There is a burst water main at the top of Dyers Hill. Thames Water will be repairing it "tonight". It will be worth trying to avoid the area when driving. It looks as if the works may involve the closure of that end of Market Street. The area is extremely hazardous when it freezes, and temperatures are predicted to fall to -2C tonight.
Jon Carpenter · Sun 27 Dec 2009, 15:40 · Link
Thanks for your support over the past year - and we hope you enjoy the special Christmas surprise!
Richard Fairhurst · Thu 24 Dec 2009, 20:44 · Link
Street Scene have put out the following information about delayed waste and recycling collections:
"Veolia are currently struggling because of the weather conditions to clear waste and recyclate. In some areas the roads are so icy as to be dangerous to take their vehicles on. The list of missed collections as of last night are shown below;
CHARLBURY – Recycling – Sheep Street, Fishers Lane, Pooles Lane, Hannover Close, Tanners Court, Hone Close, Hixet Wood, Dancers Hill, Lees Heights, Little Lees, Hill Close, Hundley Way, Cornbury Park.
CHARLBURY – Refuse - Bell Hotel, Church Lane, Collinson Row, Lee Close, Hughes Close, Cornbury Park.
Other Areas Refuse: Horsehoe Bruern, Bruern Road, Foxholes, Churchill Rd Chadlington,
Taston, Ditchley Park & Farm, New Barn Farm Charlbury Road, Whitehills Tackley.
We are currently in close contact with Veolia but I should make you aware that there is strong likelyhoofd that up to 40% of todays work may not be completed.
Unfortunately those households missed today will not get a collection until 2 January. Whilst there is some doubt about yesterdays collections Veolia are hopeful they will get them before end of business tomorrow and we are asking residents to leave their bins out just in case, however we can't guarantee this.
We have prepared a press statement to go out to the local papers and the press. We have also made the TCS aware.
I am advised that Vale and South have suspended their collections already but Veolia are continuing to work where they can.
For information Veolia have already had a vehicle slide off the road and into a ditch, fortunately there were no unjuries.
Our own services are affected as well in that we are struggling to collect the commercial recycling but are letting customers know.
This couldn't happen at a worse time given that Christmas Eve is upon us but Veolia are putting a plan together to ensure all the waste is collected as soon as is possible. This will of course include the waste they miss today."
Jon Carpenter · Wed 23 Dec 2009, 17:18 · Link
Thank you to everybody who supported the recent Silent Auction of Sue's original artwork through Cotswold Frames in Charlbury in aid of Lawrence Home Nursing Trust. The auction raised £285.Thanks to Tim in Cotswold Frames for his support.
A sale of Christmas wreaths in The Good Food Shop raised a further £194.A big thank you to the ladies in the shop who told us that demand outstripped supply once again this year.
Both these events were organised by 'Pastmasters'. We are a group of Charlbury based ladies who regularly organise events for local charities.So if you want to get involved or just have a good fund raising idea but need help organising it, just email me at jenny.harrison.uk@gmail.com Look out for future events.
Wed 23 Dec 2009, 11:33 · Link
Details are here.
The recycling of Christmas trees to create locally used biomass will take place at the Spendlove car park on Sunday 10 January between 10 and 3.
Mon 21 Dec 2009, 19:28 · Link
The lorry driver who killed Charlbury resident Helen Kelly in an accident on the M40 two years ago has been sentenced.
This is Local London reports:
A 46-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for causing death by dangerous driving after a fatal crash on the M40.
Paul Allen, from Welshpool near Shrewsbury, pleaded guilty to the charge at Aylesbury Crown Court today and was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment, banned from driving for three years and ordered to resit a driving test.
Allen failed to slow down for slow-moving traffic waiting to join the M25 between junctions 2 and 1A of the M40 at around 6.50am on November 29, 2007.
The Scania curtain-sided lorry he was driving crashed into the rear of a silver Vauxhall Vectra which was being driven by Helen Jeanette Kelly, 39, from Oxfordshire.
She was airlifted to the Royal London Hospital with severe head injuries but later died in hospital.
The accident involved seven other vehicles, a number of the other motorists involved in the collision also sustained injuries.
Helen Kelly's husband, Don Kelly, who was in court for the sentencing of Mr Allen, said: "I would like to thank the police for all their efforts and am grateful that this terrible situation has come to an end.
"Both myself and my boys can now begin to move forward with our lives and begin to come to terms with life without Helen."
Richard Fairhurst · Tue 15 Dec 2009, 09:31 · Link
When posting an event, advert or news story to the Charlbury Website, you can now add a picture at the same time.
A new button lets you choose a picture from your digital camera or hard drive, and post it with the submission. You don't have to worry about resizing the picture: the website does that for you. A thumbnail of the picture will appear on the front page next to the item.
Richard Fairhurst · Mon 14 Dec 2009, 20:44 · Link
EARLYBIRD TICKETS GO ON SALE FOR CORNBURY FESTIVAL
Tickets can be bought at www.cornburyfestival.com/earlybird_tickets.php but there is no line-up yet.
THE WINE (AND HORSES) TIPSTER
Local wine expert Monty Phillips, who with his partner Louise runs Phillips-Hill Wine Marketing and is particularly known in Charlbury for running the bar at the ChOC films each month, now has his own blog. Have a look: you might pick a winning horse, or a winning wine. He's at www.thewinetipster.co.uk
LOCAL HISTORY FEATURES ON BOOKSHOP'S NEW WEBSITE
Evenlode Books has launched a brand new website at www.evenlodebooks.co.uk packed with information about their books, CDs and DVDs. There are also details of books of local interest, and free downloads of chapters from some of them, including 'A History of Charlbury' and 'Wychwood and Cornbury'. Under 'A Guide to Charlbury and its History' you'll also find the complete text of 'Reminiscences of Charlbury' by Jesse Clifford: this makes an interesting read, complete with an introduction by Jesse's great great nephew, Charlbury's very own Geoff Clifford! (Jesse was master of the school on the Playing Close from 1842 to 1884: there's a photo of the schoolkids on the site as well as one of him.)
Jon Carpenter · Fri 11 Dec 2009, 11:18 · Link
Charlbury Business Community would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the display of trees and lights in the town centre again this year. What began with a few shops and offices putting up a tree has now become a major operation, with between 80 and 100 trees being ordered and delivered each year, special brackets ordered, supplied and fitted, and a significant extra workload for our treasurer!
It's different, and it's effective, and it marks Charlbury out. If you live in a street with trees but don't take part, why not think again next year when the leaflet comes through your door? It's a pity that each year Church Street has a relatively poor display when it is a particularly 'visible' street.
I'd like to thank Judith Scott for shouldering more than her fair share of the paperwork and organisation and getting the new sets of lights from John Lewis; Simon and Rhona Walker and John Hind for delivering the trees to doors, sheds and over walls on the day; Geoff Burroughs who amazingly turns up at the right time and place with all the trees trimmed and ready to drop in the brackets; Andy Faulkner who fixes the year's new brackets to walls and helps a lot of people get their trees mounted in their brackets; and to Philip at Wychwood Wrought Iron in Ascott who makes the brackets for us and always has a few spare so as not to disappoint the latecomers.
The late shopping/lighting up evening on the 3rd was a great success too, and although Mike Leggett thanked everyone publicly on the night, I must mention Mike himself, Megan Bell, Sarah Eaton, Sophie the Elf -- and of course John Lilly who donned the Santa costume for the evening. And Laura and her colleagues at The Bell who worked so hard to create a splendid grotto and make it such a convivial evening for all who attended.
And of course the redoubtable carol singers, the belligerent mummers, and those shops that opened and regaled their customers with mulled wine, mince pies, sweets, competitions and other surprises. Without the energy and enthusiasm of so many people, it would not have been the success it was.
Jon Carpenter, Chair, Charlbury Business Community
Jon Carpenter · Wed 9 Dec 2009, 17:51 · Link
The Environment Agency has placed the Evenlode on 'Flood Watch' status, from Moreton all the way downstream to Cassington. Details are regularly updated on the EA website.
More rain is expected on Monday and Tuesday but the weather is expected to brighten from Wednesday.
Richard Fairhurst · Mon 7 Dec 2009, 15:58 · Link
'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'
Tomorrow 56 newspapers in 45 countries [57 along with Charlbury news who join the throng] take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.
Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.
But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can't afford a replay."
At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.
Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.
Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions" so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than "old Europe", must not suffer more than their richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.
Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.
But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.
Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".
It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.
This editorial will be published tomorrow by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.
Sun 6 Dec 2009, 21:52 · Link
Charlbury residents with a sudden yen to visit South Wales will be delighted to know that, between Christmas and New Year, direct trains will operate between Charlbury and Swansea for the first time ever... well, probably.
Due to engineering works in the Severn Tunnel, a small number of trains to South Wales will be running via the Cotswold Line, including stops at Charlbury.
On Sunday 27th December, for example, there is a 16.11 train from Charlbury to Swansea, and a 16.08 the other way, taking approximately 4hr30 each time. The morning HSTs (07.25 and 08.34 from Charlbury to London) will also be starting at Swansea, at 03.31 and 03.58 respectively.
Exotic though South Wales may be, these short-lived trains are unlikely to challenge the tortuological repute of the legendary London-Charlbury-Birmingham-London Saturday circulars, or the Sunday Poole-Charlbury-Manchester trains.
Richard Fairhurst · Fri 4 Dec 2009, 23:39 · Link
In recent weeks we've had a bit of an epidemic of people posting things in the wrong section of the website.
In particular, the news section is just for news: not events, not adverts, not opinion on the streetlights, just news.
The website system doesn't provide an easy way to move items from one section to another - it takes about 15 minutes to go into the database, copy and paste, manually enter the date for an event, and so on. Besides, it shouldn't really be the job of the website admins to tidy up after people who can't be bothered to click the right link or read the blurb that explains what the posting is.
So: please, please make sure you have clicked the right link. If it's submitted for the wrong area it'll just be deleted.
Thank you!
Richard Fairhurst · Fri 4 Dec 2009, 23:31 · Link
From December 13th, there will be some small alterations to the bus timetable of the Cl. Looking at it, it would appear that they are mostly of a minute's variation, but regular users should check with the bus driver to be sure.
Unfortunately, these timetables came out after delivery of the Charlbury Chronicle, so no prior notice was possible, but it is hoped that new timetables will be in the library, pubs, etc. Helen Bessemer-Clark, Parish Transport Rep.
Wed 2 Dec 2009, 15:38 · Link