Residents will be aware that Headington School is building a new boathouse for its students beside the road to Clifton Hampden.
The Bursar of the school will be attending the Parish Council meeting on 20th April. One of the topics for discussion will be how this new facility might be used by village residents.
To this end, the Parish Council is holding a preliminary meeting to get ideas from residents about how we would like to use the new landing stage etc. This will enable us to present our ideas to the Bursar.
The meeting will be held at 7:30pm on Tuesday 14th March. If you would like to contribute to the meeting, please contact Cllr Peter Rose at peter.rose@longwittenham.com for further details.
The school/rowers/river users should be made aware that the long-term resident pair of mute swans are very possessive of their water and can be very aggressive during the nesting and breeding season. They regularly attack swimmers and boaters who venture too close. They and their relatives have occupied Clifton Reach for at least 60 years and, therefore, must not be disturbed.
Maybe they can allow public or at least village access to launch on the river. At the moment there is nothing for villagers wanting to access the beautiful river by kayak or similar between the footpath to Appleford and the Plough until the litter-strewn fishing area along the road to Clifton Hampden.
I somehow doubt it though. We are a riverside village but you wouldn’t know it as access to the river is almost all controlled by private land on both sides of the river. The number of areas you cannot access either side of a major river by footpath must be very low… except through Long Wittenham.