Your guide for your
Witney, Carterton and villages Thursday, March 1 - Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Wildlife park’s not-so-little new arrival Page 2
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Weekly leisure guide for in and around Oxford
Out& About leisure time in &
around Oxfordsh
ire
A good habit to have
Join The Jacksons for disco day at Common People
Sister Act Live Choir to light up New The atre
Free
oxfordshireguardian.co.uk
Connor death: Doctor sorry for her failings
Trekking the Great Wall to say thank you Page 15
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Star Trek actor stunned by car museum and lodges proposal By Owen Hughes SIR Patrick Stewart has criticised a US businessman over “elitist” plans to turn a north Oxfordshire airfield site into a millionaire’s playground. The planning phase set the Star Trek actor to ‘stun’ after learning Californian philanthropist Peter Mullin intended to build a museum dedicated to his fleet of 200 cars on the former Royal Air Force’s Enstone Airfield, near Chipping Norton. Mr Mullin submitted plans in November to West Oxfordshire District Council to turn the disused brownfield site into a luxury car museum with 28 holiday lodges, creating 100 jobs. The lodges, which are required to make the project viable, will provide £12.7million to fund the restoration of Grade II listed, Tew Park. Lodge owners will be required to display their cars as a condition of purchase. But the Hollywood star, who owns a country house in Little Tew with his third wife, 39-year-old singersongwriter Sunny Ozell, wrote that there is ”too much of a commercial and elitist aspect to all this: fabulously expensive historic cars, Bentley cars showroom and houses costing 5/6 million pounds.” But project director Kieran Hedigan asked: “Is it elitist to be open 300 days
a year, to offer discounted annual membership to local community residents, to welcome school trips with free admission, to employ apprentices, to establish scholarships with local universities and seek out and train retired car enthusiasts as museum guides?” Sir Patrick made it clear that he does not think the council should make it so, adding: “The developer is a multi millionaire and is on record as saying that if there were local objections he would at once seek another site. He should.” Nearly 260 objection comments have been registered on the planning documents citing issues such as the lack of affordable housing, the damage to local bridleways that would need to be altered, and an increase in traffic to the area. Mr Mullin said: “I am very proud of what we as a team have proposed, which if approved, will create perhaps the world’s leading automotive park and museum in the world. “This is not a business venture for me, it is a legacy project and it is my most sincere desire to share cars from my collection, with the general public and to create a centre of learning to inspire future generations.” The Great Tew Parish council supported the planning application after receiving 40 responses to the proposals from residents, with 30 broadly in favour and only six opposed.
Discovering secrets in the corridors of power STAFF and politics students from Cokethorpe School glanced behind the curtain into the world of government on Tuesday. Nine lower Sixth A Level students started their House of Commons tour with a stop at Treasury Questions in the morning followed by a workshop
on pressure groups at the Parliament Education Centre. Head of History and Politics at the school, Dr Power, said: “It was an excellent day. The purpose of the trip was to expose the students to first-hand experience of the workings of our Parliament.
“They have learnt a lot today and we will be developing these areas further once we return to the classroom.” Witney MP Robert Courts, pictured with the students, held a Q&A session with the pupils who asked “some superb, searching questions”.
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