Aircrash in Eynsham

A light aircraft scheduled to land at Oxford Airport has crashed in Wytham Great Wood near Eynsham tonight. An RAF helicopter has been deployed from Lynham to help search the area. Read more here.

Take care near the water's edge!

With the fresh report of a man falling in the River Cherwell in Banbury and hard on the heels of the fatal accident of the Cherwell student on the banks of the Thames we would all do well to take that bit more care whenever we are close to the water. Be safe.

What to do with your old computer?

The average useful life for a computer in a business is just three years. Perhaps in a home that life is extended as it is passed from parent to child (or vice-versa!) to say five years. At some point you may consider freecycling it and perhaps a computer geek can rebuild or refresh it with new parts and extend its life, perhaps for another two or even three years. At some point however the computer will be deemed dead. This is the point when anyone who wants to has had a go with the computer and it really does not work or suitable spare parts are simply not available at a sensible cost, including labour costs. So what do you do at this point. Well if you have a Dell computer then they will take the computer back and do what they can to recycle the components - free of charge. Check out this article for more details. Not a bad reason to buy Dell, is it!

Taxi strike spreads over Christmas and New Year

The recent delimiting of hackney licenses continues to cause increased concern amongst Kidlington's taxi drivers. It is quite possible that anyone wishing to drink and not drive by using a taxi to get home could be in for a long walk. Check out the Oxford Times for more details.

An incinerator for Oxfordshire?

Oxford Brookes University and Oxford Friends of the Earth have teamed up to campaign against a proposal to establish an incinerator in Oxfordshire. There are several arguments against this, not least of which is that air pollution levels are already very high in this shallow bowl surrounded by the Chilterns, the Ridgway and so forth. They have a specific web page on the subject of waste where they argue that incineration is opposite to guidelines of reduce, reuse and recycle; guidelines that are at the heart of freecycling. A petition has been launched at petitiononline.com. If you have an opinion on this matter then I suggest you pay the website a visit and consider signing.

Kidlington Action Plan

As a result of a recent detailed survey of opinions of the common folk of Kidlington, the Action Plan is now available on the Kidlington Parish Council website. The plan has the following sections:

1. First there is the background - a reminder of what the Healthcheck is supposed to achieve, and in particular its importance in setting out local priorities for
2. Then a summary of what the first stages of the Healthcheck, carried out by local working groups, highlighted as important issues facing the village.
3. Next are the significant priorities brought out in the public consultations that have been carried out, and how these form the basis of a vision for the kind of community people would like to see in the future.
4. Then this vision is translated into a set of strategic aims for action.
5. The next section looks at how the Action Plan ties in with the themes of wider strategies - the District-wide Community Strategy and Local Area Agreement, and how it needs to be a building block and a starting point for a Local Area Plan as part of the Local Development Framework.
6. Lastly in the main document the strategic aims are developed into specific objectives and projects. The Action Plan table begins to set priorities and targets. It includes as a specific action area the continuation of partnership work, and identifies where other players need to be involved and influenced.
7. The results of the questionnaire surveys are included as appendices.

Battery recycling

Recycling batteries is so important because they are full of heavy metals. Generally speaking using rechargeable batteries is better for the environment since you can recharge them many times, especially the lithium batteries.

In the end though all batteries go past their use-by date and we must consider how to dispose of them. The starting point of batteries, especially ones we use in the house, is that they are so small. We think small, insignificant, chuck 'em in the bin and forget about it. The problem with that approach is that batteries if dumped in landfill are about as bad as it gets. All those heavy metals...

It is really important to work out a way to recycling batteries properly - and that starts in the home. What I would recommend is using an old plastic bottle with a wide mouth, perhaps the kind that you get fresh squeezed fruit juices in. Put that in a safe place, say near your kitchen and simply pop any old batteries therein.

The batteries that can be recycled include AAA , AA , C ,and D size batteries as well as button, mobile phone , laptop batteries and rechargeable batteries.

When the bottle is nearly full then you can pop to your local recycling point and empty your bottle. So where are the battery recycling points? In Kidlington we have one at Sainsbury's, another in the Tesco shopping car park. For a complete list check out the relevant WRAP page.

Father Christmas flies into Kidlington

Not quite sure where they mean, but in what is described as the main precinct of Kidlington Centre between 10:30am and 3pm each Saturday from now until Christmas, the Oxford Fire and Rescue team will be running a Santa Claus Grotto. More details on the County Council website. If you know of any other places Santa will be visiting and you want to let people know then contact me here and I will post the details.

Watch out, there may be a textile thief about

Strange as it may seem the price of second hand textiles is rising - over the last two years alone it has doubled to £400 per tonne. This unfortunately has meant that some businesses are promoting themselves as charities and trying to collect your waste clothes from your home under that pretense. Read more on LetsRecycle including what the government is doing to tackle the problem.

Climate X hits Kidlington in full gale force

Following a recent showing of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, the Kidlington branch of ClimateX is holding a meeting at the Dogwood Pub on Monday 8th December. Sadly I will not be able to attend due to work commitments. Read more about Kidlington's ClimateX group here.

Bomd Squad relocates to Bicester

Plans are afoot to move the bomb squad from Kent to Bicester. This may mean more traffic, at least in the short term, but it will mean more jobs locally. That is surely good for Bicester folk.

Why do you think Jeff Halsey died on the towpath

According to Jean Fooks it seems that he was a person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that is the end of the matter. The drive for this comment seems to be to save expenditure on towpath and riverside repairs. Whatever your opinion, if you have an opinion about towpaths and river banks in general or about this fatal accident down the River Thames then check out the debate on the OxfordMail website and add your thoughts.

Gosford Hill School gets £2m scientific facelift

Gosford Hill is getting a substantial facelift to its science labs. When the £2m injection is completed it will have ten science laboratories under one roof. Much as this is good for Kidlington students this is rolling out in a year when Peers School is being closed and reopened as an Academy. Is the closure of in Littlemore Peers paying for Kidlington laboratories?

Grouply, a better way to use Yahoo groups

For anyone who uses a freecycling group they should check out grouply - a new interface for Yahoo Group users. It has a friendlier interface and soon to come are features for freecycling users. To check it out click here. Also if you want to read some tips on the service then I have launched a new group just for that - grouply-faq.

Taxi drivers voting on strike...

According to a report today on the BBC website, Cherwell valley taxi drivers are voting tonight on whether to go on strike or not.

GEO who manage Campsfield are closed down

According to Indymedia (a website focusing on political activists) a group of people successfully closed down GEO for a day. GEO is the company who run Campsfield detention centre.

Alternative jewellery presents?

Okay Christmas comes and you are really stuck for something different. Is the one you want to buy for into Music? Instead of buying them a CD why not buy them a guitar string! The interesting thing is I am not just talking any old guitar string, I am talking about ones as used by the superstars of the stage. For example you can get an ex Keith Richard's string for a snip at $500. It's all up for grabs on WearYourMusic! News just in you could even have a bit of Roger Waters around your wrist!