Category: Thame news

LAST night (February 16), South Oxfordshire District Council agreed to freeze its council tax rate for the second year running.

In setting its budget the council included additional investment in car parking, support for the regeneration of Berinsfield and funding to help provide accommodation for rough sleepers.

More than £1,000,000 in grants is being made available to support community projects, such as improvements to village halls and providing new sports areas.

The district council will also invest a further £500,000 over the next two years to help deliver Superfast Broadband to more communities across the district.

To help raise further funds for local voluntary and community groups the council will be introducing a new local lottery scheme during 2017, giving residents the opportunity to win while raising money for a chosen cause or general good cause fund. Almost £99,000 will also go towards increasing volunteering and volunteering opportunities across the district.

New Lottery Scheme

The local lottery scheme will be a weekly lottery that will directly support good causes that benefit the community of South Oxfordshire. The money raised through the scheme will be spent on providing essential support to a wide range of local organisations.

The district council has stated that the new volunteering funding will provide resources to help get more people in the district volunteering. There will be a new grant scheme to encourage people to take up volunteering where costs may be a barrier, such as sports coaching qualifications or insurance costs for volunteer drivers, and there will also be new support to facilitate volunteering through the development of an online brokerage service to link potential volunteers with volunteering opportunities.

One of Thame’s District Cllrs, Nigel Champken Woods, told Thame.net: “We said in our Manifesto that we would keep any increases in Council Tax to a minimum which we have been able to do by careful management by Councillors and Staff at SODC and would encourage all organisations in Thame, who are eligible, to bid for grants which will be available.”

New money for Thame groups

Cllr Jeanette Matelot Green added: “We are introducing a Councillors Allowance Scheme where each councillor will receive a £5000 allowance which they can use to offer grants to local community groups. Thame will benefit well from this as we have three ward members. Details will be sorted out by May and we will then be looking for projects. It’s not money to be spent on one project but hopefully smaller amounts to many organisations. For instance, if a community group needed a computer, we could fund that.”

SENIOR Police Officers from the town’s Neighbourhood team faced a barrage of criticisms about enforcement of parking restrictions in Thame, during an open session of Thame Town Council this week.

Inspector Mark Harling and SGT Vicky Hoskin told Councillors and questioners from a sparsely populated public gallery, that PCSOs can and do issue tickets for vehicles parked on zig-zag lines in the town (£40 fine), if they are causing an obstruction.  Otherwise they have no powers of enforcement. “Police Officers themselves do police unlawful parking, when and if they are not committed to other priorities,” explained Insp Harling.

Inconsiderate parking around Lashlake

Similarly, because the streets around Lashlake, Green Lane and Moorend Land, often used as car parking for employees of CPM, are not areas with Residential Restricted parking, anyone is allowed to park there and action can be taken only if cars are parked too near to junctions or causing an obstruction. Cllr Mary Stiles reported that residents of Lashlake had complained to her about cars parking on the pavement and on both corners of Greenway, restricting the view around them and dangerously narrowing the road. Sgt Hoskin said that she would look into the matter with PCSO Natalie White who regularly patrols the area.

‘It’s like the Wild West on yellow lines’

Cllr Bob Austin declared that parking on yellow lines in the town was: “..getting like the Wild West!” Particularly mentioning the mis-use of the five parking spaces opposite The Cottage Bakery, he said: “The situation is becoming ridiculous. How can we tackle it? When you get people quoting back at you a lack of enforcement, you know you’re in trouble.”

Insp Harling replied that when letters were issued to persistent offenders previously, there had been ‘a huge decrease’ in the misuse of parking in that area, and that he would look again at repeating that option.

In response to a question about people parking near the junction of Jane Morbey Road recently, from Cllr Mike Deacock, Insp Harling said that he noted the problem and would look at it. Similarly, he took note of a complaint from a Chiltern Vale resident, Owen Davies about cars being parked on the blind corner between Beech Road and Sycamore Drive. assuring Mr Davies that the police would do what they can.

Prioritising with limited resources

Insp Harling was blunt, concluding to everyone in the council chamber: “I know that parking has an impact on local communities. We will try to do what we can with letters etc, but parking cannot be our main priority. Threat, harm, risk to people, child-sex exploitation, missing persons etc will be prioritised. A lot of the work of Neighbourhood teams say, ten years-ago would have been dealing with thefts, burglaries, etc. Now there has to be an acceptance that some of our work is too important not to be a priority.”

THE Trust responsible for Thame Community Hospital, has given an unequivocal promise, in public, that it has no intention of stopping the Thame Day Centre from operating in the building – but the community hospital beds will go.

The assurance about the future of the Day Centre came from a spokesperson for its landlord, the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, in response to a question from Owen Davies, during a Q&A session about the hospital’s future, at last night’s Thame Town Council meeting (14/02).

The Trust is planning a pilot scheme for later in the year, to bring more out-patient services to the hospital, and bring other health and care services together ‘to invest in more efficient ways to get the right services, rapidly, to get people up on their feet and independent more quickly’.

What about the beds?

Particularly, the eight beds currently on the ground floor of the hospital, will be removed to provide space for these additional services, including the Trust’s main priority, a ‘frailty assessment’ unit. It is hoped that this approach will prevent elderly and infirm people from having to go to hospital in the first place.

As well as an historic nervousness around the security of tenure of the Day Centre, the announcement of the pilot scheme has caused some disquiet among the public about the loss of beds in the hospital. These have more recently, not been used by the local community for rehabilitation but, as what Dr ken Burch, Chair of the hospital’s League of Friends, speaking at the meeting described as: “..a parking lot for people bed-blocking in other district hospitals.”

What if the pilot fails?

Dr Burch said that he appreciated the financial pressures Health Trusts were under these days, and accepted that the closure of the beds, though very regrettable, would probably mean that ‘the greater good for the greater number of people’ would result, but he wanted to know what would happen to the hospital afterwards, if the six month pilot failed.

He was assured by a Bucks Hospitals NHS Trust spokesperson that: “If the pilot fails, we will re-employ staff and re-instate the beds.” She added: “We genuinely mean this is a pilot! Clinical evidence shows that the frail do worse in bed. But, absolutely, if this doesn’t work, we will have to revert back to what we had before.”

“You are very brave,” concluded Dr Burch, “and I wish you luck.”

‘A positive future’

Dr Martin Thornton, a GP with the Trinity Surgery in Thame, said: “We are massively constrained financially, and must try different methods of care. Community beds serve such a small population and so we must try to provide the services that will bring the most benefit to Thame residents, and may be some from Haddenham etc. The local GPS would like to help shape it to what patients need. This will be the first time we shall be working together, with community help, to deliver a more integrated system.

“We must work as one team to deliver a much better system for our patients. Our job is to carve out a future in the most positive way we can.”

Public Consultation

Incidentally, patients and the public in Thame and surrounding villages are being encouraged to have their say in Oxfordshire’s ‘Big Health and Care Consultation’ about possible changes to some healthcare services.

A series of public events has started where NHS clinicians and senior leaders are meeting with local residents to hear their views on how proposed changes to Oxfordshire’s stroke services, use of beds in the county’s acute hospitals, maternity services, critical and planned care at the Horton General in Banbury may affect them.

The Thame event takes place on Tuesday, March 14, between 3pm and 5pm, at The Barns Centre.  To book a space call 01865 334638 or email cscsu.talkinghealth@nhs.net and for more information about the consultation go to http://www.oxonhealthcaretransformation.nhs.uk/

ARTSWEEK at John Hampden Primary School, Thame, has been a’ whizz-popping’ experience this year, with the theme inspired by the stories of Roald Dahl!

With a personal appearance from the BFG, all the school’s dreams came true, as the hall was transformed into a chocolate landscape good enough to eat! A chocolate waterfall cascaded from the hall wall, with a pink jelly Sea Horse boat delivering the winners of the Golden tickets to Willy Wonka’s factory at JHS!

Fantastic Mr.Fox was up to his old tricks, overseeing the activities and planning his next escapade, and The Enormous Crocodile was hungrily lurking on the lookout for a tasty snack!

A wide range of artistic activities were provided for the pupils to enable the sweet transformation, including big-eared BFG biscuits, decorative dream catchers, Enormous Crocodile clay sculptures, spectacular spoon characters, Roly Poly Bird finger-puppets, a James and the Giant Peach mobile, as well as the old favourites of painting, drawing and junk modelling all things Roald Dahl.

The children also carried the theme on in class with a cross curricular week inspired by Roald Dahl’s stories.

“The John Hampden staff and children were like a packet of Wonka’s all-sorts on the final dress-up Friday of the week,” reported Jackie Nichols, the school’s Arts Coordinator, “with a family of Fantastic Foxes, an army of BFG’s, a factory of Willy Wonka’s and a pick-and-mix of Oompah Loompahs!

“As always John Hampden has seen a wealth of parents, grandparents, governors, guardians, carers, artists, teachers and teaching assistants, old and new, volunteer to support the children in their sweet-toothed artwork, with a multitude of helpers (over 50!), who came to help bring our ideas to life! The John Hampden PTFA provided the means to fund the week, with a generous donation which enabled the school to provide a wealth of artistic experiences and resources for the children to enjoy!

“The staff also set the children a challenge in the Artsweek Quiz, where children had to match a Mr Twit-style fake beard to the right staff member who made it, in the ‘Who’s Beard is This?’ competition, complete with a tasty Roald Dahl prize for the winning entry!

“At the end of the week, JHS friends and family were given a Golden Ticket to take a tour of our JHS Chocolate Factory of art at the Friday Artsweek Fair-Trade Café finale.

“We were caught in a dream for a while and it will take half-term to recover from our sugar rush, but healthy eating will return to JHS and we will enjoy our hall in the weeks to come as a reminder of our unexpected sweet adventure!” concluded Ms Nichols.

THAMES Valley Police have issued a re-appeal for information to trace a local man, who has been missing sinse January 26, 2017.

Mark Robinson, aged 53, from Crowell, nr Chinnor, was last seen on Thursday, January 26, at around 7am, in Chinnor Road, Chinnor, Oxfordshire.

Mark is white, 6ft, of medium build, with balding grey hair. When he was last seen it is believed he was wearing a suit and a grey over coat and was carrying a black leather shoulder bag.

Mark is thought to have access to a grey Mazda 3 vehicle and may have travelled to the following areas in the UK: West Yorkshire, West Midlands, Cumbria, Lancashire and Scotland. TVP are sharing their appeal with the relevant police forces in these areas.

Investigating officer, PC Charlotte Owen said: “We are urging motorists to please keep a look out for anyone matching the description of Mark Robinson driving a grey Mazda 3. If you think you see Mark or his vehicle please call Thames Valley Police via 101 and quote reference 1609 (26/01).

“Mark, if you see this appeal, please make contact with Thames Valley Police so we can let your friends and family know you are safe and well.”