Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire

Please tell us what you think about the Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report which is now being circulated for consultation.

This report, available here, documents the current village situation, and the issues and challenges to take into account in our Neighbourhood Plan. It is out for consultation until Monday 16th November 2015

To respond with comments on the document, or for further information, contact the Parish Clerk: clerk@longwittenham.com

The county council is organising consultation meetings throughout the  county to outline its proposals to reduce bus subsidies as it wrestles with government cuts to its budget. By 2018 the council will have to make savings of at least £290m that will affect all services provided by the council.

In October the council’s Cabinet will recommend a budget for the next financial year that will be discussed at the February budget meeting.In the meantime the council wants to hear from the public about the likely impact a cut in bus subsidies would have in communities.

To keep our bus service it is really important that we all try to use it whenever possible. Leave your car at home occasionally and get the bus. This will help protect it from future cuts.

Long Wittenham Parish Council has stressed the importance of retaining the present bus service. Withdrawal would have a major impact on the lives of many, particularly elderly and disabled people who have no access to cars and who rely on the buses to get them to Didcot for shopping and other needs. There is no village shop.

It is important that villagers let the county council know their feelings about this vital issue. The parish council urges people to complete the feedback form. The deadline for responses is September 14th.

You can read the county council’s consultation document here and feedback your views here.

Thanks to everyone in Long Wittenham who’s already signed up for Gigaclear. The deadline to get a third of the village signed up is 10 July and we’re very close to the number of households we need to get Ultrafast Broadband in Long Wittenham – we’re almost there! broadband in Long Wittenham.

We still need more houses to commit

Gigaclear need a third of properties in Long Wittenham to sign up before they will give the green light to installing ultrafast broadband. So, if you haven’t already done so, then please do take the time to explore the impact it would have on you and on the village.

Why Gigaclear broadband?

Here are some of the reasons why many of those who have signed up have done so.

Have you suffered from landline service interruptions, been without a phone or broadband connection for a few hours or even, in some cases a few days, or complained about BT’s sneaky price increases?

Get Gigaclear and these will be a thing of the past. With their own network that doesn’t use the BT cabinet infrastructure there’ll be no suggestions of inter-company rivalry or sabotage as we have had in the past.

Do you have a poor mobile signal at home, maybe having one hot spot in the house as the one place the signal reaches you?

Put that behind you; introduce your mobile phone (and your visitors’ phones) to your Gigaclear router and enjoy high audio.

Do you use Skype to talk to far-off friends but suffer pixelated images and poor sound quality?

Skype over fibre won’t suffer like that!

Do you miss recording your favourite TV programme and the find the buffering makes it unwatchable over iPlayer?

Distant memories!

Do you realise that before long more and more TV broadcasts will be made over the internet and not via an aerial or dish?

BBC3 is probably going that way soon according to Radio 4 yesterday. And watching two programmes on two TVs may not be so easy with poor broadband service over copper. What will happen when you are sharing that bandwidth with neighbours?

Do you think you should wait for BT as ‘they are promising fibre broadband too’? 

Well yes they are but NO, they’re not in the near future! BT will be putting fibre to the cabinet (outside the Henderson’s) but from what they have told the Parish Council, this won’t be for at least a year. From there to every home it’ll be over the existing copper cables with its inherent problems and speed degradation over distance and age. That won’t change for at least a decade or more. In contrast Gigaclear brings fibre into your home – so wherever you are in the village, you’ll get the same ultrafast speed – and it will be as early as this autumn!

Do you think ‘I don’t work from home’ or if I do I don’t need access to files, documents etc?

Not now you don’t but is that statement futureproof?

Are you thinking  ‘it must cost more than BT’?

It may do, but if so, it’ll only slightly more (e.g. a fiver a month).  But most people paying BT for line rental and broadband are paying more per month than the Gigaclear base price of about £45 (and that gives you 50Mbps!).

‘I have just renewed my BT contract so I’ll wait until the 12 months is up.’

That seems a good idea but if not enough sign up then there won’t be a Gigaclear service to sign up to! To make it easy Gigaclear will delay the start of your service (and all payments) until the end of your BT contract.

Furthermore, when it comes to selling houses in a year or two there is likely to be a new class distinction in Oxfordshire: ‘connected villages’ and ‘unconnected villages’. The ‘connected villages’ will be attractive and open to everyone looking for a new home; the ‘unconnected villages’ will rule themselves out of a property search for the people who want to work from home occasionally and so avoid daily commuting, those with a family of teenage kids and those who want to watch TV when it suits them (and maybe legally skip paying the TV licence fee!). That will be a growing sector of the market.

And finally maybe you’re thinking you will have to change your computer or learn new keyboard routines

(no you won’t!), or lose your landline number or get a new email address (only in very rare cases).

If you have any questions, you can talk to Gary Brokenshire at Gigaclear on 07747 273936  or by email: gary.brokenshire@gigaclear.com (in my experience, they don’t do high-pressure selling).

The road to Clifton Hampden will be closed from 13 July 2015 for five days whilst Oxfordshire County Council repair the surface, damaged in recent years through flooding.

Traffic will be diverted via Culham and Appleford.

The leader of Oxfordshire County Council says he can give no guarantee that Long Wittenham will have more buses next year – but he has pledged to work hard to bring about improvements to the service.

Ian Hudspeth met parish councillors and three villagers to discuss the decline since last December of Service 97. The county council subsidised service to Didcot was reduced from six buses a day to two with only one viable service involving a four-hour wait at Didcot for a return bus.

Thames Travel said the service even with financial support lost money. The parish council and villagers were angry with the reduced service and lack of consultation and sought a meeting with Mr Hudspeth to air their grievances.

Mr Hudspeth told the meeting that a review of all bus services in the county was underway and new services would come into operation next May. He urged the parish council to set out their case for an improved service.

Asked if he could give a guarantee that the village would get a better bus service Mr Hudspeth replied: “No. I cannot do that and raise expectations. It would be easy for me to give you a promise now but there are many aspects that have to be considered in our review of all services.

“But what I can guarantee is that after hearing your concerns I and my colleagues and staff will work hard to get the best possible service we can for Long Wittenham.”

Mr Hudspeth said that millions of pounds ever year were spent on bus service subsidies, concessionary fares to help pensioners and school transport. More than £3.5m alone went on concessionary fares over which they had no control because it was Government policy.

Councillor Ann Tomline raised her concerns about the abrupt withdrawal of service and said she was surprised that Thames Travel did not have to comply with a notice of withdrawal. County councillor Lynda Atkins said the council had to act quickly or face the prospect of having no service at all.

Mrs Tomline raised the prospect of a Dial-a-Ride service that operated in some northern counties. Mr Hudspeth said such counties received higher Government subsidies because they were considered to be in deprived areas whereas Oxfordshire was not.

Villager pensioners Don Caws and Vic and Gill Lester spoke of the hardships and the isolation a reduced bus service caused elderly people and those who did not own a car. Mr Caws said a return taxi fare to Didcot cost £24 and was too expensive for people on low incomes. Mr and Mrs Lester spoke of their difficulties in getting to and from Didcot, concerns expressed to them by many villagers. They wanted to see any new contract awarded to the previous operators of the service Whites instead of Thames Travel.

The chairman of the parish council Tom Bowtell drew Mr Hudspeth’s attention the council’s work in preparing a Neighbourhood Plan including a new village hub for a school, village hall, affordable houses and possible shop. He spoke about the impact Didcot’s expansion would have on traffic through the village, the need for a new cycleway and path to Clifton Hampden and the village’s concerns about a quarry and concrete plant proposed near Clifton Hampden.

Mr Bowtell thanked Mr Hudspeth for visiting the village to hear views about the bus service and other issues vital to the future direction of the village. He added: “It was a very useful opportunity for the council to impress upon Mr Hudspeth our deeply held convictions about important issues facing the village.” Mr Hudspeth said: “It was a very valuable meeting and I will be reporting back about the worries you have over the bus service and other issues. Now I have a much better understanding of your concerns.”