Thanks to Tony and Steve who sent me pictures of different boats grounded opposite Wilsham road.
Tony says “Walkers watched as a young man jumped into the Thames and tugged on a rope, trying to pull his boat free after it had beached (on the wrong side of the green buoys) opposite the Ferry Boat House on Wilsham Road. His efforts were in vain.
A friendly boat tried to tug the boat free and failed.
Some other Good Samaritans clearly knew a thing or two about boats, and tried a different tactic. They pulled the stranded boat’s nose round at right angles to the bank, and she was free! …. and able to resume her journey – on the correct side of the channel this time.”
Back in June, Steve sent me a picture of “a cabin cruiser stuck fast on the sand bank opposite Wilsham Road with another just about to tow it off.”
The Narrows was forced to close because of _______ earlier this week but is open again this evening. The big windows that open onto the High Street are a great design feature on hot summer evenings.
This evening at the Long Furlong Community Centre, in Abingdon, about 120 local residents went to hear about the Vale of White Horse (VWHDC) Draft Local Plan.
Councillor Sandy Lovatt was there to explain the plan, and to take questions from concerned residents.
The draft plan involves building 610 extra houses (with possibly 900 cars) in fields between the peripheral road and the A34 in North Abingdon. This is because more houses are needed across the VWHDC to meet house building targets.
The video above shows the fields that are affected.
The main concern for residents was the extra traffic, and need for better infrastructure. One resident said it was very difficult getting out of their estate roads onto the peripheral road at peak times. It was a serious accident waiting to happen.
Another resident said that Abingdon had a very poor record in council led traffic changes and asked that any changes to the peripheral road be the subject of an independent traffic study.
Another resident said that the recent changes to the Wootton Road roundabout had made things worse. It had become a new bottleneck.
Approval of the plan will be in 2014 and adoption in 2015. 400 of the 610 houses could be built between 2015-2019, and 200 from 2020-2031. The consultation period for the housing plan is already over and 2,700 replies have been received by VWHDC. As a result some alterations could be made. Then the plan will go back to Councillors for approval. So there is a last chance to write to your County Councillor (for North Abingdon that is sandy.lovatt@oxfordshire.gov.uk) to influence that decision. Later on, residents can petition for the right infrastructure to be put in place when developers submit plans.
Annabel’s House of Books is one of Abingdon’s longest established blogs. Anabel has been reviewing books on-line, since at least 2008. She also sets book quizzes for Mostly Books, and recently has co-founded a new book review website (with three other book-bloggers – in Oxford, Cambridge and Normandy) called Shiny New Books which, in addition to book reviews contains articles by authors, publishers, book-sellers etc.
Recently local book seller Mark Thornton, from Abingdon’s Mostly Books, wrote a piece for Shiny New Books. His main business is still selling physical books to customers coming through the door, using local knowledge and recommendations, but eBooks have changed the landscape in recent years, so Mark writes about the challenge to selling eBooks on the High Street, and about running a successful local bookshop in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century.
