School merger, future sports facilities, buses & new jobs at the town hall

THE proposed merging of the two Lord Williams’s school sites, as set out in the Thame Neighbourhood Plan (TNP) has come up against a funding gap. The amount of money expected from the sale of the Lower school site for housing development is lower than the estimated cost of combining the two schools into one site at the Oxford Road (Upper school) site.

Image courtesy of Lord Williams’s school, Thame

The viability of the proposal is being reconsidered and the school is seeking professional advice about how the funding gap can be filled. The Lower School site would be worth more if the Community centre, earmarked for the site as a possible one out of three, were to be located somewhere else. A planning application has to be submitted by 2019 otherwise the proposed merger goes out of the TNP and the housing allocated for the Lower School site, will have to be provided on another, ‘reserve site’ identified in the plan (Site C ?)

It has been suggested by Cllr David Dodds, that Section 106 money from new developments in Chinnor should be allocated to any new schools merger in Thame, as Chinnor children are served by Lord Williams’s school.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING, how it is allocated, the definition and various types of Affordable Housing, the numbers of such properties available in Thame, has up to now been at the very least, obscure, and at most confusing. Following a recent meeting with South Oxfordshire District Council, whose Affordable Housing policy drive’s Thame’s own in the Neighbourhood Plan, a report is now available by the town council that helps to explain the various aspects of this vexatious subject. You can read it here LINK

FACED with almost certain cuts to bus services in Oxfordshire, including several that serve Thame and the surroundiing villages, Officers at Oxfordshire County Council are exploring ideas to cuts costs but still maintain some of sort of a service where they can.

One of the ideas, still in the embryonic stage, is to use school buses, and those transporting the elderly and disabled, in between the regular times of the day they are operating to cover some of the less economic public routes.

Before the new bus stop (dubbed ‘the ghost stop’, because no bus has been seen to stop there) in Howland Road (opposite the DAF site) can be used, there apparently needs to be ‘a risk assessment’ made.

THAME Town Council is to seek ways of filling a gap in available funding for its £2 million Sports Facility Strategy. It currently has available £900,000 developer contributions through Section 106. You can download the Sports Strategy document here LINK  and the report showing where the money is coming from and what it is planned to be spent on, here LINK

THE town council is to recruit a Town Centre Co-ordinator to work with its Town Centre Working Group and other local organisations to action the recommendations of the recent Miller Report into the future ‘vibrancy and vitality’ of Thame town centre.

An action plan is still in draft form but is expected to include such things as transport, signage, parking and tourism.

The council also proposes to employ a full-time Neighbourhood Plan Continuity Officer whose role will be work with the council’s Neighbourhood Plan Continuity Committee which will ensure that the TNP is adhered to across areas such as housing, open-space, employment, environment etc.