Dear Geoff,

It must be bad - I'm actually reading through the 28 topic papers from the County Council on their early thinking for the new Oxfordshire Local Transport & Connectivity Plan No 5. The deadline isn't until May but it's the least worse item on my to do list. J

Our County Councillors have a response from Stuart Bell, but it's marked "Private and Confidential" so I can't share it with you. I am, however, told that his answer was no, there is no requirement to open additional community hospital inpatient beds. I hope that he can be persuaded to give permission to publish soon.

Back on Transport for a moment, I hear that Ham Road and probably Denchworth Road are seeing a regular number of Thames Water Lorries through the town at the moment. We think that this has nothing to do with any closure of the A34 but that it is more likely to be connected with a serious problem with the sewage plant in Lambourn. When we had all the rain earlier in the year they had raw sewage running down the street.
The Thames Water response to the Penny Post (pennypost.org.uk) at the time was
‘Following a very wet period at the end of last year and recent heavy rainfall, groundwater levels in the Lambourn area are the highest they’ve been for a number of years so our sewers are carrying far more wastewater than they have capacity for and the system is full. We’re using tankers to remove as much excess waste as we can to protect customers and the environment from flooding and are sorry for any disturbance. We’ll keep the tankers in the area for as long as they’re needed.’
It's likely to continue until the water table starts to fall, perhaps in a month or so. Unless a pretty major repair project is undertaken it will then re-start when the water table starts rising again later in the year.

That's all for now.

Stay safe and if there is anything we can do to help you then please get in touch.
Thanks for reading,

Best wishes
Julie

Julie Mabberley
Campaign Manager