Bicester, Banbury and Kidlington Thursday, October 12 - Wednesday, October 18, 2017
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oxfordshireguardian.co.uk
Schoolgirl wins national writing competition
Kilimanjaro climb in honour of her friend
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Thousands on city streets for half marathon Pages 8&9
£500,000 boost to improve Hey Oxford. the central transport route By Samantha McGregor BICESTER has been given £500,000 extra funding to help ‘speed-up’ development of thousands of new homes. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government allocated a total of £2.5m to nine garden towns across the country. Bicester received £500,000 to support 13,000 new homes while Didcot was given £295,000 for 15,000 new homes. Garden towns are part of a Government scheme to support the housing market. Cherwell District Council, who submitted the funding bid, said the cash would be spent on “feasibility studies focused around master planning to improve the transport along the central corridor in Bicester - Kings End, Queens Avenue and Buckingham Road”. It said more details of the type of project would be released soon. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: “Locally-led garden towns have enormous potential to deliver the homes that communities need. “This new funding will help support the construction of more than 155,000 homes in nine places across the country. New communities not only deliver homes, but also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to
local economies.” Bicester’s MP Victoria Prentis said: “Bicester is leading the way in locallyled, sustainable housing projects, and this extra funding is very welcome. “It will help local authorities speed up progress while making sure the infrastructure is in place to support our growing population. “It has been brilliant to visit developments such as Graven Hill, which provides innovative solutions for prospective homeowners, such as serviced plots for self-builders, and I hope that this funding will promote and expand these opportunities.” The government defi ne a garden town as a development of more than 10,000 homes and garden villages as smaller settlements of between 1,500 and 10,000 homes. Bicester was given garden town status in 2014 after a successful Cherwell council bid. Officers had to demonstrate plans for the expansion of the town provided affordable homes, schools and jobs while preserving the countryside. Since then Cherwell has been given £1.47m to carry out feasibility studies to look at issues such as green spaces, transport links and the possibility of a new motorway exit south of junction nine. The council said it would use the fi ndings from the studies to support bids for capital grants to start the work.
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Children from Bishop Loveday CE Primary School collected their prize from Castle Quay Shopping Centre’s mascot, Sunny the Duck
A BANBURY school can encourage more children to be bookworms after it won a summer reading challenge. Dozens entered the Castle Quay Shopping Centre competition to win a bundle of 35 books. The Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge 2017 was organised by Oxfordshire Libraries and supported by the Banbury shopping centre. During the summer it staged a host of events including arts and craft, face painting, had a visit from PAW Patrol and offered a reading area for youngsters to take time out. Winning school Bishop Loveday CE Primary School said it was “proud” of the children who took part. Assistant headteacher Pam Wilson said: “We are always grateful for any competitions and activities that encourage our children to engage in reading, especially over the long summer holidays. Many thanks for the new reading material - our children always love to have new books to read.” Paul Jackson, shopping centre manager, said: “Encouraging children to read is very important and our summer activities were really popular with families in Banbury with many signing up to the challenge and enjoying our reading area.”