Category: Thame news

YOUR ThameNews.Net reporter is lonely. Seeks other Thame residents interested in what’s going on in their town, in their name!

ThameNews.Net editor, Sonja Francis, is fed up with being the only person in the public gallery during town council meetings and would like to invite other Thame residents to join her tomorrow evening (Tuesday May 12, 2009) at 7.30pm, to witness the appointment of the new Town Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

As well as these two very important agenda items for the Annual General Meeting of Thame Town Council, you can find out what exactly the four standing committees are responsible for, i.e. Planning & Environment; Culture, Leisure and Recreation; Policy and Resources and the Personnel Committee, and who represents you on outside bodies like The Thame Festival Committee, the Thame Museum Trust and the Leisure Centre Management committee.

If you can’t make tomorrow’s meeting, there are committee meetings most Tuesday evenings which, though not of rivetting interest every week, can often be very informative and even amusing sometimes. Come and see what the councillors you have elected are doing on your behalf.

Agendas for all these meetings are available from the town hall.

Please, please join me!

THE current discount for paying parking fines incurred in some of Thame’s car parks early, is to to be reduced.

Currently, any one paying parking fines incurred in the High Street or the Upper High Street car parks, gets a 50% discount if they pay within 14 days, incurring a cost of

THE first Thame Farmers Market was held in July, 1990, the first to be piloted in Oxfordshire. This year will be its 10th year of trading and plans are underway for celebrations sometime in August.

Four of the 16 stall holders have been coming to Thame throughout those 10 years. Bunting and entertainments are being planned to create a real ‘birthday’ atmosphere and a celebrity is being sought to cut a birthday cake .

Thame Town Council’s Policy and Resources committee agreed to ask full council at its next meeting to grant

THE Police are appealing for witnesses after a woman had her handbag stolen in Thame.

At 3.50pm on Tuesday, April 28, 2009, an elderly woman was on a motorbility scooter in Southern Road, between the Co-operative Store and the library, when she was stopped by two black men.

The men held a map over her basket and asked her for directions before stealing her handbag and walking away in the direction of the library.

One of the men had a round face with shiny skin, is around 5ft 8ins and stocky. He wore a black leather jacket over a black and white horizontally striped jumper.

The other man had a long face, is around 5ft 10ins and average build.

PC Matt Rantle, investigating the incident, said: “The men stole

THE Police have charged a 20-year-old Wheatley man in connection with a road traffic collision that left a pedestrian with serious head injuries.

At around 7pm, on Saturday, February 7, 2009, a silver Peugeot 306 collided with a 60 year-old pedestrian near to Christchurch College, St Aldates, Oxford.

Oliver East, of Bell Lane, Wheatley, has been charged with dangerous driving and causing grievous bodily harm. He is due to appear before Oxford Magistrates? Court on Wednesday May 13, 2009.

JUST as figures released show that CCTV has helped fight crime in Thame, the town council has joined forces with other towns in the district to refuse to pay the full amount of their contribution to the system’s running costs.

South Oxfordshire District Council?s latest CCTV report for the last quarter shows that monitoring staff supported a total of 306 incidents across the district of which 55 incidents were in Thame.

However, in consultations with Wallingford, Didcot and Henley, Thame has written to the district council to say that with the effect of the economic downturn, the financial burden of paying over

BBC Radio Two presenter, Ken Bruce, has become a patron of the Thomley Activity Centre, a local charity which supports disabled children, their families, friends and schools.

Claire Acworth, the centre’s Director, said: “We are delighted that Ken has agreed to become a new Patron of Thomley, alongside Jeremy Irons. Ken?s patronage
to Thomley is particularly pertinent in that he and his family have been regular visitors to the centre, together with their son Murray who has autism.

“As Patron, we hope that Ken will lend his voice to Thomley, share his own personal experiences and tell other people about the joy and freedom that the centre brings to disabled children and their
families.”

Ken Bruce became involved with Thomley as a result of my son being diagnosed as autistic.

“The great enjoyment he gets out of the facilities and the caring attitude of the staff at Thomley persuaded me that I ought to become more involved,” said Ken. “I hope, as a patron, to bring the wonderful work being done here to a wider public and help Thomley continue to develop as a first class resource.”

Photo: Thomley Activity Centre’s new, 1 km cycle track

A request by a Thame flower seller to move his stall to the front of Thame town hall has,
in the words of one town councillor,
opened up ‘a can of worms.’

The flower seller moved eight months ago from in front of what was the Woolwich Building Society building, to a pitch outside the Masonic Hall in the High Street. Since the move, sales of flowers from the stall have dropped by 50% because, says the proprietor, the new location is too far for many of his regulars to walk.

But his request to the town council to reposition his stall at the town hall has caused many councillors to consider whether it would be fair to other traders in the town to agree to the flower seller’s request, without giving other local traders an equal opportunity to do something similar.

After much discussion of the matter at last night’s meeting of the town counnil’s Policy and Resources committee, it was decided that the council would seek the views of Thame First (formerly the Chamber of Commerce)and other traders in the town, about the general principle of stall holders trading around the town hall and how it should be administered, before taking a view.

LORD Williams’s school in Thame has asked pupils and staff who may have visited Mexico recently to stay away from school.
One family has recently returned from a holiday to Mexico but are all well and have shown no symptoms.

The advice, published on the school’s website, came after consultation with Oxfordshire County Council and the Health Protection Agency who have recommended to all schools that visitors returning from Mexico stay away from school for one week in case they develop any signs of flu. The advice is that if they do develop symptoms they should stay at home and contact NHS Direct.

The school today made it clear that no pupils have been on a school trip to Mexico, as was reported over the weekend on another local news website, and no one is “in quarantine.”

REPRESENTATIVES from Thames Valley Police have met with members of South Central NHS and other partner agencies to discuss the outbreak of swine flu.

These meetings will continue on a regular basis to monitor and react to the developing situation.

There is a Thames Valley multi-agency plan in place for dealing with a flu pandemic to ensure that all organisations are well prepared.

For further local information, visit the Health Protection Agency website