The magazine for residents and friends of Langford Village ISSUE 71 SPRING 2017 FREE LangfordThe Voice of the Village Life Spilling the beans Wretchwick Green update Trains headed for Cambridge FLTR’s Jeff and Christie Lothamer share London Road barriers their passion for coffee and community Bicester residents’ forum HOORAY FOR SPRING Published by the Langford Village Community Association Langford Life Spring 2017 www.langfordlife.org.uk 2 Editor’s letter Editor’s letter I have to confess that living in Bicester has become something of a bittersweet experience for me. I’ve been here for 26 years Contents now, and seen our town grow from around 17,000 residents to almost double that amount. An Oxfordshire resident for Local update most of my life, my partner and I were drawn by Bicester’s • 3 Wretchwick Green: what the new convenient transport links and reasonably-priced housing. development means for Langford With Bicester’s huge growth over the past few decades it’s 4 Refugee response; A4421 accident been a town in transition for at least that long, but plans for • Steve Clack black spot Editor the next few decades fill me with both enthusiasm and dread. • 8 Barrier to progress? London Road On the downside, the growth comes with ever-worsening crossing; plus new logo for LVCA congestion, coupled with pollution levels that are going • 9 Hamburger roundabout; plus through the roof. And then there’s the farcical London Road Langford gets its own Parkrun railway crossing. We also have over-stretched resources, such • 10 The age of the train: rail as a hospital with barely a dozen beds to serve a town that’s expansion a boon for Bicester 70% of the size of Banbury. Also, our ‘new’ Pioneer Square has • 12 Well connected: three cities that a positively shocking number of un-let units, which makes have never been closer to Bicester me nervous about the future viability of our town centre. Of course, most of these problems are commonplace across 13 On the beat: advice from our • the over-populated southeast, but that doesn’t make any of it neighbourhood police team; plus easier to bear. Gavray Meadows latest If the ‘garden town’ plans lead to better infrastructure 15 Langford Surgery merger; • then things could all turn out happily ever after, but funding Symmetry Park gets go ahead constraints and the seeming lack of will to make Bicester truly • 17 Bicester residents’ forum ‘green’ in any real sense makes me wary. Restaurant review Looking on the bright side, Bicester remains a great place to live for commuters, with good road links to London, 5 Shedding some light on The Milk • Birmingham and the south coast, though the A34 seems to Shed in Weston-on-the-Green become more painfully congested every day. As you’ll see from our feature on page 10, the new Oxford rail link should Langford lives eventually extend back to Cambridge, Bedford and beyond, • 6 FLTR folk: we go for coffee with which is great news as the UK road network inevitably FLTR’s Jeff and Christie Lothamer becomes more congested as the years pass. Closer to home, Langford will shortly have its very own artisan coffee shop Feathered friends (see page 6), which I’m looking forward to immensely. • 15 Wade a minute! It’s the whimbrel So, there is still a lot to like about Bicester, and reasons to be positive, so maybe I’ll just sit down with a good coffee, chill Competition out and hope for good things to come! 18 Could one of your photos be on • EDITORIAL the cover of our next issue? Yes! Editor Steve Clack ([email protected]) Design Rich Ponsford ([email protected]) Advertising Mike Oke ([email protected]) Fun stuff Distribution Bob Rudge ([email protected]) 19 Milk and sugar with your • LVCA COMMITTEE wordsearch? … Garibaldi? Chairman Mike Oke ([email protected]) Vice Chairman Ted Kingston ([email protected]) Treasurer Jean Coker ([email protected]) Useful information Secretary Matt Phillips ([email protected]) • 20 A schedule of regular events at Website Bob Rudge/Jon Spinage ([email protected]) the community hall Hall bookings Jayne Rossiter-Gill ([email protected]) Highways Carole Hetherington ([email protected]) • 21 Local directory of useful phone and Richard Kingshott ([email protected]) numbers, and a list of local clubs and Planning/CPRE John Broad ([email protected]) societies; plus Bicester Speakers Club Special projects Robert Jackson ([email protected]) Committee member Nick Cotter ([email protected]) @LangfordLife www.facebook.com/langfordlife Langford Life Spring 2017 Local update 3 Wretchwick Green update The Wretchwick Green housing development opposite Langford Village will have a huge impact on local residents. Carole Hetherington and Richard Kingshott report his new development, due for T construction over the next 10–15 years, will incorporate some 1,500 houses, including 450 affordable and ‘starter’ homes. It will also have a new primary school and a range of local shops and community facilities. As well as residential space, it will include an employment hub off the LANGFORD VILLAGE A41, with a range of small industrial WRETCHWICK GREEN and larger distribution units. This will include premises for light manufacturing, technology and knowledge-based companies. Spine road The outline planning application for the scheme has already been submitted to Cherwell District Council, and should be approved early this year, subject to meeting the Bicester Local Plan and Master Plan criteria. The development will include a spine road passing through the centre (as shown on the image on the right), which will form part of the Bicester ring road. This will be limited to 30mph due to the number of surrounding houses, coming months, particularly regarding aimed at encouraging walking and which currently presents a concern due the scale and impact of the proposed cycling into town. Planned upgrades to the amount of heavy traffic likely to industrial and commercial premises. to Langford’s footways and cycleways be passing through it. Perhaps as importantly for us, include complete resurfacing of the Redrow Wates, the developer of Redrow Wates have also looked Wretchwick Way shared use facility, the estate, has worked closely with favourably on upgrading some of which currently is in a very poor state the LVCA to take our concerns into the highways infrastructure within of repair. account, and have amended their Langford Village. This includes plans For more information on the plans as a result, and we look forward for cycling and walking routes from Wretchwick Green development, visit to continuing this consultation in the Wretchwick Green to Langford Village, www.wretchwickgreen.co.uk Heritage Category: Scheduling List Entry No : 1015549 County: Oxfordshire Did you know? District: Cherwell The ancient Deserted Medieval Village in 1279 the population consisted of Parish: Ambrosden of Wretchwick, located adjacent to ‘24 villains and their dependants’. In Wretchwick Way opposite Langford 1488 it was suffering from a reduced Each official record of a scheduled monument contains a map. New entries on the schedule from Village, is protected by law and population due to the Black Death 1988 onwards include a digitally created map which forms part of the official record. For entries created in cannot be built on. It was mentioned plague, and was depopulated by the years up to and including 1987 a hand-drawn map forms part of the official record. The map here as an estate in 1086 in the Doomsday the Prior of Bicester. By 1536 the has been translated from the official map and that process may have introduced inaccuracies. Copies of maps that form part of the official record can be Book, and is known to have had the manor had been divided up into five obtained from Historic England. status of a Manor by 1194. By 1274 leasehold farms, and by 1791 had only This map was delivered electronically and when printed may not be to scale and may be subject to it was owned by Bicester Priory, and one farm on the site. distortions. All maps and grid references are for identification purposes only and must be read in conjunction with other information in the record. List Entry NGR: SP 59569 21307 Map Scale: 1:10000 Modern Ordnance Survey mapping: © Crown Copyright and database right 2016. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024900. Marine mapping: © British Crown and SeaZone Solutions Ltd 2016. All rights reserved. Product licence number 102006.006. Print Date: 11 December 2016 This is an A4 sized map and should be printed full size at A4 with no page scaling set. Name: Wretchwick deserted medieval settlement HistoricEngland.org.uk Langford Life Spring 2017 www.langfordlife.org.uk 4 Local update Bicester responds to refugee crisis Churches in Bicester have responded to more than the mere six families already speakers, or those who speak another the ongoing refugee crisis in Syria and committed to, was most encouraging. It language spoken in Syria. It has been elsewhere, and have set up a Refugee was also great to hear that the council great to hear from some, but please let Support Group to raise awareness and is hoping to welcome the first family to us know if you are aware of anyone else channel local support. Bicester this spring. who may be able to help with translation. The latest public meeting of the group Thanks to everyone who has signed up If you’d like to help, perhaps by on 5 February welcomed more than to our volunteer database. We have been making a donation or if you would 70 residents who were shown a film in contact with Connection Support consider renting accommodation to a made by Jo Brunwin to help convey the (www.connectionsupport.org.uk), who Syrian family, please email cibrefugee@ desperation of Syrian refugees, and the have been appointed to provide the gmail.com urgency with which we need to act.