From Monday 3 September, Oxfordshire County Council are altering the times of the 97 bus service from Berinsfield to Didcot, serving Long Wittenham. Buses have been retimed to run ten minutes later with the exception of the last service from Didcot which will still leave at 14:25. The 97 school day journeys between Dorchester/Berinsfield and Didcot Girls School are also unchanged.
A new film club has started at the Cornerstone Arts Centre in Didcot, showing the sort of films you probably won’t see in mainstream cinemas.
The film club meets monthly at Cornerstone, usually on the last Wednesday of the month at 8pm. Films are shown on a large screen in the main hall and we get together in the bar afterwards.
Membership costs £5 and is available from Cornerstone or Didcot Civic Hall. Please fill in a membership application form as we want to know what sort of things our members are interested in. Tickets for the films cost £5 each and members can buy up to 2 tickets for each film (so no need for couples to both join). Tickets are available through the normal Cornerstone booking procedures: on-line, by phone or in person at the box office.
Forthcoming screenings (click links for further details):-
For further information:-
The Wittenham Vision team have created the first Long Wittenham Local Food Producers and Shop Directory.
The guide’s aim to help villagers to find businesses where food and drink is produced and/or sold within the local area. These are run by local people, passionate about what they do, and working hard to deliver a great product and service. They deserve support.
Thanks to Mark Pritchard who led the team and especially to Tommy Nicholson who has put in considerable effort on all aspects of this guide as part of his Duke of Edinburgh project, and to Peter Greenland for helping with the design and formatting.
Over 120 people finished this year’s Long Wittenham Fun Run on Sunday 27 May 2012. The prize winners and all the results are available on the Fun Run page. Thanks to Prew and Tom Bowtell who organised the run and to everybody who helped make the event such a huge success.
Long Wittenham’s Village Hall Action Group has published the results of the feasibility study into building a new community hub, incorporating a village hall and new primary school. You can read more about the proposals and the group know what you think here.
More than two dozen people attended the annual assembly of Long Wittenham Parish Council on Wednesday May 10 in the village hall at which seven village groups gave reports on their activities during the year and their plans for the future.
The assembly began with the head teacher of the primary school Carol Dunne outlining the school s achievements. She said plans were in hand to replace the temporary classroom with a new building that would include toilets.
Mrs Dunne said it was important that improvements went ahead to benefit pupils even though there were plans for a new school and village hall which might take some years to achieve. Two pupils, Phoebe Gitsham, who’s 11 and Georgie Newman, eight, gave a report on the school’s activities.
Pre-school chairman Zoe Pepper reported that they had 22 children and were in good shape. An Open Day was planned in the village hall on June 30 between 10am and 1pm. On a disappointing note Mrs Pepper said vandals had uprooted daffodils in the forest green wildlife area next to Acklings playing field.
A scarecrow made by the children had been ruined and wooden logs used for seating and a table strewn all over the area. Mrs Pepper said it was planned to fence off the area but the cost was likely to be expensive and the group may well have to call for help from volunteers to help reduce the cost.
Parish councillor Simon Thompson, who represents the council on the village hall committee, outlined proposals for a new hall-cum-school. He said consultant architects, :/00, had been engaged and five sites were examined Bodkin s Field, Ward s Field at the back of the Pendon museum, a site along the north end of Fieldside, Challis Farm off Didcot Road and land further along Didcot Road.
The consultants recommended that the last site and Bodkin’s Field should be ruled out because they were considered to be too far removed from the hub of the village. Mr Thompson urged villagers to visit an exhibition of the proposals in the village hall on Saturday May 19 between 10am and 1pm. He said it was important to hear the public’s views on the plans.
Cath Nicholson from Wittenham Vision gave a progress report on the group s activities. A village action plan had been drawn up and approved by the parish council. She said the community-led group worked in tandem with the council towards improving village life.
Mrs Nicholson said WV s Green Gang had planted hundreds of bulbs on grass verges and was instrumental in gaining funds to improve a section of the cycle track and path towards Didcot. WV was still keen to renew interest in establishing a path between Wittenham and Clifton Hampden.
She said the idea of establishing a village shop had stalled because of the lack of anyone willing to step forward and finding a suitable site although a shop might be possible when and if a new village hall was built. A local shop and food producers directory has been drawn up and would be available in June. It provides information about local producers and suppliers.
Mrs Nicholson said WV had looked into the feasibility of generating electricity from the weir but tests show there was not a sufficient head of water to drive a generator. She said the group had also been instrumental in the bulk oil buying scheme. Buying in bulk, she said, could save villagers money.
Community Police Support officer Nikki Leese said Long Wittenham was a low crime area but she warned against complacency, urging people to secure their cars, homes and garden sheds. The swings at Bodkin s Field had been stolen, probably by a gang operating in the county who had removed lead from roofs and even telephone cables. She said arrests had been made.
Ms Leese said Wittenham Clumps car park and the area near the church in Little Wittenham were popular areas for thieves but recent police patrols had reduced the number of thefts.
Twinning Association chairman Richard Kewish said the link with the French village of Thaon in Normandy was now in its 11th year and still going strong. Last year a party from Wittenham visited Thaon and between May 25 and 28 a party of 30 French visitors are expected here including the mayor Richard Maury.He will start the annual Wittenham 5K fun run and walk on May 27 and present the winners with medals.
Next year Long Wittenham Athletics Club will be celebrating 110 years. President Bill Symonds said the football club had had a successful season with the first team finishing seventh in the North Berks League while the reserves rounded up the season in mid table. The under 15s finished second in their league.
Mr Symonds appealed to the public to support the club because it was losing two officers who were moving away and he would be taking on the work. He said: It s the old story of too few trying to do too much. The future of our Sunday team is very much in doubt for next season. We have a long and proud history but if we are to survive then we need help.
Leaflets are to be delivered to homes surrounding the Green on Saxons Heath as part of a new drive to dissuade children from playing football and ball games on the open space.
Some residents have raised concerns about disturbance, the risk to children chasing balls into the road, the safety of drivers and possible damaged to vehicles.
The council considered erecting signs to deter children playing games on the Green but it s difficult to enforce the instruction. It wants youngsters to use the new play area for football, cricket and basketball at Acklings or Bodkin s Field. Leaflets are to be sent to residents surrounding the Green outlining concerns about playing games there and urging parents to encourage their children to use Acklings or Bodkin s Field.
The parish council s idea for a new footpath linking the village with Clifton Hampden has suffered another reverse. Landowners are opposed and without their permission the path plan looks doomed.
The original proposal for a path alongside the road between the villages fell foul of county council spending cuts and problems with landowners. Attention switched to a countryside path from Wittenham via the weir and island land, linking up to the Thames path and on to Clifton Hampden bridge.
The parish council suggested fencing to separate the path from the field where crops are grown and animals graze. The Environment Agency was receptive to the idea but the land owners on either side of the weir are opposed, citing trespass, disturbance to animals and damage to existing fencing. The council is to investigate the Right to Roam legislation contained in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000.
But there s better news on another front. Work has been completed on improving a 500 metre stretch of the bridleway and cycle track linking Wittenham and Didcot between Moor Ditch and Bow Bridge on the B4106 road.
The national cycling charity Sustrans was approached by the Wittenham Vision group and agreed to fund the 41,000 project. The parish council contributed 200 for fencing improvements. The refurbished section includes a non-slip surface for horses.
The life-saving defibrillator being installed in the old red telephone box in the High Street should be in place by the end of the month. Work on refurbishing the phone box and installing the Public Access Defibrillator or PAD is underway. An official opening will take place during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations on June 4.
Villagers raised the 2,500 cost of buying and fitting the PAD in memory of 17-year-old Guy Evans, who died from a sudden suspected heart arrhythmia in 2008. Since then, his parents, Beth and Crispin Evans, and his friends have been campaigning to raise awareness of the importance of basic first aid when someone collapses with sudden heart failure.
Mrs Evans said: The recent news about the young Bolton footballer, Fabrice Muamba, who collapsed during a live televised football match, has highlighted the importance of people knowing what to do when someone s heart suddenly stops and they can t breathe.
Fabrice was so lucky that it happened when a medical team was there to give him CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) in those few vital few minutes after he stopped breathing and use a defibrillator to shock his heart back into working again.
The idea for using the old BT telephone box came from Mr Evans after the parish council bought the box for 1 from BT and invited suggestions for its use in the community.
He said: I discovered a number of villages around the country had done this and I know that Guy would be thrilled to think the box was going to be used in this way to help others. We miss him dreadfully, but we re determined to carry on campaigning for some good to come out of our loss.
The council supported the plan and donated 1,000 towards the cost of the PAD supplied by the Community Heartbeat Trust, a national charity set up to help save lives in the community.
Mr and Mrs Evans hosted a social evening at the village hall on March 30. Fifty guests were given a demonstration of the PAD. The machine gives instructions to users who would not need special knowledge.
Mr and Mrs Evans are hoping that other villages in the county also take up the idea: Many villages are some distance away from an ambulance or paramedic station. Having access to a defibrillator in the local phone box could potentially really help to save lives.
Having successfully financed the PAD, the charity called Heartbeats is now aiming to raise up to 7,000 over the next year to offer heart screening that could diagnose potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmia problems that kill an estimated 12 young people every week in the UK.
More information about Heartbeats and the PAD campaign is available from Beth Chesney-Evans on 01865 408011 or 07966 215550 (M) or e-mail bethchesneyevans@googlemail.com
The results so far of the feasibility study commissioned by the Parish Council (co-funded by the PC, the school, the pre school and the village hall committee) to assess a range of sites in the village as potential places for a new village hall or hub and possibly the school will be available for viewing at the Village Hall on Saturday 19 May from 10am to 1pm.
Coffee and cake available
It would be great to have your views and there will be plenty of people on hand to answer your questions. If you can’t make the drop in meeting, the results will also be posted on www.longwittenham.com
