Anybody who has tried adding points to their Choose Abingdon Loyalty Card in 2015 will have found they can’t.
The initial scheme has run its course, and a replacement scheme using mobile phones is being investigated. You can still redeem points but not add new ones to the card.
In the mean time the loyalty card is more than a nice souvenir; it will still allow discounted entry on event tickets.
Sustrans say “National Route 5 of the National Cycle Network is a long distance route which connects Reading and Holyhead via Oxford, Banbury, Stratford-upon-Avon…” But by all accounts, National Route 5 through Abingdon does not get the repairs or priority that the prestigious name National Route should merit.
It was opened back in the June 2000 when Mr John Disley, Oxfordshire County Council’s transport planner said “The network will dramatically improve cycling facilities and will contribute greatly to the county council’s objective for increasing cycle use.”
The sign in the Abbey Meadow area still says”Changes planned in Abingdon town centre as part of Integrated Transport Strategy.” The cycling part of that strategy through the town centre never happened.
Signage is worse than 15 years ago. One of the signs on West St Helen Street is only visible to pedestrians, and faces the wrong way.
And if you do find your way from there to Lombard Street you are soon told to dismount.
Colin Walters, a town councillor between 2007-11 made strenuous efforts to make the route through town joined up with a proposed contra-flow at the top of East st Helen Street. It was turned down, on safety grounds, and no alternative has been put forward.
To make matters worse, a car is parked on the double yellow lines (on National Route 5) where a dropped kerb would allow access to the pavement for the mobility scooter. This is in a town that has 2 hours free parking.
There were quite a few shops open today in Abingdon. But it was Sunday and there were not so many people.
There were still the same number of pigeons.
I saw one getting chased out of Greggs. The open door, with warm smells, was too much of a temptation.
Pigeons congregate wherever there is the chance to co-operate, or find food, every day of the week. They don’t have a rest day.
Organised by Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council, the Winter Weather Exhibitions will give you information from experts about protecting your home this winter whether it brings flooding, snow or severe cold.
There are two such exhibitions: 6th January at Long Furlong Community Centre and 8th January 2015 at Preston Road Community Centre. Both run from 5.30pm to 8.00pm.
In town this morning there was also a reminder that the Town Council will recycle your Christmas Tree next Saturday on the Market Place.
The library was open and a good place to get dry, on what was a very wet morning.
I read in the Herald from 100 years ago, that there had been 6 inches of rain in December 1914 and there were floods at the start of January 1915. The removal of the canal bridge near the Drayton Road and inadequate drainage led to Tithe Farmhouse being badly flooded. The overflow of water from the River Ock, where it meets the Thames, meant the lawns of the Long Alley Almshouses were under water, and water had been forced up through the floor of the Anchor Inn. But Thames Conservancy were praised for managing the floods much better than 1894, twenty years before.
The Abingdon Walks website has postcards of The Great Abingdon Flood of 1894.