Category: Thame news

THE district council is appealing for residents to help build up a clearer picture of areas affected by the recent floods, with the aim of taking the lead on finding long-term solutions to flooding in the district.
The council says that during the recent wet weather conditions, more areas have emerged as being at risk and it is now looking for the co-operation of local landowners and residents to help build up a clearer picture of potential future flood risk areas.

The council is urging local people to contact them with any information they have ? including any photographs they may have taken during the recent floods. The information will help the council to work out who is responsible for carrying out any maintenance or improvements to ditches or drains.

Residents should send their flooding information to Environmental Services, South Oxfordshire District Council, Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8AT, or telephone 01491 823416. Alternatively, you can email environmental.services@southoxon.gov.uk (Marked Flooding Information).

For full details visit www.southoxon.gov.uk.

NOW that the date for the Henley and Thame by-election will take place on Thursday June 26,now is the time to make sure you are on the register to vote, and to apply for a postal or proxy vote if you will be away or unable to vote in person.
All eligible voters need to make sure they have returned their registration forms to South Oxfordshire District Council by midnight on June 11.

Forms are available for download from the web site at LINK
or by calling 0800 389 5560. Registering is particularly important for anyone who has recently moved home. If eligible voters do NOT register at their new address, they risk falling off the electoral register.

THE Police are appealing for information following an assault in Chinnor on Friday (6/6).
At around 11.58pm, a man heard a knock at his front door. When he opened the door a man wearing a light coloured hooded top and a balaclava hit him several times before running away.

The man suffered cuts and bruises and was taken to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

Investigating officer, PC Clive Greenwood, said: ?The man was taken to hospital with severe bruising, deeply shaken and distressed. We think he was hit with a baseball bat. I would ask anyone who witnessed this completely unprovoked assault to get in touch.?

Anyone with any information about the incident can contact PC Greenwood at Thame police station via 0845 8 505 505, or if you don?t want to talk to the police or give your name, call the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111.

MARK Stevenson, the Green candidate for the Henley
By-election, has invited all residents of Thame and
the surrounding area to a meeting at The Barns
Centre,Church Road, Thame, on Tuesday June 10, at
7pm.
Mark will give a short introduction to himself and the
Green Party, then open the meeting to the audience.
This will be a good opportunity to meet the candidate
and find out more about Green policies. There will be
a range of leaflets covering all main policy areas,
Health, Education, Transport, Climate Change etc.

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for South Oxfordshire, said:
“Mark is a tireless champion for the South
Oxfordshire. He is a genuine local candidate who is
totally committed to Henley and South Oxfordshire. He
has already done a great deal for the area, including
creating a new producers’ market to benefit the local
economy, and served with distinction as a parish
councillor.
“Henley is a very safe Conservative seat, but a strong
vote for Mark would send a strong message to the
eventual winner and to the government that South
Oxforshire wants its local economy and environment
protected. It will be a wake-up call to anyone
thinking of threatening the area’s green belt, post
offices, farmers’ markets, local shops or public
services.”
Sid Phelps, Chairman of Oxfordshire Green Party,
added:
“With Mark you see Green politics in action. His
projects have helped invigorate the local economy,
have improved recycling and environmental awareness in
his parish, have encouraged local food production and
he has championed a local vision on planning issues.
We believe he would make a great MP for South
Oxfordshire.”

Mark Stevenson said “Voters coming to the meeting will
be able to judge for themselves, I can only put myself
forward and enable them to make up their own minds.
But I think everyone recognises that we need a clear
voice at Westminster to provide a platform enabling
green-minded MPs of all parties to push for a
low-carbon 21st century economy. We can provide that
leadership.”

THE county council has teamed up with a software company to issue free emergency warnings to the public via text messages.
Residents can sign up to a text message server operated by Avanquest, to receive messages warning them about incidents such as major traffic disruptions, details of evacuation centres or even terrorist incidents.

The text messaging service, due to ‘go live’ next week, will not include information about flooding, as this is a service provided by The Environment Agency.

Improving existing system

Oxfordshire County Council has been using text messaging as a means of communication since 2003. The partnership with Avanquest will enable the original systems to be replaced with a text message server.

John Kelly, Emergency Planning Officer at Oxfordshire County Council said: ?We reviewed the use of our existing system and decided it could be improved by introducing the Avanquest text solution.

?We believe it is vital that we can give warning to the public and alert our staff though text messaging. The advantage of the Avanquest solution is that it is free to the public. The small cost of our existing system per year to the public has hindered take up.”

How to sign up
To sign up to the service send a text message to 07797 870610, leaving your own mobile phone number, your address and postcode. To register further mobile numbers for the service, you will need to send further text messages.

AS the date for the by-election to chose a successor for Boris Johnson is announced for June 26, a new party has put forward a candidate.
He is Ian Parker-Joseph who will be standing for the Libertarian Party. This will be their first election.
Find out more by visiting: LINK

UKIP have selected Chris Adams who was out and about in Thame over the weekend.

Photo: Ian Parker-Joseph

NICK Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democratic party, spoke fondly of his family connections with the area, when he visited Thame this afternoon.
Mr Clegg met local journalists in the Memorial gardens on his way back from a visit to Henley, to show support for his party’s candidate, Stephen Kearney.
From the age of eleven, Clegg lived near Chinnor and his mother still lives at Wainhill. He said that he often comes to Thame to shop at Waitrose and that it felt strange for him to have to ‘switch to political gear’ in a place he feels so much at home in.

On political issues, the candidate himself, Stephen Kearney, was asked what chance his party felt he had of over-turning Boris Johnson’s 12,000 majority. His reply was that the Lib Dems had overturned big Conservative majorities in the past at both Bromley and Winchester, and Nick Clegg added that his own seat in Sheffield was ‘true blue’ before he overturned a big majority there.

On local issues, Stephen Kearney spoke of his determination to fight for Oxfordshire’s green spaces and the encroachment of bigger towns like Aylesbury on Market towns and to work against the influence of large supermarkets on independent shops. He said that he felt it was inevitable that the cattlemarket will move and that when it does, he will “work with local people to get local housing, a mix of retail and offices and above all a community facility.”

He added that he was “very excited” at the prospect of fighting to follow on from Boris, with Nick Clegg adding: “This area is used to big characters and Stephen is well suited to the task.”

BORIS Johnson has officially resigned today as MP for the Henley constituency, to concentrate on the people of London.
Boris challenged Gordon Brown at what was Johnson’s last Prime Minister’s Question time today, to support his ban on drinking on the tube.
After PMQs it was expected that Boris would go through the parliamentary convention of accepting an office of the Crown, either the Chiltern Hundreds or the Manor of Northstead, which will legally disqualify him from continuing as an Member of Parliament.

Boris’s resignation will bring to an end seven years as one of the most popular colourful MPs in Parliament, during which he held shadow posts including Arts and Higher Education, and gained a reputation as gaffe-maker par excellance.

All parties have already started campaigning for a by-election which is expected for Thursday, June 26, with visits to Thame last Monday by party chairman, Theresa May, and the party leader, David Cameron.

Photo: Boris with 21st Century Thame Chairman, Keith Slater and Alun Rowe, Chair of Thame First.

RESIDENTS in Cedar Crescent, Thame, have today been counting the cost of yesterday’s torrential rain.
Four elderly and retired people had to be evacuated when water from the Cuttlebrook nature reserve that backs onto their homes, flooded into their gardens and then into their bungalows.

Widower, Roy Clements said he felt devastated after the flood waters entered his home for the second time in six months. Carpets and most of the furniture thoughout his and his three neighbours homes are ruined and it is expected to be several weeks before they can move back in.
Residents say that flooding has increased since the building of all the new houses in the area, which is on the flood plain.
“A ditch was dug to help carry water away after heavy rain, but as far as I can see, its only made matters worse,” said Roy.

One resident, who did not want to be named, said that she had written to the town council several times about having a ditch behind their garden fence, cleared but were told that no body would accept responsibility for it. She and her late husband, she said, eventually cleared the ditch themselves a few years ago.

This afternoon the town clerk, Helen Stewart, told ThameNews.Net that the town council does take responsibility for the ditch behind these properties and ealier in the year did clear out all the debris.
She confirmed that she is in contact with the district council, the Environment Agency and the county council to see what, if anything could have been done to prevent yesterday’s flooding and what can be done to stop it happening in the future.

Apparently, there is a system of one-way flaps at one end of the Cuttlebrook itself, which is supposed to stop water flowing back but it seems that the rain was so torrential that they were unable to cope with the sheer volume of water.

Today, the affected residents await the arrival of Insurance assessors and one widowed lady said that she fears she will be unable to sell her bungalow when the time comes for her to move.

Photo: The view from Roy Clements’s window this afternoon, showing his garden still under around 10″ of water 24 hrs after the flood that ruined carpets and furniture in his bungalow.

THAME’S leading fireman has warned drivers about the dangers of driving too fast through the huge accumulations of water on some of the town’s road, following this morning’s torrential rain.
Station Officer, Andy Ford, said: “Driving is extremely hazardous in these conditions where the drains and ditches are just unable to cope with the sheer volume of water running off the fields, particularly along the Chinner Road, Drivers really do need to slow right down.”

Andy and his crews have been out all morning in Thame, wheatly and particularly Chinnor where they were digging trenches and clearing ditches where a bungalow was in danger of being flooded out.