A little while back, Tesco in Abingdon redesigned their car park. The main exit and entrance became two-way. Tesco revamped the car park in response to customer comments such as:

“We stopped shopping at Tesco. We couldn’t get the wheelchair near the car door.”

“We stopped shopping at Tesco. My car kept getting bashed by children opening car doors.”

Tesco also added coloured zones to help people like me who get confused by the scale of the place.

They put in trolley park covers to keep half the trolleys dry.

They also fenced off an area for parent and child, and disabled parking, and painted it blue with yellow stripes. To help enforce the system, Tesco customer services give out stickers for people with children of of the right age.

Some of the parking bays are for people with a disabled badge

Other parking bays whave changed to people with a toddler badge.

Tesco have listened to the car drivers, but one does wonder if they listen to the environmentalists.

I was reading a Witney Blog and see Witney are on their way to completing the refurbishment of their Windrush Leisure Centre. It involves “a nautical theme featuring porthole windows, wooden cladding and sail cloth used to form a canopy over the entrance. Costing £1.2 million…”

Our leisure centre has colourful flags and a wave-like curve over the entrance.

The White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre, halfway down Audlett Drive, opened in March 2002, cost £10 million and took two years to build and is now a very good sports facility: it has been judged the best public leisure facility in Oxfordshire for the last two years.

It has:

• Sportshall
• Competition Swimming Pool
• Childrens pool
• Sauna and Steam Room
• Gym (fitness studio)

• Dance studio
• Squash courts
• Colourful courts for the kids.
• Cafe
• Waiting area with large screen TVs and view of pool, and art works.
• Creche

It looks like a country lane, perhaps it still is to some people.

This view is taken just off the Oxford Road, looking down Northcourt Lane.

It looks like an old barn, perhaps it still is to some people.

This is the front of one of the tithe barns that now house Christchurch off Northcourt Road. It is nextdoor to the Abingdon United Football Ground.

Northcourt is a village that has been overtaken on all sides by the growth of Abingdon. By selecting the camera view, it can still be seen to retain a village character, and you can still enjoy a pint at the traditional village pub – The Spread Eagle.

A good way to get free parking used to be to join the Con Club. They have recently ramped up membership charges so it may not be quite such a good deal anymore. But then I’m not the best person to ask having had an insane fear of all things Conservative since Maragret Thatcher came to office.