You lucky people, here are some snaps taken today - http://www.flickr.com/photos/23405400@N03/sets/72157610615173468/ Also, I'll upload a general view taken from BHS.
I hope it is not legal to build a bus station in South Park. The land has
convenants on it, limiting its use to specific things which do not include bus
stations.
The County Council has once again seen fit to circulate a glossy magazine
OxonNews, advertising their own non-democratic decisions about imposing a wider
pedestrian zone. It uses all the techniques of soft sell - model-girls with
pretty, smiling faces, saccharin vocabulary like "Transforming Oxford" etc etc.
The idea is to tell us how lucky we are to be dictated to. It does not suggest
that any member of the public ought to be consulted or included in a democratic
decision-making process.
I've been asking a lot of people lately what they think of the scheme, and I
haven't met one single person who is in favour of it.
We pay for this magazine, and it is undemocratic to use tax-payers' money to
promote the party line or policy of any particular group. If you want to
complain, you can ring Ox. 815241 or use the Feedback website mentioned in the
magazine www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transformoxford
Kaiser Keith - (as he has been called by other people, not by me) takes the
opportunity to tell us that he imagines we are more than a little worried about
the global financial situation. Really? He doesn't say anything about the costs
of his scheme or how the County Council is going to pay for it .
By the way, how many of the businesses in the High Street actually
belong to Mr Mogford's group and how many of them do actually agree with a
policy that would discourage people from using their businesses?
It was great to meet many of the people involved in efforts to build
neighbourhood Issues Forums across Oxford the other month.
The E-Democracy.Org model is citizen-based and now is the time to strengthen
that base in Oxford. While we appreciate the role of the Council in promoting
these forums, it is only with local public involvement that they will grow and
become fully "of" the community.
We are planning to increase the role of a community-wide Oxford E-Democracy
Steering Committee made up of volunteers, forum managers, council staff, etc.
who want to help grow our existing forums and spread to the final three
neighborhoods. Ideally, your neighbourhood's forum manager will be joined by at
least one other participant (particularly those interested in outreach) on this
"virtual" and sometimes in-person committee.
Would you like more information? Tell us a bit about yourself and your
interests in using the Internet to build local community. Please e-mail with
"Oxford" in the subject line to:
<email obscured>
In the past when our forums were only city-wide, we had one committee per
forum. Now with multiple forums per community, we plan to shift to one
committee per community to make things more simple and effective.
The committee is essential to provide local governance over the local forums.
This committee guides the overall local forum effort, is a point of appeal for
official rule violations, and will work to help grow participation in your
forums. If a new local forum manager is needed, this committee confirms their
appointment and is there to assist them as well as make sure the civility and
inclusive agenda-setting mission of these forums is met.
As local forum managers replace interim forum manager Shey Cobley (thank you
Shey!) in CSW and Cowley, we want to help you increase the number of
participants on your forums significantly. In my own neighborhood -
http://e-democracy.org/se - where I too volunteer as a forum manager, we've
primarily increased our numbers to 300 with paper sign-up sheets at the right
community events. With a committee in place to push recruitment, we can share
our lessons with you. Imagine what it might mean for your neighborhood if 200,
300 or more people were interacting on local public issues everyday. It can and
will make a real difference in the future of your neighbourhood.
Sincerely,
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
I see Bonn Square to re-open next week Bonn Square will be reopened to the public next week on Friday 28 November 2008 as part of the launch celebrations for Christmas in Oxford including the city’s new Christmas lights and Oxford Inspires’ WinterLight event. The Lord Mayor, Susanna Pressel, will officially open the new square and will switch on the Christmas lights at 5:30pm http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/index.htm or give your vote ina pol on the topic see http://oxfordprospect.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/oxfords-bonn-square-to-re-open-next-week/
I see next Thursday 20 November has been designated as Social Enterprise Day 2008. A bank is offering money to help fund social entrepreneurs, I suppose, like the people who set up this forum.Apparently any charity, voluntary organisation, church or any other not-for-profit organisation can apply for a portion of the money available. If this offer is legitamate, I remember the founders of this site were looking for extra funding, maybe this is an opportunity worth exploring see http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/oxfordnews.htm#£6million_reasons_to_celebrate_Social_Enterprise_Day_2008_
Noam - you may have had a more detailed brief than appears on the County's website, but I read their proposal as being to make a major reduction in the volume of buses in the High, not to make everyone change. It's also possible that they've gone for an extreme position in an effort to get something more moderate past the bus companies. There are a huge number of single-decker buses on the routes to the east, and there'd definitely be a case for double-deckers to become the norm on routes 1/5/7/8. This will obviously be easier with smart-card ticketing to speed boarding times (and easier still with joint-ticketing). The other routes are more difficult, but clearly are lower-frequency, so are less of a problem. Double-deckers would probably also be viable on routes 3/4 (though route 4 might have to terminate in the centre, and something like route 15 run out along Botley Road instead). The county's proposal is to divert the express coaches. I'd probably prefer them to terminate at the Plain, and have a small coach station at the base of South Park. This is because they would continue to serve some large markets directly (Headington, Brookes, St Clements) and would serve East Oxford better than currently. However the bus companies might prefer to route them in via the north. The coaches are large and over-powered, and removing them would certainly reduce the impact on the High. Perhaps a compromise would be running the airport coaches along the High, but agreeing to remove the London coaches. It's also the case that the buses make more of an impact on the High than they need to. This is partly due to the poor state of the road surface, but also due to the morass of bus stops in the Queen's Lane area. Buses should not stop for more than the minimum, and should preferably not overtake one another. This means the Oxford Bus Company office needs to move, perhaps to Speedwell St (I'm sure the County could let them have some space at a reasonable rent). I'd also go for a tram-style stop in the middle of the road, at Queens Lane, to keep the buses away from the buildings, stop them from overtaking, and stop them from squashing cyclists. As for the other bits of "Transform Oxford", they are mostly sensible. It's the first I'd heard of taking the buses out of Magdalen St, probably not worth the money, but not a bad idea. The proposal for Frideswide Square isn't terribly clever, still isn't very good for pedestrians, and would probably just gridlock in the evening peak. But it's not really any worse than the current arrangement.
I use the London buses and the airport buses to Heathrow and Gatwick. The beauty of the London buses is, that they run from city centre to city centre, I believe we are very fortunate to have such a service and that to do anything to discourage its use would be a mistake. Both the cost and time factor in travelling to Thornhill would stop me using the London bus. Similarly with the airport coaches, the idea of struggling on and off buses with luggage before reaching the airport bus would be abhorrent. I am somewhat surprised that businesses in Oxford are happy for tourists and residents to be inconvenienced by moving these buses out of the city. If Oxford wants to get more cars off the road the re-routing of these buses out of the centre will certainly not help this aim.
May I just add that if the London and airport coaches started from Thornhill, I would hope that passengers getting there on a local bus could buy a single ticket from their boarding point and not have to pay an extra fare. With modern computerized fare-payment, that is surely not a problem.
I am glad you are giving a lead in this, Noam.
I am keeping a copy of your article to refer to at the next County Council
election.
The scheme seems to me to be against the interest of the vast majority of
people, and I couldn't agree more about the increased journey times, long walks
and so on. It just wouldn't work trying to turn St Clements into a bus station,
and bendy-buses are a disaster in many respects.
How the County Council imagines it can fund this barmy idea I cannot
imagine, with steep inflation on all sides. Haven't they just lost £5 million
in Icelandic banks?
I agree that Magdalen Bridge is a bottleneck, and this will not be helped
by a large new housing development out beyond Barton, in the East of the city
area, which is now planned.
I am in favour of trying to route some buses into the town from the east
via Marston and Summertown instead of Magdalen Bridge, and allowing the
long-distance coaches to use this route too. When the High Street was being
repaired in 2007 some of them did use this route and it was much quicker than
you might think looking at it on a map. Reason: the wheels were turning.
Some time ago an idea was mooted for starting the coach-routes to London
and the airports out at the Thornhill Park and Ride station. Passengers would
have to take a local bus from the town centre to the park and ride. The
counter-argument was that this would overload the existing buses and tempt some
people to drive to the Park and Ride, thus increasing traffic. However, if we
really are desperate to find a way of reducing the heavy traffic on the High
Street, I think this sort of approach may be the least bad plan.
I know a lot of people rely on the Oxford-London coaches for commuting, but if
assured of a fast smooth changeover at Thornhill, would they be prepared to put
up with it?
How many people agree that it would be worth trying out for an experimental
period, and what is the opinion of bus company bosses?
Below is an article I have written for Bus User magazine regarding Transform Oxford. It is intended for an audience familiar with public transport but unfamiliar with Oxford. I will post further details of our campaign when they have been finalised. Transform Oxford – a Beeching Plan for Buses?
May I quote on this forum a view that was expressed on the Oxford Mail forum this morning? The scheme to ban buses from the centre would disadvantage schoolchildren, handicapped people, the elderly,and the poor, who have to live further and further out of the city centre because of pressure on housing and costs. Very true! Pity anyone who wants to travel in from Barton and go to the cinema one Saturday evening. They will have to change buses or walk so far that they may just give up the whole idea.
I hope people are taking good note of the autocratic way in which the Bus Ban
scheme has been announced. The leader of the County Council, Keith Mitchell,
has said that it will be implemented regardless of public wishes. He is
admitting that the "consultation" is an empty pretence. He will even use legal
means to impose it if it goes against public wishes!
And who pays for that litigation? We do, of course, through our council taxes.
Anybody who thought they were living in a democracy, well, bad news. Mr
Mitchell seems to have abolished it.
I note that neither of the County Councillors for the Barton and
Churchill district, - Liz Brighouse and Roz Smith - provide their e-mnail
addresses on the WriteTo Them.com website. It would be helpful if they could do
so. This would speed up and facilitate communication.
A friend of mine who lives in Oxford tells me that the flat he occupies is locked in to a pre-existing contract, whereby the occupants are obliged to get their electricity from the N-Power company and are not permitted to change thier supplier. I would like to question whether such a contract is legal, as it is violating the consumer's right to choice. The flat in question is occupied on a part-buy, part-rent basis from Oxford City Council. I would like to know why Oxford City Council imposes this sort of contract on residents, and how much they have been paid by N-Power for it. Where did the money go? What happened to the principles of competition and free choice?
It has been announced on TV and in the papers that the County Council wishes to extend the pedestrian zone in the town centre so that buses will stop even further from the middle of the town. They are talking about making passengers change onto a second bus, a giant bendy-bus, which will be the only one allowed to go further in than Magdalen Bridge. It is essential that a lot of people unite to protest against this idea promptly, well in advance. To extend the pedestrian zone even further would be highly inconvenient for the vast majority of people. The existing pedestrian zone is bad enough. It adds a lot of time to the simplest journey. It has cut bus routes in half and then the City Council says that they do not influence bus travel decisions!!! The prospect of having to change buses in a two-mile journey is a very bad idea. As for bendy-buses, they caused so many problems wherever they were tried out, you have to be around the bend yourself to want to go back to them. People need a bus service that takes them right into the city centre where they need to go. Otherwise they will fall back on bringing their cars in. We know when we hear councillors (city or county) talking about a "wonderful pedestrian experience" that this jargon means they are about to impose another one of their unwelcome, unnecessary and unhelpful schemes on the city centre.
For photo of the the intriguing Richard Dawkins versus Lennox debate held at Oxford's historic Museum of Natural History. see http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/
I hear along the grape vine that the Post Office near Little Clarendon Street, which I am sure many residents of the Central, South and West area must use, is scheduled for closure: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/3783203.1899_post_office_is_under_threat/ In fact, we all use it as even if we live in Headington, we may be passing through central Oxford and appreciate the services of a Post Office ffrom time to time. What can we do about it? Change must come from the top. Local protest is not enough, since the closures are being enforced by the EU. Brussels dictates a limit on the public spending of all the western european states in order to finance itself (it costs £86 billion per year to run! Yes, billion!) and to subsidize new member states, or pay for crazy ideas like the new tunnel between Spain and Africa. How long will we have any POs at all?
As the Central Post Office is the only Crown post office left in Oxford, it would surely have to be a bit more than just a till in a shop? On the other hand, the rumour that it will close sounds horribly plausible. There is to be a new development to the south of Queen Street. And the basement of the Post Office already has planning permission to become a restaurant: http://uniformpublicaccess.oxford.gov.uk/publicaccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?caseno=J52C99MF14000
I have heard a rumour that the Central Post Office in Oxford is going to be closed, and that it will be replaced by a postal services till in the new supermarket to be built in the Westgate centre. Is this true?
I heard on the TV news that the battle to save Castle Mill Boat-yard in Jericho has been successful. If so, I am delighted. Congratulations to all of you who put so much effort into the campaign! And good luck with the next step which is, I hear, purchasing the site.
Factors such as internet competition exist equally elsewhere - if they have reduced Royal Mail's business why is the German Mail service so profitable? Because in Germany and other major European countries, the market in delivery was not opened up to competition as it was here in Great Britain. The EU legislation was responsible for introducing competition in some countries, while leaving monopolies elsewhere! That is completely unfair. Where is the British company that is delivering German mail? It is also a complete waste of fuel and working-hours to run four or five rival delivery services to every house and street in the country. If I post a letter in Paris or Rome addressed to Corsica or Sardinia, it costs me no more than to send it elsewhere in Paris. So the single tariff works well. The main income of the local post offices - which are long separated firm the Royal Mail - comes from handling other services, not from selling stamps. They used to be financed by profits from Royal Mail but that was abolished long ago. Many other countries never had such a convenient network of small local post offices, but in France where they had quite a lot, the EU budget-capping is having exactly the same result - local post offices in villags where they are much appreciated are being closed down. The fact is that the EU has dictated a reduction in the financing of our local post offices, this is proved by existing documents tha the public can and shuld read for themsleves, and even if the Royal Mail were making a vast profit, that would not save them. Somebody recently sent me an item supposedly by the APC "overnight courier". The overnight courier arrived at 4 pm when I was out. It was a Friday and they do not work at weekends. So I had to wait until the following Monday to request re-delivery. They require a day's notice. So they didn't re-deliver until the Tuesday when they arrived at three in the afternoon. So their overnight service actually took five days. They had nothing but excuses to offer, and said "Well, that's the service,". No apology. I don't call that a welcome alternative to the Royal Mail and a good reason for local post offices to be closed down.