Archive for the ‘Transport’ category
TGiF – How a Bicycle is Made
May 4th, 2012CLR inquiry: no news is good news?
April 16th, 2012We posted earlier about the county council’s potential breach of planning permission over the Cogges Link Road, but you might be wondering what’s happening with the inquiry into the road.
It’s worth remembering that the public inquiry last autumn was not about planning permission for the road. It was about whether the county council can force local landowner the Mawle Trust to sell their land in order to build the road. Forcing someone to sell land is known as a compulsory purchase order and requires an inquiry to establish whether it’s justified by a “compelling case in the public interest”. That decision is ultimately made by Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Transport. Her decision is not expected to be made public until May, almost certainly after the district council elections which take place on the 3rd.
County council begins work on CLR
April 16th, 2012We’re still waiting for the outcome of the Cogges Link Road inquiry, but it appears that Oxfordshire County Council has jumped the gun and begun work without waiting to hear what the Department of Transport says. Members of Witney First report that digging has begun at the Farm Mill Lane site (adjacent to the Sainsburys roundabout).
Tell Oxfordshire County Council about your local bus routes
April 11th, 2012Oxfordshire County Council are running a consultation about bus routes in the Chipping Norton, Charlbury and Witney area. You should respond if you possibly can, and if you do it online it will only take a few minutes (see below for details.) It’s important that your voice is heard, because even when councils aren’t trying to save money as they are at the moment, then “consultation” can often mean “doing the groundwork for an argument to cut services.”
The services affected include: 23A, 50, 50/S3, 233, 243, 811, C1/T1, X8, and X9. Towns and villages affected by any changes to these services would include: Chipping Norton, Steeple Aston, Shipston-on-Stour, Woodstock, Enstone, Yarnton, Burford, Milton-, Ascott- and Shipton-under-Wychwood, Crawley, Finstock, Ramsden, Stonesfield, Kingham, Hailey and of course Witney. So a lot of you reading this will probably want to respond! (A full list of services and villages under review is available here.)
According to the council website, there are a few ways of responding to the consultation:
- Respond online using the county council website (see the note below)
- Contact your town or parish council, who will hopefully be consulted directly by the county council
- Or Respond by post using the details provided on the county council website
If you want to complete the online version of the questionnaire, you do have to register for an account on the county council website: registering is never fun, but I did so myself and it was pretty straightforward; got an confirmation email within a minute or two. Depending on the amount of detail you want to leave, the online questionnaire takes between one and maybe ten minutes.
There’s plenty of time to complete the survey – it closes on June 8th – but it would be great if lots of people did so, so please tell your friends. Filling out forms and telling councils what use you make of local services (and how they could be better) can be a chore at times; but if it gets us an improved bus service, or even simply preserves the services we currently have, then such a chore might be worth while.
Prime Minister Backs Cycle Campaign
February 10th, 2012
David Cameron endorsed the ‘Cities fit for cycling’ campaign this week saying, “As a keen cyclist, I congratulate The Times for drawing attention to this issue. We want to encourage cycling as a cheaper, greener, more healthy way of getting from place to place, and making people feel safe cycling on the roads is crucial to that.”
WitneyBUG has pledged its support to the campaign and the 8-point manifesto. We urge you to do so too by following this link to complete step 1. Do step 2 if you’re on Twitter or Facebook. Forget about step 3, your MP is already signed up.
So why does The Times give a damn about cycling all of a sudden? Is it something to do with the 2012 Olympics? The people best placed to tell you about that are the colleague of a young journalist, and her editor. I can vouch that when a loved one is hit and injured, out of the blue just going from place to place, it makes one think long and hard about road safety.
Cogges Link Road: a 12-week wait expected
February 10th, 2012According to Witney First, the inspector’s report on the Cogges Link Road public inquiry has definitely been finished and submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for checking before submission to the Transport Secretary for her final decision.
Witney First expects the decision to be made “some time in the next 12 weeks”, so the first week of April or possibly late March.
Inquiry decision weeks away
February 8th, 2012We wrote yesterday that there was uncertainty surrounding the Cogges Link Road verdict. Sustainable Witney contacted the inquiry’s programme officer, Graham Groom, to find out what was going on and he got back to us today. “I believe the Inspector has submitted his Report to the Planning Inspectorate but now comes several weeks of ‘consideration’ by the Secretary of State before the decision is announced.”
The Oxford Mail has also been in touch with Mr Groom and received a very similar answer.
The relevant Secretary of State in this case is Transport Secretary Justine Greening, not Eric Pickles as we incorrectly wrote in November’s FAQ post.
Cogges Link Road: awaiting the verdict
February 8th, 2012Remember the public inquiry about the Cogges Link Road? The Sustainable Witney blog, with help from Witney First, brought you daily summaries of the inquiry, which ended in November.
The final report from the planning inspector was due out on 6 February. This report will give the planning inspector’s recommendation about whether or not a compulsory purchase order should be served on the Mawle Trust, forcing the Trust to sell land that Oxfordshire County Council needs to build the road. However, as alert readers will have spotted, Monday 6 February has been and gone.
It is not clear whether the report will go to the Secretary of State and other interested parties before being made public. It is also unclear whether or not the report has actually been completed as yet. The consultancy managing the inquiry is called Persona Associates and part of their website is dedicated to the CLR inquiry. However, these webpages have not been updated since the inquiry closed.
Sustainable Witney will bring you more news as and when we get it.
Cogges Link Road inquiry: day 17
December 6th, 2011This took place on Wednesday 30th November and was attended by about 80 members of the public. It began with final submissions from the non-statutory objectors. Paul Kinchesh began and expressed his concern over the county council’s flood model, which he judges to be inadequate because it does not replicate the 2007 flood levels. Dr Kinchesh argued that a flawed flood model cannot lead to adequate flood mitigation levels.
The Cogges Link Road inquiry: your chance to catch up
November 19th, 2011The Cogges Link Road (CLR) inquiry returns on Wednesday 30th November for what may be its final day. In the meantime, here’s a quick guide to what it’s all about and (at the bottom) links to blog posts which summarise each day of the inquiry so far.
What’s the inquiry about?
» Read more: The Cogges Link Road inquiry: your chance to catch up
Cogges Link Road inquiry: day 16
November 12th, 2011This took place on Friday 11th November and began with the submission of more documents from Oxfordshire County Council. The inquiry adjourned at 11am to allow people to observe the two-minute silence.
The case for the Mawle Trust continued with evidence from Isan McNeill, traffic and transportation witness for the Mawle Trust. Mr McNeill commented that Shores Green is better value for money. He also said that county council traffic models do not appear to promote any kind of shift in transport modes from the car to cycling or walking.
Cogges Link Road inquiry: day 15
November 11th, 2011This took place on Thursday 10th November and opened with preliminary business. The planning inspector asked when he can expect to receive certain documents from Oxfordshire County Council but Matthew Reed, lawyer for the county, replied that he couldn’t say when they would be available.
Cogges Link Road inquiry: day 14
November 10th, 2011This took place on Wednesday 9th November and began with housekeeping business. The planning inspector asked for the traffic queue data on Ducklington Lane that he had requested the previous day. David Holgate QC, lawyer for the county council, replied that it was being done that same day. Mr Holgate added that the council was currently handling seven outstanding submissions from non-statutory objectors.
Cogges Link Road inquiry: day 13
November 9th, 2011This took place on Tuesday 8th November after a recess of nearly four weeks. It began with new document submissions from both sides. Mark Lowe QC, lawyer for the Mawle Trust, expressed his concerns over documents that have still not been received, as well as over the large number of new documents submitted by Oxfordshire County Council. Stephen Roscoe, planning inspector, echoed his concerns and wondered aloud whether the county council had been aware of the number of documents that would be submitted at the last minute before the recess began.
Cogges Link Road inquiry: day 12
November 8th, 2011This took place on Wednesday 12th October and began with Paul Kinchesh presenting his case as a non-statutory objector. His main point was that the county council’s flood model data are flawed, making it impossible to calculate suitable flood mitigation. Better data have been available to the county for over two and a half years but have been ignored.
