WaGCG : Wantage and Grove Campaign Group
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At their Cabinet meeting on August 7th, Vale of the White Horse District Council agreed to retain the two hour free parking in all of their car parks but to increase all fees (for more than two hours) by 40p.
They also agreed to increase the cost of parking permits by 10%; to the phased removal of the discount on residential permits to bring them in line with parking permits, phased over four years, and commencing no later than 1 December 2020 and to stop selling new residential permits from 1 October 2020.
Don't forget that there no parking charges between 6pm and 8am (Monday to Saturday) and on Sundays and there don't appear to be any plans to change this.
Oxfordshire 2050
Oxfordshire is asking residents if the changes they've made during lockdown life could create a better future. As we know Covid-19 has seen more people working from home, walking and cycling to get around and appreciating our public green spaces more than ever.
Open Thought, a new online tool, is asking if these changes – combined with new emerging technology – could be the key in creating a more resilient, successful county in the future.
As part of the Oxfordshire Plan 2050, it is looking for solutions to three big challenges facing the county as it plans for the future: how we will all live and work, how we will move around, and how we will tackle climate change.
Our response to their ideas is available here.
The Vale of the White Horse District Council are determining the priorities for their Corporate Plan and have identified their themes for the corporate plan as:
The District Council has announced that they have formally agreed that all work on the proposed new leisure centre between Grove and Wantage will now come to an end, as they are unable to raise the £18.8 million the centre was expected to cost.
The project has been paused since September 2018 while they waited on confirmation from the government on its intentions for future council funding.
They are intending to develop and introduce a new Active Communities Strategy, which will identify ways of providing leisure activities in the heart of local communities both in Grove and Wantage and across the district.
So over the last 10 years nearly £6 million has been spent on the leisure facilities in Abingdon and about £176,000 has been spent on our existing leisure centre. Once again, no funding for OX12. What will happen to the contributions from developers towards leisure facilities? What has happened to the new homes bonus received for the housing built in OX12 so far?
We wait for further explanations...
Some 7,000 houses are in the pipeline for Wantage, Grove and the surrounding villages. More may soon follow as the new Council is thinking about the plan to 2050.
Government guidelines say that development should be "sustainable". We do not think it is sustainable to put thousands of houses where medical facilities are increasingly inadequate, schools are virtually above capacity, there is little employment in the area, and roads to where there is employment are unsuited to commuting.
We came together to campaign for a better deal for our area. As it says in our Aims:
We are not against any development in Wantage and Grove but:
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Both of our GP Surgeries changed the way that you can make appointments in March 2020. See our Local GP Services page for more details.