There have flyers about a new Community School opening in North Abingdon. I do not know whether it has any relation to the new primary school in the draft local plan. The proposed Opening Date is September 2017.
Information and Survey at northabingdoncs.com.
Also thanks to Hester for the following written a few days ago …
I attended Day 3 of the Inspector’s Stage 2 Examination of the Vale of White Horse Local Plan on Thursday to hear the discussion on the proposed development sites around Abingdon. It was an interesting experience: I had thought it might be very legalistic and boring in places, but this was not the case – largely due to the fact that the Inspector, Malcolm Rivett, had a sense of humour and handed the proceedings with a light and friendly manner. It was billed as a “round-table” discussion, but there were around 30 people at the table (representing various local councils, also the Council for the Protection of Rural England, other interest groups and the various developers) so it needed careful management. There were probably around 20 observers.
The previous day’s discussions had been about the Green Belt: it appears that this was quite contentious as the Vale, County and City Councils all have their own take on it. No doubt we will hear more of this when the Inspector makes his report. Most of Thursday morning was taken up by discussion of the proposals for East Hanney, Radley and Kennington, all of which are being strongly opposed by their Parish Councils and by groups concerned with the Green Belt and the environment. I had to leave before the discussions on the two North Abingdon sites (along Dunmore Road and part of Twelve Acre Drive) but I am told that the main concerns raised were over transport and air quality. These sites are currently in the Sunningwell and Radley parishes but would probably be moved into Abingdon if they go ahead: as I understand it Abingdon Town Council is not opposing them, so were not present.
One particularly interesting area of discussion was the cumulative effect of all the individual proposals in the area just to the North of Abingdon – not just those under discussion at present, but also the upgrades to the Lodge Hill interchange and ideas which have been mooted by the County Council in relation to a park and ride and possibly a lorry stopover area at Lodge Hill. Concerns were expressed not just about the effects on transport and the environment, but also on the “deliverability” of all the proposals within the specified 5 years: someone wondered whether there would be sufficient building materials and skilled labour to build that number of houses in this area in that time. These are key issues for the Inspector and will presumably be discussed in more detail at the sessions on 16 – 18 February.
Good report, many thanks,
Agreed – thank you Hester
One of the priorities that should be put forward as a condition of any more North Abingdon development is a slip road to take traffic away from North Abingdon to travel South along the A34. It would be folly to allow more North Abingdon traffic to have to go through the town to get to a south slip road. In the past we have had promises of no more development unless adequate roads were provided. As as the situation in South Abingdon promises were made but NO roads were built to divert traffic away from the centre of Abingdon
Janet – if you look at the Local Plan documentation you will see that the “Lodge Hill Diamond interchange” is fair and square in there – and funding has been found from other sources as well as the S.106/CIL contributions so hopefully it will all be dleivered. However we probably need to press for asurances on timing…
We also need to think about how all the traffic is going to get from the new developments TO the A34 interchange……
Hester et, don’t be fooled by this, a second river crossing was a pre requisit for Abits, it was supposed to be in place before work started on the town project !
I agree that a timetable has to be finalized for the Lodge Hill interchange. The Chilton interchange is being prepared (by the look of it, I may be wrong) to become a full diamond, so hope remains.
However, I also agree with CK2 that hope is not enough. I am reminded of the proverb: To eat with the devil, use a long spoon.
Chilton Interchange was started before the majority of the planned housing has been started, and shows every sign of being completed by late summer this year.
Lodge Hill Interchange is in the Vale local plan, to be discussed. Same old story.
Chilton Interchange has nothing to do with housing, its mostly being paid for by the business/research park at Harwell.
We’re kidding ourselves if we think the lodge hill diamond will happen before the majority of new build houses have blighted North Abingdon’s green belt.
Personally, I think it will only happen if the park and ride gets built there too.
Here’s a think to chew over peeps? It’s been announced that David Buckle, c, e,o of the vale is retiring from his £134k p/a job, this raises all sorts of ponderables, when the vale merged (oops, got taken over by) s,o,d,c one of the so called advantages was that there would only be one c e o, however, after the ceo of the time retired after writing his own package the vale employed a replacement ( D B) er, how did that come about? Next Q. Will we get a replacement? Or will the post be amalgamated into SODC giving us the savings we were promised ? Next Q, do we need the Vale at all? Seems it’s shrunk so much that what’s left is already pretty much handled by staff of SODC ?
Not sure of your point Captainkaos2. David Buckle has been joint chief executive of both councils since 2008.
Exactly that User-less, we were sold the idea on the basis there wouldn’t be the need for two c.e,o’s, but instead of one person sharing both jobs and titles we ended up with two sharing what was supposed to be one job and one title?
Who is the second person?
You are quite correct User-less, David Buckle is currently CEO of both councils, in fact most of the senior management positions are shared across both councils. (See links below). Mr Khaos is as usual spreading disinformation in the form of innocent sounding questions.
http://www.southoxon.gov.uk/about-us/who-we-are/staff/senior-management
http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/node/1393
The CEO of SODC is a David Buckle who looks remarkably similar to the Vale’s one!
Why on earth would we want a primary school which is not part of a local Academy set up? There was a very good piece on the front of the Oxford Times on a related subject where the diocese are taking on primary schools (faith and non-faith) to try and retain local cohesion. In my view, any attempt to set up local primaries outside of a local academy set up needs to be carefully scrutinised because there will be a cost further down the line.
Nick, what you say sounds interesting; would you care to elaborate for the uninitiated?
OCC and the Tory Government have said that all schools will become Academies. That we have to accept, irrespective of personal views on the rights and wrongs of the Academy/Free School programme.
An Academy is a misleading tite because it doesn’t actually tell you anything about the proposed organisation structure. In simple terms, I think there are about three key types:
Single Academies – now out of vogue, so less common.
Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) – made up of several Academies
The MATs come in a variety of types, but to me you either get a local set up, where local secondaries and primaries might come together under a MAT or you get a UK wide chain e.g. E-Act………….
So, my point is that I think that people will look back at the UK wide chains as a flawed model, which has been rushed into. I am sure there will be exceptions, but it feels local is best.
I skim read the proposal for the North Abingdon Community school and it looks to be part of a UK wide MAT. I know nothing about this organisation, they might be excellent, but I was just highlighting that, in my view, local schools are better to stick together under a local Academy structure, rather than fragment into a mixed economy.
I don’t think this proposed school is the same as the one being discussed in relation to the new developments. There will almost certainly need to be a full-sized new primary school to accommodate the new developments.
On the point about Academy chains, I agree with Nick. The original argument for Academies was that they would have more freedom and independence to serve their local community (rather than being ‘straight-jacketed’ by local authorities. What we are actually seeing is the growth in national Academy chains, with more uniformity and little accountability to local communities.
Academies seem to represent another piece of policy made on the hoof without any apparent awareness of how entrepreneurs will operate the proposal. It does suggest that a revising chamber needs more rather fewer powers.
Or is that simply my “on the hoof” idea? Probably. Gloom…. 😉