Archive for category: News

Oxfordshire County Council will be closing its recycling centres for two days during March and April to carry out a deep clean and essential maintenance.

Closing dates:

Alkerton (Banbury)                   – Tues 3^rd & Wed 4^th March 2020

Ardley (Bicester)                        – Tues 17^th & Wed 18^th March 2020

Dix Pit (Stanton Harcourt)       – Tues 24^th & Wed 25^th March 2020

Drayton (Abingdon)                  – Tues 28^th & Wed 29^th April 2020

Oakley Wood (Wallingford)     – Tues 31^st March & Wed 1^st April 2020

Redbridge (Oxford)                   – Tues 10^th & Wed 11^th March 2020

Stanford (Faringdon)                – Tues 21^st & Wed 22^nd April 2020

Full details can be found at www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/wasteclosure including details of your nearest site during closures.

News from OCC:

Concessionary bus pass users in Oxfordshire are being urged by the county council and bus companies to make sure that theirs is up to date and valid.

There are currently 13,000 concessionary passes in the county that have been identified as being lost, stolen, faulty, damaged or otherwise invalid. These passes should not be used but, until now, the technology hasn’t been in place to prevent it.

But from 1 April, passengers will no longer be able to use their pass if it is suspected of being used incorrectly.

Before then, from 17 February, there will be an amnesty period which will allow anyone using an invalid pass to make sure they are up to date or surrender them before the start of April.

During the amnesty period anyone using an invalid pass will be handed information by the bus driver explaining how to make sure that they use the right pass, get theirs updated or surrender it. While the amnesty is underway people with a rejected pass will still be allowed to travel.

You can update your Oxfordshire pass online here – https://bit.ly/38r8AQc If your pass was issued by a different council you should find details of how to update it on the reverse of the card.

The county council also provides a “Tell us once” service which can be helpful for anyone who has a recently deceased relative. Using the service once means that we will tell government and council services on your behalf. Bus passes are one of the items that you can return using this service. Visit https://bit.ly/2S7HEzo for more information.

 

New festival to celebrate local heritage and landscape this June

• The Chilterns Summer Festival will run from June 13-21 in 2020
• The festival is a new annual event

The Chilterns Summer Festival is an ambitious new event, aiming to engage with families, young people and urban communities across the Chilterns this June. With a schedule of events 9 days long (June 13-21), including workshops, food fairs, themed railway rides, guided walks, and town centre festival events, the festival is breaking new ground. “We wanted to create a festival that ensures people do two things- they have fun and they learn something new about the Chilterns” says Lizzie Buckley, the festival’s organiser and the Community Engagement Officer for the Chalk, Cherries and Chairs Landscape Partnership. The new festival is the biggest community engagement event planned as part of the ambitious five-year National Heritage Lottery funded Chalk, Cherries and Chairs Landscape Partnership scheme, which focuses on transforming people’s connection to the landscape and cultural heritage of the region. Since the Countryside Festival in 2015, there hasn’t been a festival this size to celebrate all that the Chilterns has to offer, and so the Chilterns Summer Festival is hoping to bring together many communities and local businesses together to make this an inclusive event.

The headline event of the festival will be the ‘Discover the Chilterns’ Family Day on the Wycombe Rye, on June 14th, 2020. This event will include:

• Delicious food of course!
• Free kids’ activities
• Arts and crafts stalls
• Guided walks
• Outdoor yoga
• Traditional games
• Face painting

Other events during the 9-day festival will include local brewery tours and tastings, guided walks through Wendover Woods, theatre performances, evening talks and demonstrations, a bodgers’ breakfast in the woods, an adventure supper at a local farm, workshops for local historians and creatives, and various large scale artworks!

The festival team are currently looking for local community groups, businesses, artists and crafts people who want to be involved, and who may want to organise their own themed event as part of the festival. The team is looking for events themed around local history and wildlife. Interested parties can find out more on the project’s website: www.chilternsaonb.org/ccc-fest and can also contact Lizzie Buckley for more information on

 

Although the popular Annual Duck Races have been cancelled (for safety reasons) please do still venture out to see the fantastic display of snowdrops along the route.

Cream teas in the church will definitely still be available for a warm up afterwards.

The parish Neighbourhood Plan consultation is *live* as of today, Monday 10 February and will run for the foreseeable future until the end of the Coronavirus emergency.

More detail and how to find out more can be read on the document that can be downloaded from the link below.

Please take time to read the detail and make enquiries; this affects your parish.

Note that while all views are welcome, how comments will be weighted will depend upon the degree to which they comply with national and local policy or how they might lead to conflict with other NP initiatives.