Our special correspondent, Hadrien Levi, writes: Saturday, August 15th, 2020, almost the end of Japan’s Obon Holiday week. Korean War 2.0 ended before the beginning of the Summer Tokyo Olympic Games, and there were some rumors circulating in the Japanese and International media about a possible visit by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Yasukuni Shrine to mourn the War dead. Continue reading
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Mill Street bans HGVs for some reason…
There are some local difficulties in Mill Street, OX2. Here are some photographs I snapped last night. Good luck with the development of the Old Power Station and Gibbs Crescent! And, by the way, Oxford City Council planning doesn’t make it easy to upload graphics to its web site. Wonder which IT company is making dosh out of us Council Tax Payers. Continue reading
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Tagged Gibbs Crescent, mill street oxford, old power station, susanna pressel, the kite
Osney power station plans firm up
LAST WEEK the Said Business School put in its planning application to convert the old Power Station here in Osney – and today it held another consultation to show the business paradise it’s planning on the river.
Asbestos is being removed right now and responses to the planning application close around Yuletide. There’s rather more asbestos than the architects expected. Continue reading
Asia is in militaristic turmoil
By our Asian correspondent, Hadrien Levi:
Levi, in this PDF linked below the picture, explores the nature of the conflict in Asia, vastly under reported by Western media. He speculates upon a future not too many years hence where arguments between Asian nations culminate in crisis that’s not only just of confidence. Levi is an informed analyst on Japan, China, Korea and Indonesia but is disguised under a pseudonym for his own and others’ safety. ♦
Oxford Lord Mayor once snapped his tendon
RISK TAKER Colin Cook, the Mayor of the city of the Screaming Squires, revealed today that he had once snapped his tendon walking through the city.
The news came as he rounded on a kid who scaled the heights, as you can read here in the always pulsating Oxford Mail.
Best not to take too many risks, eh Colin? You might snap a tendon. Or end up as a Lord Mayor.
Rusty Pole topped by Pole Dancer
So I was sitting minding my own business wasting hours trying to fix a Windows PC in my front room when my attention was drawn to a car that parked just outside number 27.
Number 27, you’ll remember, is where the saga of the Rusty Pole started, when Oxfordshire County Council kyboshed my idea of painting the very rusty pole in rainbow colours. Here’s Lucy Pole to the rescue!
Even after appealing to my local MP, and despite her noble attempt, Ms Nicola Blackwood could only get a grudging admission from the council that yeah, I could get it painted, at my own expense, and only in regulation colours.
I think these two pictures say more than I can possibly bring myself to say right now. It’s a kind of miracle. π
Gibbs Crescent: we get the lowdown and the highdown too
So today we took ourselves to St Frideswide’s Kirk, on the Botley Road, the one that couldn’t afford to build a spire although it tried to crowdfund it back in the daze. We’d never been inside before. (See footnote after the pictures – Ed.)
We only knew there was a public consultation there this evening because we’d seen a flyer in our letterbox in Mill Street from massive housing association A2Dominion last week – there was no notice outside of the kirk, either.
Regular readers of this bog will remember that Mike Magee almost evacuated himself when he heard the explosion on St Valentine’s Day (please excuse picture).
Anyway, here below are pictures of the project that A2Dominion plans to replace and displace the current residents of Gibbs Crescent. A2D officials referred to the residents being “decanted”, which is a new one on us for people.
Once the residents have been “decanted”, which could take as long as six months or longer, A2D will set in motion an application for planning permission, for 140 units on the site, some going as high as six stories, with space for only a few car spaces for wheelchair access.
Some of the properties will be dedicated to social housing – as far as we can gather it’s a portion of the 50 percent of the properties that will be “affordable” housing. The rest of the non-affordable properties will be let. An A2D functionary said any profits will be ploughed back into the housing association. The whole process could take three or more years until completion.
Unfortunately, no plans are available from A2D on the World Wild Web (sic) and there were no handouts, so we took these snaps below. If you have any questions, A2D will be glad to answer them. Email Claire Bartlett – claire.bartlette@a2dominion.co.uk at A2D by Thursday, the 27th of September, the year of our Good Lord! 2018.
The redevelopment of Gibbs Crescent, of course, will further gentrify West Oxford, init?
And due to the redevelopment of the Old Oxford Power Station, there will be much trundling to and fro in the narrow Victorian street called Mill Street over the next few years, and of course the Botley Road too will, as usual, be free of traffic.
We believe that St Frideswide, the patron saintess of Oxford, and her kirk was probably based on a pagan goddess called Freya or Frigga or something. But that’s all lost in the past. Don’t mention Pusey!!!
Here at volesoft.com, we’re talking about the future. The future of Gibbs Crescent, one of the few – if any – social housing communities left in the centre of Oxford, hangs in the balance. One source at A2D whispered – of course off the record – that many of the residents will be glad to leave the centre of the City.
With a little help from their friends, of course.
Smart bike gives heron a headache
On the border between New Osney and old Osney there’s a bridge where herons happily snap up fish. But people using the multitude of smart bikes that are now available all over Oxford don’t seem to want to park them, er, responsibly.
As this picture shows.
