Many of us have concerns about traffic problems in the village. The Parish Council has received correspondence expressing specific concerns and we have discussed these at our regular council meetings, with our District and County councillors and with the Oxfordshire County Council Highways Department.
We are now at the stage where OCC has agreed to visit the village to discuss these problems and to offer advice on possible solutions. What we need now is to have as many views and suggestions from you as possible.
From the problems that we are aware of, we have chosen the following to concentrate on in the hope that we stand a better chance of success by starting with a short list. The ones chosen are:
·         Reducing the speed of traffic and tackling speeding with the possibility for a 20mph zone through the village. There are also other measures that we will seek advice on such as electronic speed monitoring and traffic calming infrastructure.
 
·         The problems from inconsiderate parking causing obstruction to passing traffic, driveways and pavements, particularly on the stretch of road in front of Cherry Orchard and beyond to the T-junction. These can result in delays, especially when lorries cannot pass by parked cars; slowing the passage of emergency vehicles; and the danger from, or to, vehicles coming around the bend into Cherry Orchard from vehicles pulling out around parked cars.
 
·         Concerns regarding people using the village as a short cut (‘rat-running’) have been raised for some time. Previous proposals to solve this by shutting the Holloway or making it one way have not been sufficiently supported in the past to take them forward. This and other possible solutions can be looked at again.
 
·         The S-bend just before Cherry Orchard and the curve before the entrance to the old golf course can be hazards from oncoming vehicles cutting into the opposite lane. Many of us will have experienced this, it is particularly dangerous when vehicles are going too fast around the bends.
 
Approval and implementation of any measures are in the power of OCC but would be at our cost. At this stage we are just seeking advice, nothing would be introduced without a proper consultation with the village.
The next meeting of the Council is on 18 October at 6:30pm in the Reading Room. We encourage anyone with strong views on this to come to the meeting and raise them in person* or to write to us at [email protected] so that your points are included in the discussion. Additionally, any of us would be pleased to discuss traffic problems with you informally.
Thank you.
Great Coxwell Parish Council.
*Unfortunately, there will be a limit on attendance given Covid-related restrictions for the Reading Room.

The following documents have been added to the website:

County Council Report September 2021

The following documents have been added to the website:

Parish Council Minutes September 2021
Reading Room Minutes September 2021

Garden Waste Collections Restart from Next Week

Dear Garden Waste Customer

Firstly, please accept our sincere apologies for the disruption to your garden waste service this summer.

We are pleased to share the news that we have agreed a temporary arrangement with Biffa that will enable us to begin collecting garden waste again from 27 September.

The well documented national shortage of HGV drivers is still an issue for Biffa, as well as for other council waste collections and many supermarkets, but the temporary arrangement they can provide requires fewer drivers, which means the service can resume sooner.

The temporary arrangement is that fortnightly collections will change to take place every four weeks, but you will be able to leave twice as much garden waste out as normal.

We appreciate this is still not the service you expect from us so we will be extending your subscription this year by three months to make up for the collections that you have missed while the service has been suspended. We will delay the collection of your next Direct Debit payment by three months – if we have recently informed you that your payment is due to be taken imminently but the payment has not yet come out of your account, the payment will be cancelled, and you will be notified of the revised collection date in due course once your subscription has been amended. If somebody else pays for your garden waste collections, please let them know of this change. If you choose not to continue with the garden waste service when your subscription expires, we’ll continue to empty your brown bin for three months after your subscription was originally due to end.
While we will be reviewing the situation closely on an ongoing basis, we have set an agreed review date with Biffa at the end of October to see if the normal service can resume and we will let you know the outcome of that review.
Your collection day remains the same as before
If your bins are usually emptied on a Monday, for example, your brown bin will still be emptied on a Monday under a new temporary garden waste timetable with your bins emptied once every four weeks, instead of every two weeks. 
You can see the temporary timetable, which shows when your four-weekly collection will take place on our dedicated webpage here southoxon.gov.uk/gardenwastecollectionchanges whitehorsedc.gov.uk/gardenwastecollectionchanges
Remember, when you put your garden waste bin out while this temporary timetable is in place, you can leave an extra bin’s worth of garden waste out next to your brown bin. The extra garden waste can be put out in cardboard boxes, old compost bags or bin bags (not the very large trade waste bags please).
We will still collect your food waste weekly, and your recycling and rubbish every two weeks as normal.
We want to thank you for your patience and understanding and apologise once again that the service has fallen short of the standards you have come to expect. We hope you feel that the temporary arrangement is a good way of getting the garden waste service up and running sooner rather than later, while Biffa continues to look for ways to address its driver shortage.

GREAT COXWELL PARISH COUNCIL is looking for your help and input:

Please see the four announcements below from the Parish Council.
 
1. Great Coxwell Parish Council is still looking for one more Parish councillor, we have been one member short for some months now and we need your help to enable us to keep the village amenities like the Park and the Reading Room operating.

Please feel free to chat informally to any of the existing councillors (Jacqui Russell, Mike Harris, Rory Gilmour and Kym MacDonald) about the role or email the clerk ([email protected]) for more details.

Click here for full details.
 
2. Great Coxwell Parish Council is looking for a volunteer to run the Reading Room bookings. The Parish Room is mainly let to villagers and village groups. We need someone to hold the calendar and make sure everyone using the room has all the necessary information and access when required. For more details please contact the Parish clerk ([email protected])
 
3. The Vale of the White Horse is surveying the needs for future leisure facilities in the area in response to housing growth. The Parish Council has been invited to meet with them and Faringdon Town Council to gain an understanding of local needs. We understand that there will be a future opportunity for individual comment but if you have anything you would like to bear in mind when we meet please let us know.
 
As present we will base our points on responses we have had from previous surveys of the Parish, comments from residents and past experience, we intend to raise the follow three main points:

• There is a lack of free to access facilities for secondary school age children that permit self-directed play and exercise in the area. In addition to supporting the existing facilities of this kind such as the Great Coxwell MUGA and the Faringdon skate park, there is a need for additions on site, or at least close to, the new developments to ensure these existing facilities are not overburdened and that the young people through the area are properly served. Specific concerns have been raised by residents in past discussions that the existing facilities can not cope and that lack of provision of such facilities and places to go will lead to increases in anti-social behaviour.
• There is a lack of larger more exciting play spaces for primary age children. The new developments each included a small local play area, but the lack of something larger and more exciting serving the group of developments within easy distance leads to residents using cars to visit more distant facilities. Investment in larger more varied play spaces to serve the group of developments is needed to avoid increased traffic and parking issues around existing facilities of this type. Great Coxwell Parish Council has had residents raise issues regarding safety and obstruction due to parking by the Great Coxwell park, which is a larger mixed age play facility for example and express concerns that this will increase.
• There are limited free to access or non-membership options for adult leisure. In past surveys the desire for publicly availably adult fitness equipment or trails and drop in tennis facilities were noted as lacking in the area.

 
4. We are sorry that the Reading Room remains closed, just to let you know that we need to replace the boiler and attend to the plumbing in the toilets to make it fit for use again. We hope it will be up and running again before the end of the month and will keep you posted.

Update posted on Vale of White Horse website.

www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/vale-of-white-horse-district-council/recycling-rubbish-and-waste/garden-waste/

The following documents have been added to the website:

County Council Report - August 2021
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The South & Vale Waste Team will be in Great Coxwell for 3 days from 21 to 25 October to carry out a ‘deep cleanse’. This consists of litter picking, sweeping and removing weeds/moss from pavements. They will not spray weeds, cut grass or vegetation or remove weeds or moss on roads. This work will not include footpaths or right of ways as these are the responsibility of Oxfordshire County Council.

They are willing to accommodate our requests for areas we feel that they should concentrate on and have provided a table to collate these and to list their relative priorities which is attached. If anyone has any suggestions, would you please use this table and return it to me at [email protected]. I’ll collate the replies and send the table to the South & Vale Waste Team.

Could you please send your suggestions to me by Wednesday, 8th September.

Thanks very much, Mike Harris

The following documents have been added to the website:

District Council Report - August 2021
​