Mostly Books had a busy first day of the Arts Festival. There were two authors doing talks in the Roysse Room at the Guildhall, and one at the Amey Theatre.

First off in the Roysse Room was Tommy Donbevand with his children’s book ‘A Visit to Scream Street’

Next followed Professeur Richard Fortey, one time senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, now turned science author and ‘Secret Life of…’ author.

Here he is with ‘The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum’.

And lastly Dr Phil Hammond at the Amey Theater. Dr Phil spoke with humour and openness on the NHS and health matters – with Buddy, his resusitation dummy. He was there with his book –

Trust Me, I’m (Still) a Doctor

Thanks to Mark from Mostly Books for the photo ops. The Mostly Books blog could well have better pictures when they get a bit of time to catch up. And in her blog Annabel has a close up with Doctor Phil.

At John Mason School ‘Lettermania – family art activities’ were taking place, and looked very popular. Also displayed on the art gallery walls were letters inspired by the recent Peter Blake Lettermania exhibition, and done by local schools.

On the Market Place was a stall, plugging all the Arts Festival events over the next two weeks, including Bigging up Vermeer…

Over a period of 6 hours, 25 artists each painted a square.

I think they actually used the same squares used last year for bigging up Holbein which had been recycled.

Here is the finished work.

And here it is with the artists – each pointing to the square they did. It can be seen for the next two weeks, together with one by chidren, at the Guildhall.

There could well be better pictures soon done by the official photographer on the Abingdon Arts Festival website.

Councillor Ian Hudspeth, the County Council cabinet member for transport, was at the Annual Parish meeting last night, and there followed a question and answer session…

First off, the work near the Vineyard / Stratton Way junction will involve the road being CLOSED SOUTH for a couple of days next week.

Also a pedestrian loop will be fitted into the Abbey Close junction, when the contractors have time in their schedule, again to improve traffic flow.

Design work on the High Street still needs to happen. The area round the County Hall is being designed in conjunction with the museum development. The option of a contra-flow cycleway at the top end of East St Helen Street will be investigated.

Improvements to the other part of the High street will go ahead sooner. Yellow hatching can only be placed where people need to turn right, but A KEEP CLEAR at the top of West Saint Helen Street could be added. People also said the current cycle stands could be better.

Moving the Coxeters bus stop to Stratton Way would, in the County’s judgement, lead to less room for buses on Stratton Way. The County also believe the pedestrian route into town from Coxeters is preferred by bus passengers. A suggested pedestrian haven half way across from Coxeters would entail a lot of disruptive road work for a limited pay back.

The £521K saved by not proceeding with the Marcham Road dualing scheme has been ring fenced for Abingdon. But the County do not want to fritter it away on small schemes. They would rather it goes towards a strategic study, or something that makes a real difference.

A new bus stop is currently being installed on Marcham Road next to the nursing home. This will allow buses to pick up passengers without blocking the whole lane of traffic behind.

In the summer work was to begin to widen the Marcham Road on the eastbound approach to create an extra inbound lane to feed in to the town’s peripheral road (aka Colwell Drive) – encouraging people to use the route as an alternative to the town centre.

There is a horse chestnut tree, at the junction of Marcham Road and Colwell Drive. Its removal would have made rerouting the cycle path easier, but a TPO (Tree Preservation Order) has recently been placed on it by the district council tree officers, and now puts the summer dates in jeopardy.

Somebody had asked about a 2nd river bridge joining to Audlett Drive, and produced a report from the 1970s, which proposed this – when Abingdon was in Berkshire. But was told that Oxfordshire County Road designers are very busy because the Oxfordshire District Councils are all producing Local Framework Plans, as well as the two proposed eco-towns near Bicester. Unless a project comes up through such a strategic route it is less likely to get looked at. In any case to get funding from one of the national, or south England bodies, a bridge would need to be justified by lots of new housing in that area.

Making Lodge Hill a full interchange would probably cost about £5m because of all the traffic management measures it involves. So not cheap. But it is being looked at.

To simplify their business, Greggs the Bakers will no longer have the two brands: Greggs, and Bakers Oven. All round the country ‘Bakers Oven’ signs are coming down to be replaced by ‘Greggs the Baker’.

It happened in Abingdon today.