Champion House, the large Edwardian House next door to John Mason School, on Wootton Road, has been demolished.

An archaelogical survey says the house was built around 1914 on the site of an orchard that had once been a quarry. More recently the building has been used as offices by Oxfordshire County Council Care Services.

The plan is to turn the area into 24 sheltered apartments with communal facilities including parking.

A previous plan for Champion House was rejected and rejected again on appeal in 2011, but having modified the plans to make more space at the front, and reduce the size of the building, plans were approved in 2012. The town council strongly objected to the original plans, worried by a narrow entrance for traffic near a school, but had “No Strong Views” in 2012.

Six new apartments are on the market in Stert Street which were until recently vacant offices.

2012 saw an increase in the number of applications to change offices in Abingdon town centre to residential use.

In July 2012 plans were submitted to convert ground floor offices in Lombard Street to form 2 one bedroom and 1 two bedroom apartments.

October 2012 – West St Helen Street – plans submitted for change of use of building from offices to residential to form 10 flats.

November 2012 – Bath Street – plans submitted for change of use from commercial to residential.

There were also three other planning applications submitted in Bath Street to change upper floors from commercial to residential use during 2012.

The present wrapping service did not do quite as well as last year – but then it was raining hard and paper gets soggy.

In the gazebo next door, free mulled wine and mince pies were doing better, thanks to one of our local estate agents.

After ten months of building work at the Abbey Shopping Centre, all the scaffolding is down now. The contractor has been working weekends and evenings in the last couple of months on what looked like a demanding project. The area looks much better and two larger shops have replaced five smaller premises.

Work now stops for Christmas. I look forward to what next year brings.