settle the list of candidates in the forthcoming Town
Council election. In recent years Tory town
councillors like Honor Stobart and Hilary Williams have
simply not turned up to Town Council meetings or Sarah
Wilkes who has turned up but never said a dicky bird. It is
obvious that somebody has decided that the Chippy Tories
must try harder. Bright, new bushy-tailed candidates are the
order of the day who will be expected to have a lot to say
for themselves. The Tory revolution finally reaches a Town
Hall near you. First up is Mr Hassan - Indian chef, charity
campaigner and taxi driver - who has
tried unsuccessfully to get on the council before. His
selection this time was a bit of a surprise because Cicely
made her personal lack of support for the lovely Mr Hassan
more than obvious. As a result poor Mr Hassan didn't
say a word throughout the proceedings. Also
standing is the hapless Annie Roy Barker who has tried before and failed
to get on the Town Council (so she went off and got elected
to the District Council instead which is a much much easier
project altogether.) Next is architect Alex Corfield who tried and failed to
get on the Town Council as an Independent a couple of years
ago. Good luck this time round Alex. Lets drink to that. New to the fray are Jo from the Leather Shop and then
there's the big guy who runs Cotswold Lettings. Not the best
known folk in town but apparently very active retailers. Continuity
is to be preserved at all costs so Sarah Wilkes will be
standing again. We presume her Alsatian will be running on
the ticket as well because it usually attends council
meetings. Cicely will be throwing her hat in to the ring -
as compensation for being dumped as the District Council
candidate in favour of a 22 year old lad. At least she can resume her
interrupted tour of duty as Mayor! Last but not least is the
only Tory candidate who chippingnorton.net is very happy to
support. Chris Butterworth. Chris has worked really hard as
Deputy Mayor - particularly on the Town Hall Committee - and
fully deserves to get re-elected. Chris will be the only
Tory to secure one of your webmaster's sixteen votes.
I only hope that Cicely has got all the
admin right on this. She does know that a District Council
candidate has to live in the District, doesn't she? Well
Yarnton is not in West Oxfordshire. Where will Bonzo claim
to live? Its a serious business misrepresenting your place of
residence. Also any Tory candidate has to be a paid up Party
member for three months at the time of nomination. Not true
with all this list methinks - some of whom have been
press-ganged into party membership at very short notice. chippingnorton.net will be
watching.
The Chairman of Chippy First commented :
What a disaster. The Tories are taking the piss. The late
great Sydney Scarsbrook once said to me that the Chippy
Conservatives would vote for a nodding donkey as long as it
was wearing a blue rosette. Looks like we are close to that
situation here. I just don't think I could even
contemplate sitting round a table with a bunch of losers
like that. Looks like the end of political life as we know
it in Chipping Norton. If this crowd of jokers seriously
think they could run the town then my inclination is to
leave them to it.
BONZO'S
IDENTITY IS REVEALED AT LAST
Psst. Here's a clue. Bonzo
is NOT the one without a tie
David
Lydiat has lived in West Oxfordshire his whole life.
David works in franchise sales in Chipping Norton at the
Cromwell Park Business Estate for a company called Mail
Boxes Etc. He lives on the Worcester Road in Chipping
Norton. He has a degree in Politics from Liverpool John
Moores University. David has previous experience working for
an MP, helping to deal with local issues concerning members
of the community. He has also been an active member of the
Conservative Party for many years. David has previously
raised concerns regarding the snow clearance and recycling
in Chipping Norton, as a local resident, to the West
Oxfordshire District Council Environmental Committee.
David is very passionate about his community and working
towards a better future for Chipping Norton. At the Chipping
Norton Conservative Party AGM, David was selected to be the
Council Candidate in the 2011 local elections. David wishes
to listen to your opinions and represent your views at
District and Town Council. Please contact David if you have
any concerns within Chipping Norton or would like him to
campaign on particular issues that are important to you.
Your opinion truly matters and by establishing strong
communication with our councillors positive action can be
taken. Feel free to contact David by emailing
dlydiat_chippingnorton@hotmail.co.uk.
David would be honoured to have the opportunity to become a
District and Town Councillor for Chipping Norton. Please
give your support and vote for David on Election Day (May
5th).I am campaigning for a number of local issues in
Chipping Norton. But your views and concerns are the most
important to me. I will campaign for you - please get in
touch
dlydiat_chippingnorton@hotmail.co.uk
I wish to
review the safety concerns of the narrow road in Horse Fair
and then to take the appropriate action which is best for
all.
I wish to help prepare the town for the snow so that all
parts of the community can come together to take action when
needed and to help the elderly and vulnerable in Chipping
Norton during the heavy snowfall.
I wish to make representations on your behalf to push for
faster action on the potholes of local roads.
I wish to help tackle anti-social behaviour.
I wish to secure Chipping Norton’s future and play my part
in development in the town over the coming years.
I pledge that if elected I will dedicate myself to working
to improve Chipping Norton for everyone
From
David's Facebook Page:
March 11 at 8:06am
Spoke with the Prime Minister today - he wished me well and
gave me advice for my campaign (pass
the sick bag ED)
MARINA FROM
HOLY TRINITY COMPETES FOR
SCHOOL CHEF OF THE YEAR AWARD
FRESH
ingredients, strong flavours... and not a Turkey Twizzler in
sight. The future of school dinners was laid bare yesterday
as cooks from across the South East went head-to-head to see
who could whip up the best meal. Cuisine ranged from
Moroccan to Italian at the School Chef of the Year regional
finals, at Oxford Brookes University’s restaurant on the
Gipsy Lane campus. And on hand to taste the creations were
two judges from Rose Hill Primary School, pupils Isis
Parrott and Cindy Kama.
Ten
cooks had to create a main course and dessert suitable for
an 11-year-old, costing no more than £1.35 per child, in 90
minutes. Representing Oxfordshire was Marina Faulkner,
(pictured left) who works at Holy Trinity RC School in
Chipping Norton. She said: “Everything has changed. You
could call it the ‘Jamie Oliver effect’ because ever since
his show about the state of school dinners, there has been a
revolution in the kitchen. Now we are cooking with fresh
ingredients and introducing children to cuisines they may
never have tried before.” Mrs Faulkner’s main course was
Thai mince, noodles and stir fried summer vegetables,
followed by duo of melon with strawberry yoghurt and ginger
fortune cookie. She said: “I was very proud to represent
Oxfordshire, although very nervous. It’s so important that
children get a healthy and varied diet. When I think back to
my school dinners I can’t believe how much it has changed.
Lumpy custard and boiled cabbage are certainly things of the
past.”
Sadly, for Mrs Faulkner,
she wasn’t among the winners. The crown went to West
Sussex’s Kay Gill, who wowed judges with a Thai spiced
burger with noodle and vegetable salad, followed by papaya
and banana oatcake and fruit smoothie. Great try Marina!
Council pays for
plush resort for meeting and overnight stay instead of
choosing its own HQ
TRANSPORT
chiefs at Oxfordshire County Council spent more than £4,500
on a meeting and overnight stay at a prestigious resort.
Seven highways officers attended the two-day workshop at the
£50m Heythrop Park resort, near Enstone. Despite being 15
miles from County Hall, council employees stayed overnight
at the resort, where facilities include a swimming pool,
health spa and golf course. Andrew Allison, from the
Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “It is a deplorable waste of
money given County Hall is so close.” The meeting, which was
held on January 17 and 18, was in the same month the
council’s cabinet agreed a £119m of cuts, including slashing
£13m from the transport budget.
The authority has said the
workshop was part of a new “groundbreaking” contract that
will lead to significant savings. It said the meeting was
not held at council offices as “an important part of
building integration, rapport, trust and joint
understanding, is to have time away from the day-to-day
interruptions of the office”. But the meeting, which was
also attended by three contractors and two facilitators,
cost the taxpayer £4,678.36, which included £3,747 in
consultancy fees. Room hire was £144.04, accommodation cost
£634 and the food bill came in at £153.32. Evening drinks
were paid for by staff themselves In total, 10 people stayed
overnight, including five of the council officers.
Last night the council’s leader Keith Mitchell said paying
for overnight accommodation and off-site costs was not
justified. He added: “It won’t happen again.” Liberal
Democrat group leader Zoe Patrick said: “It looks bad when
people are losing youth services and libraries. It is one
rule for one and one for everyone else.” The details of the
workshop were revealed in a Freedom of Information request
passed to the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Mr Allison added: “The
reason of team-building is just nonsense. It is
unjustifiable.”
But Steve Howell, the
council’s deputy director for highways, said the meeting was
part of a 10-year contract with contractor Atkins that would
save the authority 20 per cent of its highways costs when
fully operational. He said: “This contract is the first of
its kind in this country because it integrates the
management teams and staff of the two organisations. In
order to get best value for Oxfordshire taxpayers and make
the savings envisaged, the contract needs to operate in an
integrated manner. This ‘integration’ does not happen
automatically or overnight. It involves a considerable
amount of challenge and ongoing effort.” On the need for an
overnight stay, Mr Howell said it allowed the team to “get
to know each other informally”.
Council spokesman Owen
Morton confirmed staff would have been able to claim mileage
expenses if the journey to Heythrop was further than their
regular commute to work.
Cabinet member Sacked
by Tom Jennings
A
LEADING West Oxfordshire District Council cabinet member has
been sacked for failing to toe the party’s line, it was
claimed last night. Conservative councillor Hilary Biles was
fired by council leader Barry Norton last Monday for
opposing cuts. At a full council meeting on February 23, she
refused to vote for reducing the amount of grant aid
community groups could apply for, from £100,000 to £50,000.
The vote was whipped, meaning Mrs Biles, cabinet member for
leisure, young people and health, had to vote in favour of
the plan. Failing to vote along a party whip is a sackable
offence.
Chipping Norton Town Council member Gerry
Alcock, a friend of Mrs Biles, said she had been fired for
standing by her principles. He said she had fought to
protect the grants budget for sports facilities and village
halls. He added: “They had to get this budget approved, so
they put it on a whipped vote to cabinet, and she didn’t
vote in favour of it, and that’s a sacking. Barry wrote to
her formally and removed her because she had failed to
support the leadership on a whipped vote. I don’t think
anyone expected her to dig her heels in.” It was unclear
whether Mrs Biles abstained from the vote or opposed it. A
West Oxfordshire District Council spokesman said records
were not kept. Mr Alcock said: “It wouldn’t have been
difficult to find a compromise to allow her some way of
protest. They thought, let’s take this chance to get rid of
her. It’s nasty stuff, really raw politics.” He said Mr
Norton owed the public an explanation.
Mrs Biles refused to comment on the
matter, except for a short statement, which said: “It really
has been a pleasure to be on the cabinet. I wish my
successor every success, and I hope they enjoy it as much as
I have.” She refused to comment further, but a source close
to her confirmed what Mr Alcock has said. Mrs Biles, who
will remain the member for Ascott and Shipton, has served on
the cabinet for six years, and is also chairman of
Oxfordshire County Council. Mr Norton refused to comment
despite repeated calls from the Witney Gazette.
Julian Cooper, deputy leader of the
district council’s opposition Lib Dem group, said Mr Norton
should be “open and upfront” about his decision. He added:
“When you concentrate power fully in one person, and if that
person doesn’t want to talk to people, it isn’t very
transparent. You can structure your standing orders that
council selects who is in the cabinet, but West Oxfordshire
has always chosen that one person selects who goes in the
cabinet.”
Feelings were also expressed on the
Gazette’s website. Mr E Mann’, from Oxford, said: “One
begins to realise that it isn’t only in North Africa and the
Middle East that a ruling elite believes it can do what it
likes and is not accountable in any way to the people.” ‘Porphyro’,
from Witney, said: “Mrs Biles and Mr Norton are not ordinary
members of the public. They are elected representatives who
should be answerable to their electorates. Any Government
minister who resigns or is sacked would normally issue a
parting message to the public, so why do West Oxfordshire
Tories think this basic courtesy is unnecessary?”
Her responsibilities will now be shared
among other cabinet members. Carys Davies, communications
manager at the council, said: “This is a private matter
between the leader of the council and councillor Biles.”
ALICE
SIGNS WITH MANOR
Motor
racing ace Alice Powell from Chippy has signed up for the
2011 Formula Renault UK series with Manor Competition – the
most successful team in the history of the Championship.
Alice, 2010 Formula Renault BARC Champion and recently named
BWRDC’s Elite Gold Star winner for the second year in
succession and recipient of the Club’s prestigious Lord
Wakefield Trophy, completes the same quartet of drivers who
raced with Manor Competition in the FRUK winter series last
November. Formula Renault UK is established as the country’s
leading single-seater championship, launching the Formula 1™
racing careers of Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Räikkönen and Heikki
Kovalainen. The championship enjoys a high level of exposure
due to its place on the support package of the British
Touring Car Championship, leading to comprehensive
television coverage in the UK on the ITV Sport network. Two
races are also held at World Series by Renault, which
attracted a crowd of 125,000 in 2010, making it the best
attended one-marque single-seater series.18
year-old Alice first joined the Nottinghamshire squad back
in 2009 following a season in Ginetta Juniors. She
said of her recent
signing; "I am delighted to be
working with Manor again. Sarah (Shaw) and the team know how
I work and, hopefully, together we can produce the right
results in 2011! ”Sarah Shaw at
Manor Competition says of the renewed partnership; “We're
really happy to have Alice back in the team - it was
important to us to have her as part of our line-up. We all
enjoy working with her and she is very quick, so we're
looking forward to a strong season together."Alice
is the reigning Formula Renault BARC Champion scoring two
wins, seven podiums and two pole positions last year. Alice
made history by becoming the first female to win a Formula
Renault race and the first female to win a Formula Renault
Championship.If you would like to support Alice through
sponsorship, please visit
www.alice-powell.com or email
info@alice-powell.com.
OPENING FOR BUSINESS AT LAST
Tel: 01608 648200 (main switchboard)
Mystery
over cabinet departure
5th
March THE
leader of West Oxfordshire District Council last night
refused to say why a top councillor was no longer a member
of his cabinet. Hilary Biles quit her post as cabinet member
for leisure, young people and health on Wednesday. But
council leader Barry Norton, who chooses the cabinet,
refused to explain why the decision was made, saying only:
“No comment.”
Mrs Biles, who remains the Conservative
member for Ascott and Shipton, said she was not willing to
comment. The Oxford Mail has spoken to every cabinet member
but they also either declined to comment or said they did
not know what was going on. Carys Davies, communications
manager at the council, said: “This is a private matter
between the leader of the council and Councillor Biles.” Mr
Norton took Mrs Biles’ place at a meeting on Wednesday to
award grants to young achievers in sport and art.
Your webmaster comments ..... Whats the mystery? How utterly stupid to describe this
as a "private matter". How absurd for members of the
Cabinet to say they don't know what's going on. They know
all right. Everyone in West Oxfordshire knows that Barry
Norton is not exactly the retiring type. Make no
mistake ...... Barry has sacked Hilary from his Cabinet. She didn't resign. She
was stuffed. But Barry may soon realise that he has
made a huge error of judgement this time and may just
have slung his weight around a bit too far. This is not good
news for Chippy. Hilary has fought for the town in numerous
Cabinet battles over the last few years. Hilary procured the
new playground at the rec. She was a fantastic ally in
helping to secure a grant of £100,000 for the Town Hall
refurbishment. She has been absolutely pivotal in getting
WODC to give up a restrictive covenant on Greystones House.
Hilary has got us a new Youth Centre and most recently she has been attempting to persuade the
hopeless Simon Hoare to restore the rate relief on the Lido.
As we all know if Hilary feels passionately about something
she fights like a tiger. And so when the hopeless Simon
Hoare and Barry got the big axe out last week and started
hacking away attempting to decimate two budgets of Hilary's
about which she feels really really strongly (grants for
sports facilities and village halls) Hilary refused to back
down, got on a white charger and took them on. So Barry
sacked her - just like that. Any half-decent leader with
someone like Hilary on their team would have fought like
crazy to keep her on board. Instead of which by behaving so
petulantly Barry has made himself look a right Charlie. He
has sacked his most effective Cabinet member by a mile on a
budget technicality. He has shown zero respect for a senior
local politician who just happens to be Chairman of the
County Council. He has welcomed Hilary back from a two month
absence fighting a nasty virus to what has all the
appearance of a stitch-up. And now he is trying to keep it
all quiet. Shameful. How completely ironic that all this is
happening the day before the official opening of Chippy's
new hospital - a project which Hilary - more than any other
individual - is responsible for bringing to fruition.
For five years she has battled with a succession of PCT
Chief Executives. An absolute model of commitment to the
interests of her constituents (in Shipton as well as Chippy) "No comment" doesn't really cut it
Barry. Hasn't Dave mentioned to you that we are now in a new
democratic era when our local leaders are supposed to tell
us the truth about the way we are being governed. What on
earth do you think you are up to?
Lets bomb Barry with e-mails telling him how daft he has
been!!
AN eagerly anticipated new community hospital
will open in Chipping Norton on Monday 7th March The
new Chipping Norton War Memorial Community Hospital features
14 en suite bedrooms, plus physiotherapy and speech and
language therapy for outpatients recovering from long-term
illness. It will also offer podiatry and X-ray services,
consultant clinics and a new community maternity unit. Alan
Webb,
Director of Service Redesign for NHS Oxfordshire, (pictured
right) said: “This is an exciting time for local patients,
residents and NHS staff because a brand new, modern health
facility will be open for business.” Last month the Oxford
Mail revealed South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS)
response times to West Oxfordshire were the worst in the
county. It is hoped a permanent member of ambulance staff,
who will be based at the new site to treat patients with
minor problems who walk in on weekday evenings, weekends and
bank holidays, as well as responding to 999 calls in the
local area, will help boost flagging response times.
Patients from the ‘old hospital’, in Horsefair, which has
been used since 1920, were moved to the new Intermediate
Care Unit at the Henry Cornish Care Centre, in London Road,
at the end of February, with the first outpatients set to be
treated on Monday. The unit will continue to provide the
short stay in-patient services of the old community hospital
using the existing NHS staff but will be managed by The
Orders of St John Care Trust.
Sandra Allen, unit manager of Community
Health Oxfordshire, said the old building was a well-loved
facility and part of the history of the town. She added:
“While moving marks the end of an era, the new hospital
building is modern and fresh and offers excellent facilities
for local patients and staff. “ Mr Webb said: “This has been
a complex project which started eight years ago and has
involved us working together across different organisations.
We hope those who use these services will come to love this
facility as they did the old hospital.” Services including
district nursing and community services for occupational
therapy and physiotherapy, will also be based in the new
building. The community midwifery unit, which is part of the
Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals’ maternity services, also moved
to the new hospital.
The new facilities will be called the
Cotswold Maternity Unit and will have two birthing pools, a
larger and improved waiting area and improved space for
antenatal and postnatal drop-in and breastfeeding support.
Community Midwife Cheryl Keeble, team leader at the Cotswold
Maternity Unit, said the community had fond memories of the
old hospital. She
added: “However, we are looking forward
to using our new purpose-built facilities which are really
lovely. This is an exciting time for Chipping Norton.”
Councillor says the ambulance service is so poor that
patients
needing emergency care “might as well phone a taxi”.
Government targets say
ambulance trusts must send medical help to the most serious
emergencies within eight minutes of a 999 call at least 75
per cent of the time. But an Oxford Mail report shows some
people in need of medical help are being left to wait more
than eight minutes 70 per cent of the time. In West
Oxfordshire it answered more than 75 per cent of emergency
calls within eight minutes during only one month in the past
three years l Much of the time, fire officers or volunteers
with medical training, rather than parademics in ambulances,
reached the scene first.
West Oxfordshire district
councillor Peter Handley said the service was so poor that
patients needing emergency care “might as well phone a
taxi”. He said: “When you look at the statistics it is still
an appalling situation. Ratepayers in West Oxfordshire are
not getting value for money. What is needed is more
ambulances. As far as I am aware, the majority come from
Kidlington or Oxford. It is totally unacceptable.” Chipping
Norton and Witney lost their ambulance stations in 2003,
although vehicles are supposed to be at designated stand-by
points in the district.
In December, councillor
Hillary Biles, who co-authored a critical review into
ambulance services in West Oxfordshire in 2009, waited 50
minutes for an ambulance after her doctor phoned for one to
come to her home in Shipton-under-Wychwood. She said: “Some
people have said that this is what happenes if you live
where you live, but I do not find that acceptable. The
Wychwoods are not remote. I feel that if they had not closed
the ambulance stations, all the ambulance times would be in
the target.”
And Robert Towney, from
Chipping Norton, added: “If an ambulance has to come here
from Adderbury or Kidlington, there is absolutely no way it
can get here within eight minutes. There used to be two
fully-manned ambulances in Chipping Norton, so to try to
convince people they are getting a better service is
laughable.”
County agrees
£119m cuts
AT
5.57PM yesterday (15th Feb) , the axe fell on £119m of
public services in Oxfordshire. With one decision, 20
libraries and more than 20 youth centres are set to close,
home care for the elderly will be passed into private hands
and £13m will be wiped off road maintenance. Three county
rubbish dumps will shut, park-and-ride charges will rise and
motorists will have to pay and display on city streets at
the weekend. Some 1,000 council workers will lose their
jobs, transport to day centres for the elderly will halt and
subsidies for vital bus links will be cut back. Only the
fire service and child protection escaped the axe.
The ruling Conservatives on Oxfordshire County Council
admitted their austere budget, which was voted in at the
full council meeting, was “breathtaking” in scale.
Opposition leaders said it would decimate public services
and throw the county back to a “Victorian age”. But all
agreed on one thing – this is just the beginning.
They agreed the full impact
of yesterday’s decision – to cut £119m over four years –
will begin to bite over the coming months and years, and
will be felt in every corner of the county. As the reality
of those service cuts dawn, council tax is set to soar.
Frozen with Government help next year, the county’s share of
the bill will rise by 2.5 per cent (2012/13) and then 3.75
per cent (2013/14).
Council leader Keith Mitchell said: “These are breathtaking
sums and we would be foolish to claim they can be made
without affecting frontline services. “However, I do believe
the Coalition is right in setting ambitious targets for
cutting public spending.”
ORIENTAL
TURTLE DOVE relocated in Chipping Norton
The
first-winter ORIENTAL TURTLE DOVE that
first appeared in Chipping Norton (Oxfordshire) in mid
December 2010 was relocated on Saturday morning in a
different garden and was still visiting on Feb 14th. It
has been feeding with Collared Doves and Woodpigeons on
seed placed on the lawn and has been showing down to just
10 feet from the occupant's window. The owner of the
property has very kindly agreed to allow access on Tuesday
15 February from 1000 to 1600 hours at a charge of £5.00
per person. The bird is situated in Chipping Norton in the
back garden of 41 The Leys. Please park in the town centre
and walk to the site and then wait patiently in a queue
for your turn inside the living room. If over 200 people
queuing, you may be limited to just 5-10 minutes per
viewing and there will be no special dispensation to
photographers whilst the pressure is on to get as many
people possible to see it.
UPDATE!
More than 500 twitchers
descended on the doorstep of amateur ornithologist Steve
Akers, 56, from 6.30am after he spotted the Oriental Turtle
Dove feeding in his garden.The bird – normally found in
Russia and Siberia – has only been spotted twice before in
Britain and news of the discovery spread like wildfire
through the birdwatching world on Monday afternoon.
By
yesterday morning a queue of ornithologists stretched for
hundreds of yards along Mr Akers’ road in Chipping Norton,
Oxfordshire.The father-of-two drafted in two ‘bouncers’ from
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to
control the crowd. Entrants were charged £5 each and herded
into his kitchen in groups of ten, which were each given a
five-minute time slot to photograph the bird.
Mr Akers – who is donating
all the proceeds to charity – described it as a ”once in a
lifetime” experience.He said: ”It is brilliant to see this
beautiful and very famous bird – especially in my own back
garden.”I was massively excited when I spotted it. You know
this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and for it to happen
here is very overwhelming.We must have more than 450 people
outside now waiting to see it. Word got round quickly in the
birding community – they are all being well behaved at the
moment.They are waiting at the door and it is all being well
organised – there are people from the RSPB here.We are
letting people in ten at a time. They then get five minutes
in our kitchen, starting from when they spot the dove.”
Mr Akers, a trade union
regional officer for Unison, lives with wife Sharon, 46, and
sons Rory, eight, and Louis, six, in the Victorian
property.They first spotted the dove’s distinctive red eyes
and feet as they were sitting down to breakfast on Saturday
morning. The bird was eating scraps underneath the bird
table in his 120ft long garden.Mr Akers immediately realised
it could be the Oriental Turtle Dove and called in RSPB
experts to have the sighting confirmed. They identified it
as the Eastern Orientalis, which, along with the Western
Meena (corr), are the two sub-species of the Oriental Turtle
Dove.
It is only the third time
the Orientalis has been seen in Britain since 1881 and the
Oriental Turtle Dove only nine times in total. Mr Akers – a
keen bird watcher since the age of seven – said: ”I
immediately noticed its red eyes, red feet, white markings
and distinctive brown and back tortoiseshell feathers. They
usually migrate to Pakistan so this bird must have lost its
way somehow. It is a very pretty bird. The birds are quite
habitual by nature and I called the RSPB on Monday to come
out and confirm it. We then put the word out to bird
watchers.”
All the #5 fees will be
donated to Bird Life International and Bird Life Malta,
which works to protect the doves. Mark Thomas, an
investigations officer with the RSPB who was on hand outside
Mr Aker’s house yesterday, said the sighting was extremely
important to ornithology in Britain. He said: ”It’s
tremendously exciting – we are here today because of the
huge interest in this bird. Our message is that this should
encourage people to feed birds in their gardens – you never
know what might turn up.”
However, the elusive bird
only made a brief appearance yesterday morning but had not
been seen since 8am. Only the first group of ten – who were
admitted into the kitchen at 6.30am – got to see the bird.
”It turned up this morning, but has gone away again now – we
have several hundred frustrated people outside,” said Mr
Akers. Ian Lewington, a local volunteer bird recording
officer, said strict rules were being enforced to keep back
over-eager twitchers. He said: ”We are stewarding the
operation. We have a number of people on the door and are
managing the queue – which stretches up to the end of the
road.”
The Oriental Turtle Dove,
also known as the Rufous Turtle Dove, is most commonly found
in countries such as Russia, Siberia and Afghanistan.
In
the winter the birds migrate across to Pakistan and India,
southeast Asia and southern Japan. This small species has
similar in plumage to its European counterpart, the Turtle
Dove, but is a little larger. It has a black and white
striped patch on the side of its neck, but the breast is
less pink than its Western relative. The orange-brown wing
feathers of Turtle Dove are also replaced with a browner
hue, and darker centres and the tail is wedge shaped. The
Orientalis sub-species has a grey tip to the tail. Its
call is quite different from the purr of the Turtle Dove and
is described as having a four-syllable “her-her-oo-oo”
sound.
MORRIS PHOTOGRAPHIC are offering a prize of a Bill Oddie
Venture waistcoat to the best photograph taken of our rare
visitor. Photographs must be taken in our locality and be
the property of the applicant. Applicants can drop their
photographs or download an image in-store. Images will be
displayed on their Facebook page and their Blog.
Closing date for Applicants will be March 15th
2011 UNIT 9
Worseter Rd Estate (0) 8454 30 20 30
www.morrisphoto.co.uklynn@morrisphoto.co.uk
TWITCHER IN CHIEF STEVE AKERS
OF THE LEYS!
Turtle dove 'still in Chipping Norton area'
Friday 18th February
The
oriental turtle dove that brought hundreds of people to
Chipping Norton is still being spotted in the area. On
Tuesday, more than 500 people turned up to see the bird,
which has only ever been spotted in the UK about nine times
in the past. Steve Akers, who opened his house for the
birdwatchers, said the bird was not spotted on Tuesday, but
had visited his and his neighbour’s gardens on Wednesday and
yesterday. He said he had received calls from media
organisations across the world about the rare bird.
'£50,000 spent to
tell council staff their jobs are gone'
CASH-STRAPPED council bosses
are today expected to cut libraries, youth centres and care
home places, spent £50,000 on management consultants to help
them make savings. Armed with personality tests, the
consultants were drafted into County Hall to help make about
30 managers redundant in a bid to save £1m. Staff
facing redundancy took psychometric tests in competency,
skills and experience. But Labour group leader Liz Brighouse
was outraged by the decision to spend money on external help
when the council was cutting social services, libraries and
youth work. She said: “It’s £50,000 to bring in consultants
to tell people they haven’t got a job. It’s complete
madness. The Barton and Churchill councillor said in-house
human resources teams could have carried out the work and
the cash used for threatened services instead. She added:
“That amount of cash could have kept some people in a job or
paid for a youth worker in Wood Farm giving young people 365
days of support. Instead we’re paying two and half times
that youth worker’s salary to tell someone they haven’t got
a job.”
Gt
Tew ‘Festival will be a feast of guilty pleasure
A
MIXTURE of grizzled rockers, fresh-faced singers and
boisterous new acts will grace the stage for a new-look
Oxfordshire music festival.
Cornbury Festival, which has taken place over two days
each summer for the past seven years, is being relaunched as
a three-day festival on a new site. Having parted company
with its former site, Cornbury Park in Charlbury, the
festival will take place over the weekend July 1-3, at Great
Tew, near Chipping Norton.
And organiser Hugh
Phillimore is celebrating with his strongest ever bill –
headlined by what he described as a selection of guilty
pleasures. They include three-chord rockers Status Quo,
chart-topping singer-songwriter James Blunt, and
vintage rock band The Faces – featuring original members
Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones, and new vocalist
Mick Hucknall, of Simply Red. They will be joined by
Ray Davies, former frontman of The Kinks, 1980s pop icon
Cyndi Lauper, disco diva Sophie Ellis
Bextor, Californian popsters The Like, and
Canadian artist Buffy Sainte Marie – a member of the
Cree Indian community (pictured left). Also playing will be award-winning
folk big-band Bellowhead boasting melodeon player
John Spiers, from Wootton, near Abingdon; 2009 X Factor star
Olly Murs; pop princess Eliza Doolittle; and
Irish rockabilly performer Imelda May.
Mr Phillimore said: “We’re
proud to present what we think is our best line-up ever. We
have lots of guilty pleasures, as well as some legends,
national treasures, and bright young things. It is very
diverse, but it all hangs pretty well together. It will be
our best ever.” He also promised an “impressive” surprise
act would be playing the main stage on the Sunday.
‘Crime
will soar if youth centres cut’
YOUNG
people drove home their message that crime will soar if
youth centres close. Dozens of teenagers from Oxfordshire
youth centres turned out to at a public meeting at Oxford
Town Hall to call on the county council to scale back
proposals to axe funding for 20 youth centres.
Youth centres under
threat: Saxon Centre in Headington, Cutteslowe,
Wolvercote, Bampton, Burford, Carterton, Chalgrove, Chiltern
Edge, Chinnor, Chipping Norton, Cholsey, Eynsham,
Faringdon, Henley, Standlake, Thame, Wallingford, Wantage,
Watlington, Wheatley.
Instead council bosses plan
to rely on seven ‘hubs’ tackling teenage pregnancy, drug
use, school exclusion and youth offending. The proposals
will save £4.2 m over four years. Matty Yallop, 16, from
Carterton, helped organise Thursday’s meeting.Among the
speakers was Steph Green, a tutor in youth and community
work at Ruskin College, Oxford. Wood Green school pupil
Mr Yallop said many county councillors attended and
listened. He said: “Young people accept there have to be
changes but we don’t understand why another service for
non-vulnerable young people is being taken away. Prevention
is better than a cure. Youth centres work with young people
to keep them out of trouble.”
Nicky Wishart, 12, from
Eynsham, formed the Save All UK Youth Centres Facebook page,
which has 2,000 members. He said: “There will probably be
people on the streets, drugs, and things like that. I think
the council realise that but don’t think it is a priority.”
Police have warned closing youth services will cause a rise
in crime, but county council leader
Keith Mitchell said there was no automatic link. He
called on parents, schools and volunteers to provide
alternative facilities.
Olympic
hurdler tumbles with the tots
OLYMPIC
champion Sally Gunnell visited Oxfordshire yesterday to
teach youngsters about fitness and healthy eating.
The 400-metre hurdles champion met
children aged six months to seven years who attend Tumble
Tots activities group at Chipping Norton Town Football Club,
in Walterbush Road. Mrs Gunnell said: “It was fantastic for
me to get out and see for myself the energy and enjoyment
the toddlers and the mums were having.”
Robyn Bissett, who runs the group, said:
“It was really lovely to have
her
along. I think the children responded really well to her,
there was a bit of excitement in the air.
The event was about teaching the kids to eat
healthily when they are young.” Kingham mum Rachel Tustain,
who attended with 14-month-old son Edward, said: “It was
really lovely for the children, and it was great for them to
have a role model.”
The inside
guide to Chipping Norton
Downing
Street still refuses to disclose on which day over Christmas
Rebekah Brooks, chief executive officer of News
International, entertained David and Samantha Cameron,
Rupert Murdoch and his son James at her home in north
Oxfordshire, near Chipping Norton. Students of the shadowy
"Chipping Norton set" will not be surprised by the group's
disinclination to discuss its innermost workings.
This
characteristic secrecy has only increased my ambition to
arrange guided tours of the "Chipping Norton triangle" for
American tourists and other interested parties, starting in
my home in North Oxford. There is, of course, a legitimate
dispute amongst scholars as to who are bona fide members of
the set, and where exactly the "triangle" begins.
The
Camerons and Brookses are obviously founder members, as are
the PR magnifico Matthew Freud and his wife Elisabeth
Murdoch. The car-mad Jeremy Clarkson of BBC2's Top Gear is
also paid up, but I draw the line at Simon Kelner,
editor-in-chief of this newspaper, partly because he lives
in Woodstock, strictly speaking outside the "triangle", and
partly because he does not have the necessary right-wing
credentials. Unless we maintain rigorous geographical and
political criteria, this thing is going to get out of hand.
Stephen Glover
Blur's Alex James to host music and food festival at his
home
Blur bassist Alex James is
to hold a music and food festival in the grounds of his
Oxfordshire
estate. James,
who in recent years has become renowned as an award-winning
cheesemaker, has now decided to venture into the world of
festival organising. He'll host a four-day event called
Harvest
from September 9-12 at his farm in Kingham,
Chipping Norton.
The Independent reports that he is billing the event as set
to showcase "the very best of the British food scene
alongside a soundtrack of the finest bands around". So far
KT Tunstall and Steve
Earle have been confirmed to play the
festival. James
said: "We'll throw open the farm gates for Harvest this
September. My family are looking forward to a celebration of
all our favourite things – food, the farm and music. What
more could we ask for?" As well as music, Harvest will
feature cookery master classes, pop-up restaurants,
gardening workshops and a farmers' market.
Nordic Walking
comes to Chipping Norton!
Nordic
Walking is a great workout that tones the whole body.
Burns 46% more calories than ordinary walking
Great for back, neck and shoulder problems
Easy on the knees and joints Suitable for all
levels Sociable, safe outdoor exercise Nordic
Walking is an enhancement of ordinary walking – it makes
something we can all do…twice as effective! It is a specific
fitness technique and is not to be confused with trekking,
hill walking or rambling.
Nordic Walking poles add two
major benefits to going for a walk, they use the upper body
muscles and they propel you along, making it feel
easier to work quite hard! In order to gain maximum benefit
from Nordic Walking, it is essential to learn the correct
technique from a qualified instructor licensed by Nordic
Walking UK. The new course starts on 9th of February and
runs every Wednesday for 4 weeks at 1.30pm. The course
costs £10 per person and includes the use of the poles
during the course. For more information and to book on
please contact Claire Goodenough on 07813012722 or email
Claire.goodenough@westoxon.gov.uk Places are limited so
please book early to avoid disappointment.
Alice Powell
lands top award again
Alice
Powell, the most promising female racing driver in the
country, has picked up a top award for the second year
running. The 17-year-old from Chipping Norton, who became
the Formula Renault BARC champion, was named the British
Woman Racing Drivers Club’s elite gold star winner for her
success in 2010. In front of TV crews and an army of
photographers, Powell was presented with the award by BBC TV
Formula 1 presenter Jake Humphrey.
The award is made on merit to a junior
member who has shown the capability of and aspires to become
a professional driver. Powell said: “I am so glad to have
won this award, and this is a great way to start the year.
To have it presented by Jake is brilliant and he wished me
the best of luck for the year!” This year, she hopes to
compete in the Formula Renault UK Championship, which
receives live coverage on ITV.
WODC is one of
13 councils who have abandoned
weekly bin rounds since the general election
Town
halls have continued to switch to fortnightly rounds
despite a pledge by Eric Pickles, the Conservative
Communities and Local Government Secretary, that weekly
collections were "a basic right for every English man and
woman". Among the areas no longer getting weekly
collections is West Oxfordshire, where David Cameron has
his constituency home. Figures provided by 237 of
Britain's 380 councils show that 13 have abandoned weekly
bin rounds in all or part of their area since the general
election in May, moving 506,000 households to fortnightly
collections. Eight of them are Tory-controlled,
including West Oxfordshire. It means the number of
British homes with fortnightly collections has risen to at
least 6.9 million. A further 10 councils said they planned
to switch to fortnightly collections in future. None had
returned from fortnightly to weekly collections, or
planned to do so.
Within a year the number of
homes with fortnightly collections is on course to overtake
the number with weekly rounds. Recent years have seen a
steady stream of councils trying to increase the proportion
of waste they recycle by switching from weekly rounds to
so-called alternate weekly systems, in which recyclable
rubbish is collected one week and residual waste the next.
The last Labour government was accused of encouraging the
trend by imposing targets on councils for the amount of
waste recycled.
On coming to office, Mr
Pickles scrapped the targets and declared: "I fully support
all those households who are demanding the restoration of
the weekly bin collection. It's a basic right for every
English man and woman to be able to put the remnants of
their chicken tikka masala in their bin without having to
wait a fortnight for it to be collected."
Yet despite the changes
introduced by the Coalition, there are still incentives for
town halls to scrap weekly collections. Landfill taxes mean
that councils face charges of about £70 for every ton of
non-recycled rubbish sent to landfill, while local
authorities are ranked in league tables which aim to promote
recycling.
Doretta Cocks, founder of
the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said ministers
were in "muddle" over the issue. "It is very disappointing
because they were so vociferous about it in opposition," she
said. Councils will be using the need to save money as the
next excuse for making these changes, which are deeply
unpopular with residents. Piles of uncollected rubbish can
seriously affect people's quality of life."
However,
Mr Pickles last week warned councils that fortnightly collections were
unpopular at the ballot box. He said: "If councils want to continue to
have fortnightly collections, then good luck to them in facing their
electorates."
Reply from
WODC
The Editor Sunday Telegraph
Dear Sir,
Reading your front page article on bin collections last Sunday (23
January), it is clear that your reporter has not understood
the information we supplied him about waste collections at
West Oxfordshire District Council and regrettably has
written an inaccurate and misleading article.
Your article refers to councils switching to fortnightly waste
collection rounds and cites West Oxfordshire as one of
these. Untrue - West Oxfordshire continues to operate weekly
collection rounds.
In West Oxfordshire each week all households have a food waste
collection and each week all households have a recycling
collection. Recycling collected includes plastics, glass,
paper, cardboard, metal, tins, foil, batteries, textiles and
shoes. Collecting all of these materials weekly, means there
is very little left for the residual waste bin which is
collected on alternating weeks with free garden waste
collections.
Clearly our scheme is not the same as the one he describes of councils
collecting recyclable rubbish one week and residual waste
the next.
Our current scheme was introduced in November 2010 and we believe it is
a model for other councils as we are achieving high
recycling rates without inconveniencing residents. Feedback
has been extremely positive.
Yours sincerely
David Harvey
Cabinet Member for Environment
Everything clear now folks ED
Michelin
hand out their annual stars
Every January chefs across
Britain nervously await the publication of the red Michelin
Guide, which dishes out stars and Bib Gourmands, as well as
rating hotels. The Carpenter’s Arms, in Burford, has
been awarded a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide 2011 for
serving “good food at reasonable prices” joining 116
restaurants nationwide. The award is seen as the first
indication a restaurant is on the company’s radar, with some
going on to win a highly coveted Michelin star. One
pub to win a Bib Gourmand was
The Masons Arms, in
Chipping Norton and the Kingham Plough both retained the
award.
Guide editor Rebecca Burr
praised the restaurants included this year. She said: “There
is no doubt that 2010 was a difficult year but those hotels
and restaurants that rep-resented value for money, at
what-ever price, were the ones who were best placed to
weather the storm.
Chipping
Norton School victorious in U19 Rugby District League
On
Tuesday 11th January Chipping Norton School played Burford
School in the final of the U19 District League at Chipping
Norton Rugby Club. In extremely difficult conditions both
teams played very well and were a credit to their schools.
After a tense
first half, in which Chipping Norton scored two tries, it
was all set up for an exciting second half. Burford’s reply
came through a penalty to make the score 10 points to 3. On
a number of occasions Burford came close to scoring a try
but Chipping Norton showed terrific defensive qualities to
keep them out and eventually win the game 23 points to 3.
Proud Chipping Norton Captain Sam Allen went up to collect
the shield on behalf of the team. Overall, it was an
outstanding season in all respects for the Senior team. In
total 11 games were played with 10 wins and the only loss
coming against a very strong Cokethorpe team.
This promises
to be an exciting couple of years for Chipping Norton
students as they are busy raising money for their second
sports tour to South Africa in July 2012. This sees the
Senior Hockey and Rugby Teams playing against local teams
and being billeted by South African families. For further
information please contact Mr Thomas, Head of PE on 01608
649414.
"Fun and
Energetic" Mum of Three Succumbs to Flu within 24 hours
TRIBUTES
have been paid to a mum-of-three who died just 24 hours after falling ill
with flu. Tracy Watkins, 47, passed away at the Horton Hospital, in
Banbury
less than a day after she started displaying flu-like symptoms. Her
husband Richard last night paid tribute to his “fun and energetic” wife
who was heavily involved in life in West Oxfordshire.
Mr Watkins, of Over Norton,
near Chipping Norton, said his wife, an otherwise fit and
healthy yoga enthusiast, first became ill on Friday. He said
the family had all been suffering with flu like symptoms and
called for a doctor to visit. Mr Watkins, also 47, said: “On
Friday morning the doctor called around to look at us, and
he also gave us some antibiotics for the chest, just in case
there was an infection. Then on Friday evening she became
very ill and we had to call for an ambulance. Just from
looking at her you could tell she was very ill.” He said his
wife was pronounced dead at the Horton on Saturday morning.
Mr Watkins said the coroner
told him initial post mortem examination results on his wife
showed she had congested lungs, as a result of a flu-related
illness. The Health Protection Agency had also contacted him
and told him there was also evidence of invasive
streptococcus, an infection that can make its way into the
blood, deep muscle and fat tissue or the lungs.
Mrs Watkins ran Byline Communications, which worked on
events including the Cornbury Festival. Mr Watkins, who met
his wife while they were both studying at Reading
University, said: “She was fun and energetic, a fantastic
mother, who managed to balance her work and life perfectly.
She had a huge amount of friends.”
Simon Duffy, headmaster at
Chipping Norton School, described the news as devastating.
Mrs Watkins worked with the school on a number of projects,
including arranging for winners of the school’s Battle of
the Bands competition to play at Cornbury Festival. Mr Duffy
said: “She was great fun and incredibly bright and
energetic. She was always willing to give you her time,
always smiling, always positive.” Hugh Phillimore, organiser
of the Cornbury Festival, said: “She was a wonderful friend
and colleague and we miss her very much.”
COUNCILLOR GREENWELL IS FINED AFTER ROW WITH NEIGHBOUR
A
Chipping Norton Town Councillor has been fined after a
neighbourhood dispute turned sour. Keith Greenwell - a
member of the Chippy First party - was fined after resisting
arrest when police visited his house to investigate a public
order incident on July 12th.
In a
hearing last Thursday Caroline Oakley, prosecuting, told
Banbury Magistrates how Mr Greenwell was having an ongoing
dispute about a piece of land between his house and a
neighbouring property. The land which leads out to a garage
and shed is used by neighbours and is covered by a covenant
which states it can only be accessed on foot rather than by
car. When Mr Greenwell saw his neighbour drive across the
land he told her to stop driving, used abusive language
towards her and banged on her vehicle.
The court viewed a video of a hidden
police camera showing officers arriving at Mr Greenwell's
house on July 22nd. When questioned about the earlier
incident he closed the door and refused to be arrested. Once
police had finally got inside Mr Greenwell's house and got
him outside, he used threatening and abusive language to the
officers on duty.
Matthew Correy, defending, said:" My
client has entered a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity
today that is available for him to do so. We have seen from
the videos that the police were quite heavy-handed with Mr
Greenwell and he did suffer some fairly bad injuries,
including injuries to his head and wrist. This neighbourhood
dispute has bee ongoing for some time and he was a man at
the end of his tether so his behaviour was out of character"
Mr Correy added that Mr Greenwell's vehicle was also damaged
by the neighbour, who was using the concrete area to
gain access to the garage after carrying out building work
on their property. When he was ignored by the neighbour, the
court was told four calls made by to the police about his
car being damaged were not followed up.
Concluding the hearing, chairman of the
bench, Malcolm farley said: "We have been considering two
matters here today, both of which you have pleaded guilty
to. We have taken into account your early guilty plea and
the fine we are imposing is half
the
costs the Prosecution Service have asked for" Mr Greenwell
was fined a total of £520, which included £335 for the
public order offence and £150 for obstructing a police
officer in their duty. An earlier charge of assault
had been dropped.
Some
more background from Keith
Here’s some background to my fine last week
which I hope is useful. I live in a row of four
cottages at Southcombe. . My house is at the end - No 1.
At the side of my house is a piece of land with a drive
leading to my garage and some other outbuildings. There is
also an area of hard standing. Cottage No 2 owns one
of the outbuildings and some hard standing. However No 2 has
no right of vehicle access to either the outbuilding or the
hard standing. They only have access on foot. This is
clearly stated in the deeds and was clear when the present
owners of No 2 bought the house four years ago. Daft but
typical in situations where farm cottages are sold off over
a period of time and different restrictions are introduced
into conveyances.
From the moment they moved in No2 residents continually
ignored the restrictive covenant and drove across the area
over which they have a right to pedestrian access. Having
taken legal advice we were told that we must challenge them
at every opportunity when they did this in order to prevent
an easement being created.
We started doing this. I then had a visit from a constable
from Witney because the woman at No2 had complained to the
police about harassment. I explained the circumstances and
TVP eventually took no further action.
The breaches of the covenant in the deeds
continued and we carried on making challenges and also
engaged a solicitor to start proceedings against No 2.
In individual incidents my car window was
smashed and the complete length of my car was gouged by a
screwdriver. I had strong grounds for believing that my
neighbour was involved . In the first case the
responsibility was admitted and the damage paid for. In the
second case the police gave me a crime number and refused to
get involved.
We continued to challenge the residents of No
2 each time we saw them across the to which they only had a
right to pedestrian access. On one occasion my wife and I
were walking back from the garden when the woman got into
her car, an old black VW Golf. As we were walking across she
drove at me and hit me. My wife reported the incident to the
police. We had a visit a week or so later from a couple of
officers who took statements. We were eventually told they
were taking no action
It would be tedious to describe any more of the many many
incidents which followed – suffice it to say that our life
became hell.. I will now turn to what happened on July 12th.
This is the incident which led to my court appearance when
I was charged with abusive behaviour towards the police.
This incident occurred when my car was once again scratched
down the full length of one side. It was fine when I parked
at about 10.30PM but when I went to use it at 08.30 the next
morning it had been vandalised I had seen the woman from
No 2
walk down the side of it earlier that morning. I rang TVP
and was told they would take no action as I had not actually
seen her scratch the car. Shortly after this I confronted
the man at No 2 and asked him to come and look at the
damage that had been done. As was his usual practice he just
stood and said nothing, My wife Janette who was across on
the garden with the dogs walked back and said leave it and
go into the house which I did.
Ten days later on July 25th two Constables
and a PCSO turned up in two cars at my back door and
announced that they had come to arrest me for an alleged
assault on the man next door. I told them that they had got
it wrong and it was him that they should be arresting.. At
this they became aggressive, and I was forced to the ground
and beaten up by the two PCs, arrested and taken to Banbury.
It was clear to me that the constables had come looking for
trouble. Why else would they need two PC’s and a PCSO plus a
police van on hand to take me to the police station.
In the past we have attempted to reach an amicable
settlement with the owner of No 2 but they have just ignored
the correspondence from our solicitors while continuing to
repeatedly breach the covenant. What mystifies us is how the
police could repeatedly ignore the many reports and
complaints we made and refuse to take any action. Yet in the
case of the July 12th incident they accepted an
unsubstantiated account from the residents of No 2
and chose to proceed directly to my arrest . They should
surely not have been surprised that they met some resistance
to this high-handed course of action.
This is how
Keith looked when he got back from his police interview in
Banbury. ED
Journalists looking for more background on
this story are invited to ring 07860 210 191
Local Planners
are now all at sea without a paddle.
The poor old Planners don't
know where they are. They were happily plodding on with a
Local Development Plan - producing strategies, maps and
documents. Consulting all over the shop. Chippy Town Council
had their arms twisted a year ago to agree to a figure of
300 new homes for development. We were told this magic
figure would get us a new primary School.
Move on a year. The new
Coalition government have torn up the whole process. Its all
going to be decided locally from now on. Back to the drawing
board. Last week the WODC Cabinet met to start again.... The
Witney Gazette reports:
"HOUSING chiefs are
pressing ahead with a 4,300-home development blueprint for
West Oxfordshire. The district council is sticking to the
4,300 target imposed by the Labour Government, even though
the coalition Government said councils now have the final
say. Some 1,000 homes would be built in west Witney instead
of north Witney. It has not decided whether 1,000 homes will
be built east or west of Carterton. Plans for 200 homes off
London Road, Chipping Norton, have been scrapped."
Is that all clear? What it
says to me is that we have wasted hours discussing a
development plan for Chippy over the last few years which is
now out of the window with nothing in its place. Welcome to
the new "Localism" agenda.
Charlbury station car park to be extended
CHARLBURY railway station’s
busy car park could be extended. Rail chiefs are looking at
extending the car park by up to 100 spaces as a spin-off
from the project to reinstate double track on the Cotswold
Line. The £67m project will reinstate two tracks on the
popular Cotswold Line rail route between Oxford and
Worcester, to allow more train services and improve
punctuality. They are using former allotments next to the
car park to store equipment but the site could be used for
the extra spaces when work is completed in late summer.
Redoubling scheme manager David Northey said: “We are
currently exploring opportunities for this site and looking
for ways to finance the work.” The present car park has 158
spaces and is often full.
The move was welcomed by Nick Potter, chairman of Charlbury
Town Council, who said: “We all know there’s insufficient
car parking at the station. This, along with charges at the
station, forces commuters to park in the streets and the car
park in the town, causing problems for residents, visitors
and shoppers. Charlbury is a very important station, serving
the surrounding villages as well as the town, and deserves
an extended car park.”
Top
School turn in a brilliant GSCE result. Well
done!
League tables chart the performance of
English secondary schools in GCSE – and equivalent –
qualifications taken in 2010. Schools are ranked by the
percentage of pupils gaining at least five A* to C grades,
including the key subjects of English and mathematics.
These
figures have been the subject of controversy in the past.
For example, the percentage of Top School kids getting 5
GCSEs at level A* - C (including English and Maths)
suddenly nosedived from 65% in 2007 to 54% in 2008 and
nobody seemed to know why.
This year Simon Duffy has
led the school back up the tables to where they belong. Very
close to the top. Brilliant performance. Well done everyone.
32 State
Schools in Oxfordshire
(Excluding Special Needs
Schools)
County
councillors say "Don't touch our allowances!"
A
BID to slash county councillor allowance payouts by £500,000
a year has been quashed. Labour members wanted all
entitlements cut by 50 per cent, and the savings invested in
under-fire services. But ruling Tories, with Liberal
Democrats, voted down the idea and agreed recommendations by
an independent panel to freeze allowances at their current
levels. Labour group leader Liz Brighouse tabled the
50 per cent cut at a meeting of full council yesterday. She
said: “The council needs to agree a scheme that is
appropriate to the economic situation and considers all the
staff who are losing jobs.”
County councillors are entitled to a basic
allowance of £8,295. In addition, cabinet members can claim
an extra £12,442. The leader of the council is entitled to
an allowance of £33,179. Those opposed to halving allowances
said reduced payments would deter people from standing for
council, particularly those with families. Council leader
Keith Mitchell said Labour’s proposed 50 per cent cut was
aimed at grabbing headlines and added: “The reality is if
you do not have a decent (allowance) scheme you will not get
people to fill critical roles.”
And then
there were five
PUBGOERS in Chipping Norton
have been dealt a further blow after a plan was submitted to
turn a watering hole into flats. A bid has been made to
convert The Bell Inn, in West Street, into two homes, and
build a further two new homes on the plot. Three out of
eight town centre pubs are closed, with The Albion Tavern
and Off The Beaten Track also shut. Only five left.
West Oxfordshire District
Council last month gave permission to knock down The Albion
Tavern, in Burford Road, for seven homes. Patrick McHugh, a
council member for Chipping Norton, said: “I believe, at one
point, there were 22 pubs in the Chipping Norton area. One
of the things is that people are getting out of the pub
habit, with so many Government incentives given to
supermarkets to sell cheaper alcohol. I think it is very sad
to see so many close. But if the culture changes, it is
difficult to support all the pubs. It’s not their fault.
They are just getting the rug pulled under them from all
directions.”
In its planning application
for The Bell, developer Giantflow said the last ten to 15
years had “seen a dramatic shift in social drinking trends”.
Pubs had been hit by cheap supermarket alcohol, a ban on
smoking in public places, tightening of drink-drive
legislation, and a drop in income for the lower-paid, it
added. It states: “The net effect has been a marked rise in
pub and hotel closures. Only in highly-populated urban areas
can pubs survive on wet sales alone.” The pub got through
157 barrels in 2003, but this fell to 67 in 2008, it added.
It states Punch Taverns sold the pub after the “collapse of
the business”, and said the venue was “within reasonable
distance” of the King’s Arms, also in the town centre.
Something to sell? Offering a job? Announcing an event?
Place your own ad in
CHIPPY CLASSIFIEDS It's free!
.....that was the
year that was..... A few
highlights picked out of a hectic Chippy
2010
JAN
Keith Greenwell gets his project team
underway to completely re-furbish the Town Hall steps. The project
will take all year. Two architectural students from CNS have been
co-opted. The year starts with deep snow and impossible road
conditions.
FEB Long time (if ever) that we had a Town
Clerk take Maternity Leave. Vanessa will be away for a year but we
are all hoping she will be back early in 2011. She left with all
our best wishes.
MARCH
Solar panels being fixed at the Lido - ready
for the seasons opening. An even bigger and better Music Festival
this year A glittering Mayors Ball
APRIL PCT wobbles on its commitment that nurses
at the new hospital can continue to work for the NHS. The placards
come out again for a protest march.
Lido reopens with a £140000 new solar heating system.
MAY General Election and Dave becomes PM
(just) But more importantly Annie Roy Barker stands against Gina
for Chunky's district
council seat. Amazingly she wins. First example of somebody who
knows absolutely nothing about Chippy being elected to the
District Council Being a Tory is enough these days!
JUNE
The "Chain Gang" - The Mayor and the
new Leader of Oxfordshire County Council Hilary Biles -
continue their double act at the second celebration of Armed
Forces Day .
JULY
Art from all the town's Primary Schools is
exhibited on the hoardings surrounding the Town Hall during the
refurbishment of the steps. Superb Display The first Chipping
Norton Festival is held in the Market Square with live music all
afternoon. Big success
AUG A group of university students start
work on an architectural survey of an Iron Age settlement - just
outside Chippy. The Chequers changes ownership and the Station Rd
Antiques Centre goes up in flames with extensive damage to the
roof.
SEPT Jazz Day is another superb success.
Well done Mike Howes. Lido Auction (with a Sound of the 70s theme)
run by Jeremy C raises another huge sum. Emma's Day takes over the
Lido for another brilliant weekend.
OCT Spectacular end to the
season for Alice Powell as she wins the last race by a mile and
secures the Formula Renault Championship, She will now drive in a
senior group and is well on the way to realising her ambition to
become the UK's first Formula 1 woman driver. Go Alice!
NOV Sudden sad news that
Gina had passed away. She will be badly missed. St Mary's was
packed for a beautiful service at which her son and Rob Evans paid
moving tributes.
DEC Snow blankets the town
and brings everything to a standstill for several days. Justified
moaning about the Council's gritting efforts. The state of the
carparks and pavements is truly a disgrace. Still the Christmas
lights look nice.
CN ALL STARS - a group
of young musicians who are based
at Chipping Norton School and play swing, blues and rock 'n
roll
have just launched their own excellent new website.
Created by Jamie Biles. Take a look. Its really good.
West Oxfordshire
police fear impact of cutting youth centre cash
WEST Oxfordshire’s most senior
police officer has warned youth centre cuts will see more
youngsters getting into “mischief”. Chief inspector Jack
Malhi, area commander for West Oxfordshire, spoke out over
Conservative-run Oxfordshire County Council’s plan to cut
funding. Centres in Bampton, Burford, Carterton, Chipping
Norton, Eynsham and Standlake would lose cash. Mr Malhi
said: “Young people are more likely to get into some
mischief than not without the youth centres, and that will
have an impact. As to what impact that will be, we don’t
know. I suppose I would be a little bit worried. Each cut
can have an impact on society, and we need to work together
to minimise the impact. It may be that we need more big
society initiatives, like people volunteering.” Yet he said
he was not criticising Oxfordshire County Council.
Eynsham youth centre user
Nicky Wishart, 12, welcomed Mr Malhi’s comments. Nicky, who
held a protest outside Witney MP David Cameron’s
constituency office over the proposed loss of the youth
centre, said: “I strongly agree with what Jack Malhi has
said. “I will probably end up on the street and getting into
trouble if Eynsham youth centre closes.” Nicky, who hit
headlines after being quizzed by police before the demo,
added: “There’s always people that are complaining that
young people don’t have anything to do, and now they are
taking youth centres away.”
Adrian Coomber, deputy
mayor of Carterton, said warned youths will be “at risk of
getting into trouble”. He said: “We are a town of more than
15,000 people and, with RAF Brize Norton close by, we have a
large number of young families, and therefore a much larger
number of young people than other towns in the district.”
But county council leader Keith Mitchell said: “Closure of
youth clubs does not automatically equate to a rise in
crime. Youngsters are perfectly capable of being responsible
young adults who do not indulge in antisocial behaviour with
or without youth centres.” He said he hoped the community
would take over the centres. The axe would hit 21 centres
and save £4.2m.
And Councillor Charles
Mathew, Tory county councillor for Eynsham, said: “I can see
where Jack Malhi is coming from, however, the financial
circumstances of the council made its cabinet decide that
some youth centres should be deprived of funding. The
problem is, if it isn’t youth centres, what other necessary
expenditure would have to be axed?”
Mr Malhi’s comments echo
comments made by Inspector Graham Dix, responsible for youth
justice and engagement at the force. Insp Dix said: “The
loss of those services would mean more opportunities for
young people to get involved in crime and antisocial
behaviour, so we would oppose their closure.” He said the
force had not been consulted about the cuts.
I haven't let
bone cancer hold me back
Despite serial amputations
of her leg, Caroline Smail tells Victoria Lambert that she -
accompanied by her trusty horse, Jigsaw - has no fears about
taking part in the Boxing Day hunt.
WHEN Caroline Smail heads
off to take part in the Boxing Day meet of the Heythrop
Hunt in the Cotswolds, she’ll be hoping that Jigsaw, her
cheeky gelding, just over 14 hands high, doesn’t play up
too much. Earlier this summer, in a tussle with that much
loved pony, who was trying to munch through a hedge, her
foot got caught in a bramble. Unfortunately, for Caroline,
in the ensuing scramble, her entire left leg fell off.
'It really isn’t as bad as
it sounds,’ says Caroline, who is 30, and lives near
Chipping Norton. 'My left leg is a prosthetic and it is
always coming off at awkward moments. All I could do was
sling it over the front of the saddle and head home.
Unluckily, a van drove round the corner at that point; the
driver took one look at me riding along with a false leg
thrown across the saddle and crashed into the hedge too. I
felt awful for him, but you have to see the funny side.’
Caroline has been seeing the
funny side of a situation that would have taxed the best
of us for 20 years. A childhood battle with bone cancer
left her with a false knee and shin bone, placed inside
her skin. After a series of infections and terrible pain,
which went on for more than a decade, Caroline opted for
complete amputation in 2007; a further operation this year
has left her with just half a thighbone.
Yet throughout, Caroline has
retained an optimism that stuns friends and family,
organising major fundraising events for the charity Help
for Heroes, talking to soldiers returning from Afghanistan
as amputees, talking to the public on how it feels to miss
a limb.
Her work is vital as the
number of servicemen and women returning home missing at
least one limb is reported to have increased five-fold.
Official figures from the Defence Analytical Services and
Advice centre (Dasa), part of the Ministry of Defence,
show that in 2009 55
personnel
suffered the “traumatic or surgical amputation” of one or
more limb; in the first half of 2010, that figure was
already 38. Yet few of us can ever know how these amputees
feel or the challenges they face.
Never missed a
year, never missed a day and never missed a street -
collecting for Penhurst
That
is how carol singing Trevor Cowlett has managed to bank
£50,000 for charity in 50 years. The 78-year-old is
celebrating half a century of singing Christmas carols to
villagers in Kennington, raising cash for children at a
special needs school. The private music teacher has been
collecting money for Penhurst School, Chipping Norton, since
he took his three young children out carol singing in 1960
with members of Kennington Methodist Church. Now he plays
accordion for his own choir of singers. “It started as a bit
of fun, then just grew and grew.” Deep snow, heavy rain, and
an accordion splitting in two haven’t stopped him calling at
every home in the village over the years.
Wendy Daw, 80, who has been
listening to her neighbours singing carols since 1970, said:
“The carol singers signify the official start of Christmas
for me. They are wonderful, I always donate. “Trevor is such
a dedicated man.” John Marson, 78, who has been shaking his
collection box for 38 years, said: “There is amazing
support. People wait on their doorstep for us, crowds come
out on to the street to listen, and there are always lots of
residents willing to help out. Sometimes, we have 50
villagers singing.” In 1960, the carol singers raised £100.
Now, nearly £2,000 is donated. An anonymous donor often tops
up the pot – sometimes doubling the amount.
Mr Cowlett has also helped
raise £350,000 for Penhurst, by organising Kennington and
District United Church Choir concerts. He wanted to help
after visiting the school. Mr Cowlett began directing the
choir 37 years ago. Penhurst School principal Stephen
Bajdala-Brown, which offers residential care for children
with multiple learning difficulties, said: “He is a
wonderful man who does wonderful work.”
WODC offers
fully funded private medical insurance to staff earning
£24,000 or more. Currently 70 officers use the package.
Unbelievable.
COUNCIL
bosses in West Oxfordshire have been criticised for
spending £40,000 of
taxpayers’ cash on private health insurance for top
managers.
West
Oxfordshire District Council is the only council in
Oxfordshire to offer the deal, which bosses said was
needed to attract the best possible employees.
But the TaxPayers’
Alliance called the scheme “outrageous” because taxpayers
already paid for the NHS. The council’s Simplyhealth
package offers fully funded private medical insurance to
staff earning £24,000 or more. Currently 70 officers use
the package. This year it cost the council £39,736, a rise
from £27,009 in 2005. The council was not able to say how
many officers received the package in 2005.
Simon Hoare, cabinet
member for finance (pictured left), said: “People were
hired at the time and offers were made in order to ensure
that we attracted the best officers we could, in order to
deliver that quality of service council taxpayers expect.
Historically, as part of some contracts, healthcare cover
has been covered. To which, of course, employees also make
contributions. What we can’t do is take away a benefit
enshrined in someone’s contract of employment.We are not
envisaging a need for any new recruitment where the need
to offer healthcare is part of the package.”
But Emma Boon, campaign
director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It’s
outrageous that taxpayers are picking up the bill for
council workers’ private healthcare cover. We are already
paying for the NHS through our taxes and if that’s good
enough for everyone else, it’s good enough for council
staff. Many West Oxfordshire residents could never dream
of being able to afford the privilege of private
healthcare, it’s unfair to expect them to pay for it for
someone else.”
Edward Turner, the city
council’s portfolio holder for finance, said: “We pay our
staff and they pay their taxes, and that contributes to
the NHS. We don’t see why we should hand over additional
money to the private health sector. We would not want to
send a message to people that they should be going
private. It’s not for us to say how West Oxfordshire
should pay its officers, but we wouldn’t consider it
justified in Oxford.”
Richard Webber,
Vale of White Horse District Council portfolio holder
for finance, said: “Offering perks would be way down our
list of priorities, particularly in these times of
hardship we all face. We wouldn’t dream of going there at
the moment.” He said offering perks could potentially be
divisive and affect officer morale, but he said he was
reluctant to criticise West Oxfordshire for offering it.
Witney resident James
Robert-shaw, 55, said the cost was “unnecessary” in the
current economy climate. He said: “Why should the public
pay for it when we are all suffering
FAREWELL
TO PENHURST HEADMASTER
PUPILS
have bid a fond farewell to the principal who turned their
struggling special school into a successful institution
which has praised by education inspectors. The children, who
have multiple learning difficulties, held up painted banners
and sang songs to say goodbye to Stephen Bajdala-Brown,
headteacher of Penhurst School, in Chipping Norton.
The outgoing head said: “I’m blessed. I
have always loved coming to work. “I am really proud of the
work the staff do with the young people. It really is a
wonderful place to be.” Since joining the residential school
as head six years ago, Mr Bajdala-Brown has led staff in
achieving two outstanding Ofsted reports. Before he joined,
the school had been on the edge of special measures. This
month Ofsted commended the school for its work in the area.
Working closely with the deputy, Derek Lyseight-Jones, Mr
Bajdala-Brown focused on providing pupils with a greater
range of therapies and greater one-on-one support. He said
highlights included opening a home for adults at the school
in 2006. Previously, students had to leave when they turned
19. He said: “There was nowhere for these guys to go, we
couldn’t find places for them. Now, they are given
residential care until they’re 25.” He also allowed the
school to stay open for an extra 14 weeks a year. He added:
“When I first arrived I felt that the school was tucked
away. Now, the kids are seen as valued members of the
community.”
Mr Lyseight-Jones, who will become the new
principal, said: “Stephen has thrown himself wholeheartedly
into the role. “He’s got lots of energy, is always willing
to get involved, and has a determination to do everything in
the best interests of the children.” Mr Bajdala-Brown, who
was forced by staff to dress up as Elvis Presley for the
Christmas party, is leaving to be the chief executive
of Prior’s Court School in Thatcham, West Berkshire. He
said: “There has been part of me that has thought ‘why am I
leaving? But I won’t stay away; I’ll still come and visit.”
"On the Piste" by the Webmaster
"West Street" by Jim Crease
"Horsefair" by Andrew Cooke
& "Over Norton" by Carol Henderson
"Rowell Way" by Hannah Charles
The biggest Icicle in Town? Kate Hickman
A NEW
COALITION CUT
THAT REALLY MATTERS TO CHIPPY
The requirement for ambulances to
attend serious but not life-threatening cases within 19
minuteshas been dropped.
Ambulance services will still be required to respond to
75% of all category A (immediately life-threatening) calls
within eight minutes.
The GMB union said the plan
was a ''shocking scaling back'' of ambulance services
currently provided to patients. But Health Secretary Andrew
Lansley said the Government wanted to provide a ''balanced
and comprehensive view'' of how emergency care works and
stop the ''isolated'' focus on faster care. Justin Bowden,
national officer of the GMB union, said: ''The announcement
to scrap the 19 minute response time for ambulances is a
shocking scaling back of the service currently provided to
the public. Andrew Lansley says he knows what matters most
to patients but misses what matters most to the public when
they dial 999 - that an ambulance arrives, and arrives
quickly. Mr Lansley's statements about timeliness of care,
without a target time for ambulance crews to arrive on the
scene is a euphemism for get there when you can".
More
Gloom from the
County Council
Dean Pit WILL close after all. Funding
to the Chipping Norton Theatre will be cut completely.
Half of Oxfordshire’s street lights will be turned off at
12.30am to save £350,000 Roads maintenance budgets
will be cut by about £5m 1,000 council jobs will go
Those were among the measures outlined by Oxfordshire County
Council yesterday as it seeks to cut £155m from its budget
over the next four years.
And as for the old folk. God help them.
The council will cut £37m from its adult social care budget,
with £20m reinvested to deal with the county’s ageing
population. Personal budgets will be given to those in need,
which will see the number of council care staff reduced. The
authority hopes to cut the numbers admitted to care homes by
providing more services at home. Council-funded transport
for day services will be axed to save £1.3m.
I am told on very good authority that our
Youth Centre will definitely be built. But there is no money
to staff and run it.
Remember everyone. This is what you voted
for!
School pupils fight for sports partnership
MORE
than 3,500 people have teamed together to fight cuts to a
school sports scheme. Youngsters involved in the North
Oxfordshire Sports Partnership will now join other UK
schemes in protesting to Downing Street on Tuesday. The
partnership oversees the district’s 18,500 children in 56
schools, and runs teacher training, sports activities and
competitions for ages five to 19. Supporters say it has
boosted participation in sport from 25 to 90 per cent. But
the partnership has seen its entire budget cut by the
Government. More than 3,500 people have added their names to
a petition.
The campaign comes after
Labour leader Ed Miliband read a letter out in Parliament
from Jo Phillips, school sports coordinator for Chipping
Norton, complaining about cuts to the partnership. In
the letter, the teacher said: “I am devastated to witness
the potential demise of this legacy with the sweep of a
pen.” Mrs Phillips, who has been a PE teacher for 28 years
and a school sports coordinator for eight, said said: “I
really can’t believe that such a fantastic programme is
being cut.” Mr Miliband read the letter to Prime Minister
and Witney MP David Cameron during last week’s Prime
Minister’s Questions.
He called the cut “daft”, adding: “Since
2002, we have seen an increase from 25 per cent to 90 per
cent in the number of kids doing more than two hours of
sport a week.” He called for Mr Cameron to make a U-turn as
soon as possible. But Mr Cameron said the partnership simply
did not work and insisted: “Only two in every five pupils
play any competitive sport regularly in their school. That
is a terrible record.” He said the money would now go
directly to schools, adding: “That is the way that they will
make a real difference.”
Last
week our Youth Centre was safe. Now its under threat. What
is happening?
20
youth centres will close unless volunteers can come to their
rescue, as part of Oxfordshire County Council proposals to
save £155m by 2015. The council yesterday announced plans to
slash back youth services to save £4.2m.
But council
leader Keith Mitchell said facilities could stay open if
volunteers step in to run them when funding is phased out
next year. He admitted: “This will lead to a reduction in
services across the county. People are going to see things
and places they have loved disappear. We did not get elected
to close things down but to make things better, and
youth services are one of our most well-loved services. It
is uncomfortable, but we have a national crisis in terms of
the financial situation and we are all going to bear the
pain.”
He said he was “confident” Big Society
initiatives in towns and villages would save some but not
all of the youth centres.
Volunteers also have until early next year
to propose ways of running otherwise doomed youth centres.
Under County Hall plans, seven ‘hubs’ in the county’s larger
towns will become centres of a restructured youth service,
tackling school exclusion, teenage pregnancy, drug use,
antisocial behaviour, youth offending and unemployment.
Youth centres under threat are Saxon Centre in Headington,
Cutteslowe, Wolvercote, Bampton, Burford, Carterton,
Chalgrove, Chiltern Edge, Chinnor, Chipping Norton,
Cholsey, Eynsham, Faringdon, Henley, Standlake, Thame,
Wallingford, Wantage, Watlington, Wheatley.
Community worker Liz Edwards, of
Cutteslowe Community Centre, warned closing youth centres
would cause antisocial behaviour and teenage pregnancies to
soar. She said: “We will have a lot of young people hanging
around with nothing to do. It does not take a huge amount of
imagination to realise what that will lead to.” The number
of redundancies in youth services has not been confirmed,
Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith
Mitchell told the Oxford Mail in a statement: “I fear
petitions and protests will not be effective".
Meanwhile our County Councillor says that
it has definitely been agreed that the Chippy Youth Centre
will be built. The problem is finding the money to staff and
run it. Her proposal is that a trust should be set up to run
the Centre which will seek sponsorship and adopt a
commercial approach to generating revenue from the building.
Hilary is particularly keen on attracting some local
business men to join the Board of Trustees. Volunteers to
help run the youth activities will also be welcomed.
Needless to say all this scrounging is being dignified by
descriptions like "Big Society"
Bellringer
Betty Retires after 40 Wonderful Years
Pictured Left to Right
John Benfield, Rosie Hall, Chris Harris, Joe Johnson, Betty
Hawtin, John Beacham, and Les Waller. Missing from photo
Emma Bailey
Betty Hawtin
(in the blue top) has been ringing the bells at St
Marys Church for over 40 years, and on Sunday 21st
November she hung up her rope for the final time!
Over the years Betty has rung at over 2000 services
and more than 250 wedding's! The other ringers and
everyone at St Marys church wish Betty a happy
retirement. She now plans to spend her Sunday
mornings with her husband David or enjoying an
occasional round of golf.
Glyn Watkins
was the only Town Councillor at Monday's
meeting of Snowbeat. Here is his report
Paul Aitken (the organiser of Snowbeat) started
with a short presentation he had made showing a film of last
year’s snow highlighting the serious problems encountered
particularly around the Leys area (where he lives). Paul's
presentation included film of gritters standing idle at the
old council yard next to Cromwell Park and showed the lack of salt
in bins around the town. He commented to the OCC Highways
representative present - Paul Wilson - that the criticism was
nothing personal.
The discussion about path clearing was lively.
There was a widely-held public belief that to clear snow left you
open to prosecution in case of accidents. However this appears to
be an urban myth. Someone commented that their insurance company
told him not to clear snow for fear of being sued. But everyone
knows insurance companies do not wish to ever get involved in
litigation (much the same as they would prefer you not to drive
your cars) Generally the view of the meeting was that people used
this as an excuse to do nothing.
Paul Wilson said no one has ever been prosecuted
for clearing the snow. However the footpath must not be left in a
worse state. This means that once you have cleared the snow you
shouldn't throw a bucket of water over it to clear it off because
it will turn to ice (obviously). Ex-Mayor Don Davidson said
‘shopkeepers also have a duty to keep the footpath clear in front
of their shops for their customers. It was pointed out that
homeowners also have a duty to the public to keep pathways clear
on their property for people such as postmen, milkmen or visitors.
This is true whether it is leaves, mud or toys, but for some
reason snow seems to escape their responsibilities.
Unfortunately Paul Wilson of OCC was the bearer of
bad news, he explained why last year’s road clearing was a fiasco
and hopefully with increased salt stocks it would not happen
again. However the salt bin news was not so good. Paul explained
that the contract with the gritting company included a set number
of bins, that is to say the number of bins in place when the
contract was signed. These would be filled as per the contract.
However newer bins put in place after the contract are not
part of the contract and would only be filled once.
It gets worse. He also said that with council
cutbacks of up to 40% it is possible that the bins under contract
may also be filled once only and that the bins may have signs on
them telling homeowners not to take salt to use on their own
property.
Councillor Watkins said that after last year the
council have been looking at the idea of buying our own snow
clearing equipment but certain aspects such as public liability,
storage and insurance to use motorised equipment still needed to
be clarified.
Congratulations to Paul on the excellent organisation of the
meeting. Pity there wasn't a better turnout for this first get
together. However the initiative is certain to gain momentum
and grow. Paul Aitken will publicise the next meeting.
Further details from Paul Aitken home: 642039
w: 649310 paulaitken1@yahoo.co.uk.
JOBS FOR THE BABES?
Culture
secretary Jeremy Hunt was under fire last night because his
department gave a civil service post to the daughter of Lord
Chadlington - a close business associate who is a major donor to
the Tory party and one of the prime minister's political allies.
Sources close to the coalition government told the Observer
that the decision to employ Naomi Gummer, eldest daughter of Peter
Selywn Gummer, the working peer Lord Chadlington, has "raised
eyebrows" in Whitehall. While there is no suggestion of
impropriety, it has revived concerns about ministerial
appointments at a time when the government is encouraging an
austerity drive.
Gummer, 26, who was once interviewed by the Times as a
modern debutante, was made Hunt's parliamentary assistant, based
in his private office, two years ago. But in June of this year,
following the formation of the coalition, she was given a job
within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) that
gave her a fixed-term civil service contract. The civil servant
who had held the position moved to a different job within the
department. One Whitehall insider said it was "not normal to take
your researcher or parliamentary assistant into the civil service
in this way". Another DCMS source confirmed the move was "highly
unusual".
Gummer's appointment came weeks after the government announced
there was to be a freeze on hiring in the civil service until
April 2011 that would apply across all government departments,
agencies and quangos. Over the summer Hunt attracted criticism
when he talked of the "absolute pain" of losing his
chauffeur-driven car while telling staff they faced massive job
cuts. He told DCMS employees: "The best-case scenario is still
going to be a scenario in which there are going to be bigger cuts
than any of the areas we represent have ever had to face, probably
in their history. We've made a small start with changes in policy
on ministerial cars, which is an absolute pain, but we're all
getting used to it."
Hunt, the MP for South West Surrey, became a multi-millionaire
after founding a company, Hotcourses, that provides educational
services. Records at Companies House reveal that Chadlington was a
director between 2000 and 2004.
A brother of former Conservative party chairman John Gummer,
Chadlington's links to the Tories are extensive. His country
estate borders the Camerons' home in Oxfordshire and he is often
described as the prime minister's closest political ally. As
president of the Witney constituency party, where Cameron is the
local MP, Chadlington was a major supporter of the prime
minister's campaign to become Tory leader in 2005.
Records kept by the Electoral Commission show that Chadlington and
the PR firm he runs, Huntsworth, have given more than £77,000 to
the Tories between 2005 and 2010 in the form of donations and
donations-in-kind.
A spokeswoman for Hunt said: "Naomi Gummer has been Jeremy Hunt's
parliamentary assistant since July 2008. When Mr Hunt was
appointed culture secretary in May 2010, Miss Gummer was employed
by the department on a fixed-term contract to provide departmental
support in addition to her previous role. This is in line with
civil service appointment rules and was approved by the Cabinet
Office."
When chippingnorton.net started six years ago we summarised the main
worries people had about the town in 13 questions. We promised we would go
on nagging until we got answers. We have answers to only six so
far!!!!!
The following questions have been answered
Q
What is happening to our hospital? When does building start?
A
Building began in July 2010. Opening in 2011
Three cheers and thanks to the Hospital Action Group
Q When do we get an Action Plan for the Horsefair Air Quality
Management Area ? A We have one involving HGV speed limits and lorry routes. However
not much seems to be actually happening about it. Q
When do we get some pedestrian crossings at the East End of the town?
A There are two now. We still need one across Albion Street Take another bow
Councillor Biles
Q
When will the flower and
shrub borders in our town start getting a bit of TLC?
A
A local company Toparius
kindly offered to look after the beds in the town centre this year
They are doing a fantastic job. Thanks to them from us all. Q What
is the Partnership for?
A The
Partnership turned out to be for nothing. It spent a packet and folded
having achieved nothing What a waste of everyone's time
This question was answered but is back in the melting pot!
Q Why is the Youth Club only open two nights a week? A A deal was done in
2009 with OCC whereby the Town Council contribute £200,000
(from delling greystones) towards a new £1m
Youth Centre which will be open five nights a week - including the weekend
Well done to everyone - particularly Councillor Biles Spring
2010 This deal has now been changed by OCC. They don't want the town's
money any more. Not sure now whether things are going ahead or not.Winter 2010 The County is going ahead with
building the Youth Centre but says it has no money to actually run it. Go
figure.
The following
questions have still not been answered after six years .... Unbelievable
really
Q When do we start getting the promised help in creating new
local jobs to replace the 4OO lost at Parker Knoll?
Q When do we get a regular foot patrol by Police on Fridays and
Saturdays around midnight in the Town Centre? Q When will a proper ambulance be positioned in Chippy as promised?
Q When will the proposals for a Minor Injuries Unit be published? Q Why isn't there a disco for teenagers in the Town Hall every
month?
Q When is 15 minute parking along Topside going to be officially
sanctioned? Q
Why can't we have a Visitor Information Centre ?
HOP
ABOARD THE CHIPPY TUBE! Councillor
Glyn Watkins has designed a brilliant new town map.
No prizes for guessing what inspired it!
See the full-size version on the Information Board in the Market Square Download a print quality pdf of the map HERE
Something
to sell? Offering a job? Announcing an event?
Place your own ad in
CHIPPY CLASSIFIEDS It's free!
There's been some tidying up of this Front
Page.
The following articles are now in the Archives
Readers
from a few years back will remember that the Parish Pump is where your editor digs
up the dirt on important local issues and ends up getting the handbag
treatment from Cicely Maunder. Speaking of whom...would you believe she is
at it again. Last week Cicely marched into the shop of the lady organising
the "Stop Sainsbury's" campaign and suggested that as a conservative party
member the said shopkeeper should consider saying less in public about the
Sainsbury issue. So is it true that supporting the Sainsbury's bid is now
official Conservative policy? Could it have anything to do with all the
lovely goodies Sainsbury's have promised the District Council - not to
mention offers to contribute towards youth clubs, roundabouts, libraries, town hall roofs
etc As Parker Knoll left town axing 5oo jobs WODC presented them with a
farewell gift worth millions when they allowed development of a large part
of their site for housing. It was a solemn part of that deal that 5 acres
would be retained for small business units. Now that commitment has been
dumped and WODC are in deep consultation with Sainsbury's about a
supermarket. This is not just general pre-application chat but serious
negotiation. For example the precise route which delivery lorries are to
take has been agreed. For the life of me I don't know why but a little bird
tells me they will be required to enter town down Banbury Road, negotiate
the double roundabout and go back up London Road. Can this possibly be true?
Not quite. Sainsbury's have been persuaded to pay for a complete
reconfiguration of the double roundabout - including using half the green
area in front of the cop shop - just to make things easier for Sainsbury's
delivery lorries. But things do seem to be getting
confused. At the "Stop Sainsbury's" public meeting held last Thursday,
Councillor McHugh reported to the meeting that he had been talking to the
Chairman of the Uplands Planning Committee - Councillor Haines - who had
told Patrick that he was personally opposed to the Sainsbury's scheme and
all the officers were as well. So in Patrick's judgement there was nothing
to worry about. This was actually the first time that Councillor McHugh has
ever opened his mouth in public so we would like to believe him but we do
wonder whether perhaps Patrick has got the wrong end of the stick. The
Co-Op were out in force at the meeting. Faced with the charge of being
an expensive store the half a dozen "suits" from the Co-Op said they were trying hard
but admitted they would never compete with the big boys on price because
they simply lacked the buying power. A slightly batty lady with an American
accent said she was representing Transition Chipping Norton (pardon??) and
said their research showed price wasn't important. It was all about the
range of goods on offer. (Yeah right) Nonetheless the Co- Op hoped Chippy
would remember what good citizens they had been - taking over the Post
Office and all. They would be making technical objections to the Sainsbury
scheme but relied on townspeople raising their own objections in their own
words. They would be very happy to pay for posters , leaflet distributions,
and any research designed to oppose the Sainsbury application. The Chairman
should have immediately kicked that offer straight into touch. However there
wasn't really a proper Chairman - only Ken Norman proving once again what a
great stand-up comedian he is but just how hopeless he is at politics. But
even Ken was not as ridiculous as the oleaginous Will Barton offering to
help local traders prepare their objections to Sainsburys. Surely none of
the businesses in town could be so daft as to have any confidence in Will's
advice He after all was responsible with his old mentor Mary Neale for
engineering the collapse of our Chamber of Commerce, then organising the
useless Partnership as well as failing to come up with any
employment-generating projects to utilise £400,000 which was on offer from
the County. This time round he seems to have just been sent along as Barry
Norton's nark. But the Co-Op hadn't finished with their surprises. They warned us
that they were putting in a second planning application - with the objective
of increasing the selling area on the ground floor level of the Beales
Department Store. The arcade will be eliminated and incorporated into the
store as selling space. A new entrance from Top Side will be created further
along - through the chemists perhaps?? That idea will go down like a lead
balloon in the town. The arcade has established itself as one of the most
useful and agreeable spots in the town centre. I do feel sorry for the
Chippy Tories having to defend the outrageous policy U-turns which the Tory
district council keeps making. Here's another one. Having provided cast iron
reassurances that Greystones would never be used as a rubbish dump (I can
vividly remember Councillor Biles scoffing when I made the suggestion to her
recently) they have now decided to put in a planning application for just
such a development. WODC rigged the whole thing last Wednesday. On the
morning of the actual Cabinet meeting they circulated the proposal as a late
extra agenda item. As a result many councillors were not aware the item was
on the agenda at all. I know that Eve Coles, Patrick McHugh and Hilary Biles
did not attend the meeting. Not sure about Annie but I doubt she was there.
She is usually away with the fairies. It seems very likely that this last
minute proposal was discussed with nobody from Chippy present. As Glyn
Watkins points out in his splendid letter to the Daily Mail below a dump at
Greystones would have the laughable effect of moving an eyesore away from
the PM's backyard and dumping it on Jeremy Clarkson's doorstep. There could
be some sharp talking at the next picnic get together of the Camerons and
the Clarksons. A rubbish dump at Greystones would have the effect of making
it virtually impossible to sell Greystones House for commercial use. This is
a project which the Town Council have been working on for more than two
years The Town Council spent considerable sums on sorting out conveyancing
issues and the District Council were familiar with all the details. This
was a period when various representatives of WODC were denying that
Greystones would be used as a dump. In retrospect this now looks like
deliberate misrepresentation. Any price paid now for Greystones House will
be derisory. The Muslims in town have always shown interest in the building
as a potential mosque but have not been able to raise the asking price. Well
this could be their big opportunity. Try an offer Mr Hassan. Lots of
criticisms about the new Town Council. Nobody knows who the Mayor is and
from all accounts most of the guests for free booze at his Mayormaking were
from out of town. His penetrating remarks about the Chipping Norton Set
being nothing sinister - just a group of friends meeting for supper have
made him look a bit naive. And what about discipline - apparently an
incredibly small number of councillors turned up to the Civic Sunday
Service which has caused much comment. The 2011 class of Tory councillors
need some more coaching on what is expected. Step forward Cicely who once
gave me a real tongue lashing for missing a Remembrance Day service. I hope
she plans to be as tough on the new Tory councillors as she was on me!
However one area attracting lots of compliments is the new allotments regime
where apparently the complaints of the allotment holders are being taken
seriously for the first time in years. Well done Mr Davidson. However, lots
of complaints about performance at the new hospital/care home. Not many
people seem to be finding the First Aid unit actually staffed and I've been
told often that the physiotherapy unit doesn't have its act together yet.
(Who exactly is monitoring all this? And just what is the League of Friends up
to these days?) Someone who works at the Care home was rung
up in a panic over the weekend and asked to come in because the care home
was running on just two staff for 36 patients. OK its holiday time but the
picture building up is not encouraging. Lovely new building and a staffing
shambles. Years of argument and lots of people still think the hospital
is not a serious project. But then lots of people also warned that the Order
of St John have virtually no experience in running a hospital. Hands up who knows what Glyme Hall is. Its the new £1m community
centre building - paid for by central government - and now handed over to a
Board of Trustees who have to find the money to run it. A bid for £28,000
from a County Council fund towards first year costs has just been approved
so thats at least a start...but more fundraising and hiring out is going to
be necessary. So who exactly are the Trustees and who are the members of the
Youth Committee ? Who has been presented with a £1m chunk of real estate and who
banks the £28,000. In the best Chippy traditions this is all secret. Some
recruits were made at the last Town Council but apparently - despite his
protestations at election time of deep concern for the youth of the town -
David Lydiat could not be persuaded to serve - even when virtually ordered
to do so by Hilary. Is the Board of Trustees truly representative? Are the
Labour party represented? We should be told - after all its all public
money. 
A
woman from Chippy was fighting for her life last night after being cut from
the wreckage of her car. The woman was airlifted to hospital with
life-threatening injuries yesterday after a crash between three cars.
Emergency crews were called to the collision on the A361 near Chipping
Norton shortly before 8am. The woman was driving a silver Daihatsu, which
was involved in a collision near the B4026 with a blue Renault Clio and red
Ford Fiesta. She was cut from the car and airlifted to the John Radcliffe
Hospital to be treated for serious head, chest and leg injuries. Police
described her condition last night as “critical”. Two other people were
taken to the Horton Hospital in Banbury by ambulance. Their injuries were
believed to be minor. Fireman Malcolm Jones, who attended the incident,
said: “The force of the impact had significantly deformed the vehicle and
crews worked in unison to release the casualty who was quickly removed and
conveyed to hospital.” The road was closed for five hours while
investigations were carried out and debris removed.
THE
real Chipping Norton set is standing up to be counted after becoming fed up
the town’s name being linked to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
Residents fear the town’s reputation is being tarred because of the links to
the area of the so-called “Chipping Norton set”. The group of friends is
made up of key movers and shakers, including Prime Minister
Chipping
Norton resident Keith Ruddle, 61, (pictured left) a member of the
team of volunteers who produce the Chipping Norton News newsletter, said:
“There has been obviously a lot of press about the Chipping Norton set and I
think a lot of people in the town get a bit cheesed off to be honest.
Chipping Norton itself is a working Cotswold town with a lot of history and
heritage. A lot of the attention has been around a small number of
individuals who don’t actually live in Chipping Norton, they live out in the
sticks.” 
As
the strains from the Chipping Norton Silver Band faded away, the writer
and comedian Graeme Garden leapt on to the stage. "So, what do we think
of being associated with the Chipping Norton set?" joked the Radio 4
panellist and founder member of The Goodies. The crowd, gathered for the
town's festival, looked rather bemused. "In favour?" asked Garden, the
master of ceremonies. A couple of muted cheers. "Against?" Even feebler
boos. Indifferent, it seemed, was the answer from the hundreds gathered
in the market square to celebrate their community. Last week's
tumultuous developments in the phone-hacking scandal have put this West
Oxfordshire market town firmly on the political map. In the scenic
countryside that surrounds the town resides a powerful political and
media elite. Dinner and garden parties bring together neighbours such as
the prime minister, David Cameron, whose constituency home is just four
miles from that of Rebekah Brooks, the beleaguered chief executive of
News International.
Parish
councils are to be given sweeping new powers to run their local
neighbourhoods - including licensing pubs and bringing in parking schemes.
Local communities will also be able to operate libraries, museums and even
deal with low-level anti-social behaviour under “power to the people”
plans to be announced on Monday. The Sunday Telegraph understands
that the driving force behind the coalition’s flagship public services
white paper will be new moves towards “localism” and away from top-down
“Whitehall knows best” approach. Senior government courses say this will
mean devolving powers as far down as possible - to small neighbourhood
bodies such as parish councils and their equivalents.
IT
WOULD be difficult to imagine Russell Brand or Ricky Gervais taking a break
from stardom to stand behind the counter of an antiques shop in deepest West
Oxfordshire. But that is what comedy legend Ronnie Barker chose to do after
deciding he had had enough of television comedy, which he considered
increasingly vulgar. Bad language and gags about bodily functions were
repugnant to this national icon. And after creating and writing so many
jokes and sketches, and appearing in such massively successful shows as
Porridge, The Two Ronnies and Open All Hours, Mr Barker had also come to
believe his own well of humour was drying up. “I’d run out of ideas, and to
be honest, I’d done everything I wanted to do. And I’m sorry to say the
material coming through wasn’t such good quality,” he reflected, when asked
why he had withdrawn at the height of his fame. He had settled in the small
west Oxfordshire village of Dean, the perfect home for a man determined to
disappear off the professional radar. He would also realise one of his few
unfulfilled ambitions, to run his own antiques shop.
Renault
UK driver Alice Powell says living in Oxfordshire has helped her to progress
in her motorsport career. Williams, Renault and rally specialists Prodrive
are all based in the county, and Powell, from Chipping Norton, trains at
Renault in Kidlington. "I'm near Renault and Silverstone is just up the
road, so I'm really lucky as it's definitely helped me in my career," she
told BBC Oxford.Living here definitely has advantages, it's easier to make
contacts."
CHIPPING
Norton is one of the safest places to live in England and Wales, according
to chief inspector Colin Paine (pictured left). He told members of the town
council at a meeting last week that maintaining the very low level of crime
was quite a challenge because one or two incidents could significantly push
up the percentages.
MORE
than 1,000 signatures have been gathered by campaigners against the closure
of a household waste recycling site. Chipping Norton town councillors are
backing the bid to urge county councillors to think again over the closure
of Dene Recycling Centre, near Charlbury. Town councillor Eve Coles said:
“We are strongly against the proposal to close Dene Pit. We want the county
to reconsider its decision. I have already got plenty of signatures to hand
in to the council offices next month.”
When
landscape gardener and Daily Telegraph reader Robert Caswell won a
place on a STIHL Experience Day and was asked to test out STIHL’s
KombiSystem range of garden equipment, he couldn’t believe his luck.
Robert and and his business partner son, Mark, already use some STIHL
tools for their family garden and their work, but they were particularly
interested in STIHL’s ingenious KombiSystem range. One of five powerful
petrol KombiEngines can be used with any of the 12 easy to attach
KombiTools, including hedge trimmers, a pole pruner, grass trimmers, and
bristle brush. 
FAMOUS
faces from the world of television and sport united at a charity cricket
match in aid of Katharine House Hospice. Household names including Star
Trek’s Sir Patrick Stewart and The Goodie’s Graham Garden and Tim
Brooke-Taylor, came together for Sunday’s fundraising event at Enstone
Cricket Club.
pledged an improvement,
disputed that bedblocking was getting worse in the county. He told the
Oxford Mail last night there had been a ‘downward trend’ in the number of
people according to internal Oxfordshire County Council figures, but a power
cut that hit the city yesterday meant he could not produce them
DAVID
Cameron’s neighbours are furious after the road outside his country pad was
resurfaced while theirs is still blighted by potholes. Despite huge council
cutbacks, workmen completely relaid the quiet country lane outside the
PM’s £2million constituency home in Oxfordshire last week. But motorists on
nearby roads have to make bone-jarring journeys on routes pock-marked with
holes
A
69-year-old grandmother-of-six has won a prestigious award for her poetry
despite battling with Parkinson’s. Mo Browne of Chipping Norton scooped the
London and the South of England People’s Choice prize in the 2011 Mervyn
Peake Awards.
Comedian Graeme Garden gave
himself a gong in an episode of hit 1970s show The Goodies and now he has a
real one. Mr Garden, 68, from Enstone, near Chipping Norton, now has an OBE,
for services to light entertainment. He lives with his wife Emma and the
couple have a son Tom, 26.
ROGUE
traders who conned pensioners out of more than £800,000 will have to pay
back less than ten per cent of their ill-gotten gains. Scott Jackson of
Willow Street, Leicester and Mark Shepherd of The Beeches Caravan Site,
Chipping Norton (shown left) were jailed for seven years after targeting an
elderly academic and a dementia sufferer in Oxford during the three year
scam. Yesterday prosecutors and defence lawyers struck a deal at Oxford
Crown Court which will see Shepherd pay back £50,000 and Jackson £25,000,
plus his £5,000 gold watch to the victims.
AN
antiques centre in Chipping Norton has risen from the ashes and is set to
reopen after a devastating fire. Station Mill Antiques Centre, Station Road,
was gutted after an electrical fault in September last year. But, after a
refit costing in excess of £300,000, the new-look centre will reopen on May
28. Owner Lesley Langer (pictured left in the new centre) said: “It has been
hard work, but the centre is completely transformed. “The building is
completely different now. The whole thing is new basically, the only
remaining thing is the structure. She added: “We’re looking forward to
opening very much. I am pleased that some of the older dealers are coming
back. It is a real vote of confidence.”
YOUNG
musicians from Chipping Norton School have been chosen to play at the
Cornbury Festival. Two bands - Jamie and the Giant Peach and Under Duress -
will play at the festival at Great Tew in July alongside artists such as
James Blunt, Status Quo and The Faces. Judges, including the festival
organiser, picked the youngsters from eight bands at the school, in Burford
Road. The bands will open the festival’s Riverside Stage, playing in front
of potentially thousands of people. 
Niki
Sole the 20-year-old, from Over Norton, near Chipping Norton
(pictured left) has scaled new peaks by becoming the
British alpine ski champion. She captured the overall title
at Meribel in France after winning two of the five
disciplines. With British No 1 Chemmy Alcott’s sidelined
through injury, she triumphed in downhill and super giant
slalom as well as finishing third in giant slalom. Her
results were completed by a sixth place in the slalom, while
she failed to finish in the super-combined. “I was
absolutely ecstatic,” she said. “It was superb and I am
really, really happy.”
I
rarely visit the little theatre in Chipping Norton without
enjoying a drink, or sometimes a meal, in The Chequers next
door. This excellent old-fashioned pub was known to me even
before the theatre opened in 1975: it was in fact my first
port of call on a booze-drenched odyssey a year earlier
around the hostelries of Chippy during which former RSC
actor John Malcolm told me, with many expletives undeleted,
of his and wife Tamara’s bold plans to convert what had
formerly been the town’s Salvation Army citadel. Not a place
he was likely to have much frequented, I remember thinking
as he spoke.
John
Dix, 60, (pictured left) who lives next door to the
planned kebab shop spoke at the Planning Committee,
Afterwards he said: “We are very pleased that they have come
to their senses and rejected it. We were all extremely
concerned. It would have completely ruined our health and
happiness.” He added: “All the smells would have filled the
area. We wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our gardens.”
Sally Jaffé, 79, of nearby Rockhill, said: “I’m very
relieved. It would have been completely intolerable if it
was built. It’s a completely unsuitable site – it’s on a
corner, there’s no parking and it’s a residential area. And
we’ve already got a kebab van.” 
The
Westgate department store in Chippy has been sold by the
Anglia Co-Op to Beales of Bournemeouth in a deal worth £7.5m
involving 19 Westgate branches. Both firms and a union
believe the deal will bring benefits and job security. About
830 store workers, and Peterborough head office staff, will
transfer to Beales. The company's chief executive, Tony
Brown, said it was a "transformational deal for both
businesses. We are a market town operator, not in the big
cities, and people will be shopping locally more than ever
before, because of the price of petrol."
CHILDREN
with special needs in Oxfordshire are being failed by the
education system, according to one mother. The criticism
comes as figures uncovered by the Oxford Mail showed the
county’s special needs pupils had among the poorest results
in England.
COTSWOLD
music maker Myles Granger wants – in the words of the famous
song – to teach the world to sing. For music teacher Myles
runs a business Mr Myles Music writing songs for children at
his home in White Hart Mews, Chipping Norton. Myles, who
after graduating spent five years teaching in the Middle
East and Far East, developed his skills as a songwriter
after being regularly required to come up with new songs for
his pupils. The 34-year-old, who teaches at Headington
School in Oxford, is a great advocate of teaching through
music.
Your webmaster let his little bird out for a
fly around town at the end of last week. The bird settled
comfortably for a couple of hours on top of a cupboard in a
back room at the Blue Boar where the Chippy Tories were
having a secret election campaign session.
Like most Tory meetings these days it was not at all clear
who was in the chair....nominally it was supposed to be
Chris Butterworth, but Cicely (pictured left) kept interrupting (so what's
new?) but the real star of the proceedings was the
recently-selected super-pushy Tory candidate for the
forthcoming District Election. He did all the talking. We
don't know his name yet but he has been helicoptered in from
Yarnton. He has just got himself a degree in politics and is
out to create a big political career for himself. "A very
bright boy" was how my little bird put it. Chipping Norton
is to be his stepping stone. It seems he was found the slot
by his influential dad. A further bit of background is that
the young go-go tyro has got himself some work with Mail
Boxes Etc. - a franchise operation up at Cromwell
Park. All this is exciting stuff - clearly he is far more
whizzy than any candidate that could have been found from
within the town! Unfortunately Bonzo (lets call him that for the
time being) doesn't know anything about local
politics. He presented a grand policy strategy for the District
election. Headlining this was a demand that the District
Council should improve its snow clearing performance. He had
to be told on three separate occasions that snow-clearing
was the responsibility of the County NOT the District. Looks
as if Bonzo might be about to challenge Annie's hard-won
record for gaffes. Apparently Bonzo is set to run the
election campaign (Has Edwyn Stobart been given the heave-ho?
He wasn't at the meeting) and outlined his plans for endless leaflet
distributions and canvassing.
Ten
cooks had to create a main course and dessert suitable for
an 11-year-old, costing no more than £1.35 per child, in 90
minutes. Representing Oxfordshire was Marina Faulkner,
(pictured left) who works at Holy Trinity RC School in
Chipping Norton. She said: “Everything has changed. You
could call it the ‘Jamie Oliver effect’ because ever since
his show about the state of school dinners, there has been a
revolution in the kitchen. Now we are cooking with fresh
ingredients and introducing children to cuisines they may
never have tried before.” Mrs Faulkner’s main course was
Thai mince, noodles and stir fried summer vegetables,
followed by duo of melon with strawberry yoghurt and ginger
fortune cookie. She said: “I was very proud to represent
Oxfordshire, although very nervous. It’s so important that
children get a healthy and varied diet. When I think back to
my school dinners I can’t believe how much it has changed.
Lumpy custard and boiled cabbage are certainly things of the
past.” 
TRANSPORT
chiefs at Oxfordshire County Council spent more than £4,500
on a meeting and overnight stay at a prestigious resort.
Seven highways officers attended the two-day workshop at the
£50m Heythrop Park resort, near Enstone. Despite being 15
miles from County Hall, council employees stayed overnight
at the resort, where facilities include a swimming pool,
health spa and golf course. Andrew Allison, from the
Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “It is a deplorable waste of
money given County Hall is so close.” The meeting, which was
held on January 17 and 18, was in the same month the
council’s cabinet agreed a £119m of cuts, including slashing
£13m from the transport budget. 
5th
March THE
leader of West Oxfordshire District Council last night
refused to say why a top councillor was no longer a member
of his cabinet. Hilary Biles quit her post as cabinet member
for leisure, young people and health on Wednesday. But
council leader Barry Norton, who chooses the cabinet,
refused to explain why the decision was made, saying only:
“No comment.” 
Webb,
Director of Service Redesign for NHS Oxfordshire, (pictured
right) said: “This is an exciting time for local patients,
residents and NHS staff because a brand new, modern health
facility will be open for business.” Last month the Oxford
Mail revealed South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS)
response times to West Oxfordshire were the worst in the
county. It is hoped a permanent member of ambulance staff,
who will be based at the new site to treat patients with
minor problems who walk in on weekday evenings, weekends and
bank holidays, as well as responding to 999 calls in the
local area, will help boost flagging response times.
Patients from the ‘old hospital’, in Horsefair, which has
been used since 1920, were moved to the new Intermediate
Care Unit at the Henry Cornish Care Centre, in London Road,
at the end of February, with the first outpatients set to be
treated on Monday. The unit will continue to provide the
short stay in-patient services of the old community hospital
using the existing NHS staff but will be managed by The
Orders of St John Care Trust.
The
first-winter ORIENTAL TURTLE DOVE that
first appeared in Chipping Norton (Oxfordshire) in mid
December 2010 was relocated on Saturday morning in a
different garden and was still visiting on Feb 14th. It
has been feeding with Collared Doves and Woodpigeons on
seed placed on the lawn and has been showing down to just
10 feet from the occupant's window. The owner of the
property has very kindly agreed to allow access on Tuesday
15 February from 1000 to 1600 hours at a charge of £5.00
per person. The bird is situated in Chipping Norton in the
back garden of 41 The Leys. Please park in the town centre
and walk to the site and then wait patiently in a queue
for your turn inside the living room. If over 200 people
queuing, you may be limited to just 5-10 minutes per
viewing and there will be no special dispensation to
photographers whilst the pressure is on to get as many
people possible to see it.
By
yesterday morning a queue of ornithologists stretched for
hundreds of yards along Mr Akers’ road in Chipping Norton,
Oxfordshire.The father-of-two drafted in two ‘bouncers’ from
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to
control the crowd. Entrants were charged £5 each and herded
into his kitchen in groups of ten, which were each given a
five-minute time slot to photograph the bird.
In
the winter the birds migrate across to Pakistan and India,
southeast Asia and southern Japan. This small species has
similar in plumage to its European counterpart, the Turtle
Dove, but is a little larger. It has a black and white
striped patch on the side of its neck, but the breast is
less pink than its Western relative. The orange-brown wing
feathers of Turtle Dove are also replaced with a browner
hue, and darker centres and the tail is wedge shaped. The
Orientalis sub-species has a grey tip to the tail. Its
call is quite different from the purr of the Turtle Dove and
is described as having a four-syllable “her-her-oo-oo”
sound.
And organiser Hugh
Phillimore is celebrating with his strongest ever bill –
headlined by what he described as a selection of guilty
pleasures. They include three-chord rockers Status Quo,
chart-topping singer-songwriter James Blunt, and
vintage rock band The Faces – featuring original members
Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones, and new vocalist
Mick Hucknall, of Simply Red. They will be joined by
Ray Davies, former frontman of The Kinks, 1980s pop icon
Cyndi Lauper, disco diva Sophie Ellis
Bextor, Californian popsters The Like, and
Canadian artist Buffy Sainte Marie – a member of the
Cree Indian community (pictured left). Also playing will be award-winning
folk big-band Bellowhead boasting melodeon player
John Spiers, from Wootton, near Abingdon; 2009 X Factor star
Olly Murs; pop princess Eliza Doolittle; and
Irish rockabilly performer Imelda May. 
OLYMPIC
champion Sally Gunnell visited Oxfordshire yesterday to
teach youngsters about fitness and healthy eating.
Downing
Street still refuses to disclose on which day over Christmas
Rebekah Brooks, chief executive officer of News
International, entertained David and Samantha Cameron,
Rupert Murdoch and his son James at her home in north
Oxfordshire, near Chipping Norton. Students of the shadowy
"Chipping Norton set" will not be surprised by the group's
disinclination to discuss its innermost workings.
Nordic
Walking is a great workout that tones the whole body.
Burns 46% more calories than ordinary walking
Great for back, neck and shoulder problems
Easy on the knees and joints Suitable for all
levels Sociable, safe outdoor exercise Nordic
Walking is an enhancement of ordinary walking – it makes
something we can all do…twice as effective! It is a specific
fitness technique and is not to be confused with trekking,
hill walking or rambling.
On
Tuesday 11th January Chipping Norton School played Burford
School in the final of the U19 District League at Chipping
Norton Rugby Club. In extremely difficult conditions both
teams played very well and were a credit to their schools.
less than a day after she started displaying flu-like symptoms. Her
husband Richard last night paid tribute to his “fun and energetic” wife
who was heavily involved in life in West Oxfordshire.
A
Chipping Norton Town Councillor has been fined after a
neighbourhood dispute turned sour. Keith Greenwell - a
member of the Chippy First party - was fined after resisting
arrest when police visited his house to investigate a public
order incident on July 12th.
the
costs the Prosecution Service have asked for" Mr Greenwell
was fined a total of £520, which included £335 for the
public order offence and £150 for obstructing a police
officer in their duty. An earlier charge of assault
had been dropped.
That
is how carol singing Trevor Cowlett has managed to bank
£50,000 for charity in 50 years. The 78-year-old is
celebrating half a century of singing Christmas carols to
villagers in Kennington, raising cash for children at a
special needs school. The private music teacher has been
collecting money for Penhurst School, Chipping Norton, since
he took his three young children out carol singing in 1960
with members of Kennington Methodist Church. Now he plays
accordion for his own choir of singers. “It started as a bit
of fun, then just grew and grew.” Deep snow, heavy rain, and
an accordion splitting in two haven’t stopped him calling at
every home in the village over the years.
PUPILS
have bid a fond farewell to the principal who turned their
struggling special school into a successful institution
which has praised by education inspectors. The children, who
have multiple learning difficulties, held up painted banners
and sang songs to say goodbye to Stephen Bajdala-Brown,
headteacher of Penhurst School, in Chipping Norton.
Culture
secretary Jeremy Hunt was under fire last night because his
department gave a civil service post to the daughter of Lord
Chadlington - a close business associate who is a major donor to
the Tory party and one of the prime minister's political allies.
Sources close to the coalition government told the Observer
that the decision to employ Naomi Gummer, eldest daughter of Peter
Selywn Gummer, the working peer Lord Chadlington, has "raised
eyebrows" in Whitehall. While there is no suggestion of
impropriety, it has revived concerns about ministerial
appointments at a time when the government is encouraging an
austerity drive.
