supervising it. Many complaints were made to the Council about the way in which some motor vehicles were being parked on the grass of the Green near the Village Stores & Post Office, turning this area into a quagmire in wet weather. The Council tried in vain to persuade some vehicle owners politely not to park on this piece of grass, which Mr. & Mrs Patel have volunteered to maintain to a higher standard than the rest of the Green which is mown by the Council. Persuasion produced only verbal abuse, so Councillors reluctantly had to install the wooden bollards to physically keep the motor vehicles off this grass, using some money which was already set aside from the payments received in the past for the (‘way leave’) rights of some householders to drive across other parts of the Green to reach their private garages. The Council has yet to take further action to eliminate encroachment onto the Green by other illegally parked vehicles, an unlawful fence, and other items left without permission on the grass areas.

The traffic problems in Horspath were very severe, and frustration high, when the volume of through traffic doubled during the Green Road ‘hamburger roundabout’ construction before Christmas, but the volume quickly fell back to its normal level except at the peak rush hours. The chicanes and the road humps, which were installed in 1999 in response to the popular demand by 500 Horspath residents for a Traffic Calming Scheme to make the village streets safer, remain in place as the County Council’s best solution to the persistent speeding problem. The Parish Council has asked the County Council to replace the chicanes by any other approved device which will slow the traffic without obstructing 2-way traffic flow, but these requests have been refused, as it has been proved by speed surveys that, although the chicanes do not slow down all the extreme lunatics on the road, they do slow most of the more responsible drivers very considerably. Keith Brooks’ photos below might cause one to wonder just how fast that car must have been going to demolish an electricity pole and then continue another 50 yards off the road into private property before turning over? Bad driving caused this accident, not the traffic calming scheme.

The Bridge is still the best traffic calming tool, cutting the speed of 85% of the traffic down to less than 31 mph, and at the same time making it impossible for articulated high sided Heavy Goods Vehicles to pass through the village.

However, some very big HGVs still do occasionally still arrive in Horspath to cause damage and confusion when they need to turn around, mostly driven by non-English speaking drivers following the faulty instructions of their satellite navigation systems while trying to reach the M40 at Wheatley from the Oxford Ring Road. BMW Group has been very co-operative in briefing all the drivers of HGVs which deliver to their Cowley factory not to attempt to go through Horspath, and the HGVs which have continued to cause the problems do not appear to have any connection with BMW. The County Council has agreed to erect new weight limit signs and low bridge warning signs on both sides of the road near the Stagecoach bus garage, in an attempt to make the warning signs more conspicuous to HGV drivers who should not then risk coming to Horspath except to deliver here. Horspath residents are asked to note the registration numbers of any very large HGVs defying the new signs, and communicate these to the Council as soon as possible.

Wherever possible, the Parish Council has attempted to avoid unnecessary expenses, and so as a result of economies in some areas, there is now £5,000 available for a necessary upgrade of the Village Hall kitchen, and it has even been possible to make a small reduction in the Parish Council share of the Council Tax to be paid this year.

It remains only for me to sincerely thank the very large number of volunteers in Horspath who do unpaid voluntary work to make the village a better place to live in, and whose efforts have made my job as Chairman of the Council during the past two years more enjoyable and manageable.

Martin Harris   

The Horspath Parish Plan

Why does Horspath need a Parish Plan? - and why we need to produce it now.

Horspath Parish Council has represented the views of the village residents at several recent Planning Inquiries without the benefit of a Parish Plan to provide the absolute proof that the Council knows exactly what most residents want for the future of Horspath. It was easy to do this at the Bridge Inquiry without a Parish Plan, because the Inspector could see for himself that 500 people turned up in person to make their views known, but other Inspectors have asked in other Inquiries "Is there a Parish Plan for Horspath?" The problem of not having a Parish Plan becomes more serious now that many of the decisions about Horspath are taken many miles away from the village, and recently at SEERA inquiries held in Woking and Guildford.