Review of the year 2011 (From The Oxford Times)

Review of the year 2011

3:09pm Thursday 29th December 2011 in Features By Reg Little

JANUARY

VIOLENCE marked the beginning of the year with 50 people involved in a mass brawl outside The Regal nighclub in Cowley Road.

There were glasses raised at an Oxford pub that was recognised in the world’s leading food guide. The Magdalen Arms, in Iffley Road, was awarded a Bib Gourmand for good food at reasonable prices in the Michelin Guide 2011.

And there were early celebrations as the Oxford Spires Academy opened in the buildings of the former Oxford Community School, with pupils told to expect higher standards and more discipline.

But business leaders voiced fears about the future of Oxfordshire’s economy in the wake of a VAT tax rise from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent.

The scrapping of a £22m plan to build a new shopping centre running between the St Aldates Tavern archway and Queen Street was further evidence of the economic slowdown.

The Carlyle Group was unable to agree with Oxford City Council over how much it should pay the Town Hall as part of the process.

But a planning application was submitted for Bicester’s proposed eco-town, complete with an ‘eco-pub’.

The plans included a community centre, nursery, business centre and primary school.

FEBRUARY

Oxford’s former police commander, Jim Trotman, was cleared by a jury of arson and insurance fraud charges.

During the trial, the jury heard that the investigation into the arson attack on Mr Trotman’s Citroën C4 Picasso had been marred by mistakes.

Authors Colin Dexter and Philip Pullman threw their weight behind the campaign to keep Oxfordshire libraries open, after 20 were faced with closure.

County council leader Keith Mitchell hit back by accusing them of having “a vested interest”.

But proposed £2m cuts to library services were to be dwarfed as county council leaders revealed plans to strip £37m from the care budget over the next four years.

Helen and Douglas House’s annual fundraiser Childish Things brought comedians James Corden and Jimmy Carr to the city, and Radiohead drummer Phil Selway performed.

MARCH

MORE than 100 volunteers turned out at Corpus Christi land, off Abingdon Road, to help plant 1,000 trees on a college playing field as part of a scheme to create an ecological park on the edge of the city.

But plans to pedestrianise large parts of Oxford centre stalled, with spending cuts hitting the Transform Oxford project.

A scheme for a massive wind turbine between the Cowley car works and Horspath was abandoned, while plans for a £1bn reservoir between Abingdon and Wantage were rejected by the Government, to the delight of local campaigners.

Thames Water had claimed the massive project was vital in meeting anticipated demand for water in the South-East.

A £125m deal to almost double the size of Didcot’s Orchard shopping centre and to create hundreds of jobs was agreed.

A £53m deal to revamp Abingdon’s main shopping precinct was also signed.

An inquest heard that pub landlady Sharon Duval drowned accidentally while on honeymoon in the Maldives. The 42-year-old ran The Highwayman in Kidlington.

Builder Sean Freaney, from Bicester, was jailed for life, with a minimum of 15 years, for murdering his partner Lisa Consterdine, 48. The jury took just 20 minutes to reach its verdict.

Villagers near White Horse Hill said the area would not be the same again after the body of Swindon woman Sian O’Callaghan, 22, was found dumped in a ditch near Uffington.

APRIL

AFTER half a century repairing shoes in the city, Joe Boyce hung up his apron for the last time. Mr Boyce, 65, had been working at Brambles since he left school in 1961.

Red setter spaniel cross Sasha survived falling 150ft down a cliff. Owner Lyndsey Rudd, from Carterton, said her dog had been playing with a border collie when they fell over the edge near Bridgend. Sasha was found to have fractured five ribs and the other dog fractured a jaw and suffered a broken vertebra.

Magdalen College won the BBC’s University Challenge by beating York 290-85. It was the fourth time the Oxford college had lifted the title.

News emerged that the home of Morris Motors founder Lord Nuffield, near Wallingford, is to become a major tourist attraction after being offered to the National Trust. The Oxford industrialist had left the house at Huntercombe, where he lived from 1933 to 1963, to Nuffield College Street parties were held across the county with traditional bun throwing at Abingdon to mark Prince William’s marriage to Catherine Middleton.

MAY

US first lady Michelle Obama, right, was in Oxford, spending an hour at Oxford University to encourage youngsters from less privileged backgrounds to aim high.

Oxford’s own first lady, Elise Benjamin, took the chain of office to become the city’s first Jewish Lord Mayor — and the first Green Party member to serve in that office.

Colin Dexter confirmed ITV plans to make a ‘prequel’ to Inspector Morse. The Oxford detective will return to screens after an 11-year absence focusing on his early years at St John’s College.

The Liberal Democrats lost the Vale of White Horse, their only district council in Oxfordshire, in the local elections.

JUNE

Farm labourer John Cooper, 66, was jailed for life after a jury convicted him of four murders, including Witney couple Peter and Gwenda Dixon, who he shot as they walked the Pembrokeshire coast in 1989.

Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson faced a slippery problem in his bid to build a modernist house in Ipsden. He was told work could not start until a colony of slow worms found on the site had been moved.

Beatles producer Sir George Martin was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford University. Sir George, 85, lives near Faringdon.

The chairman of West Oxfordshire Conservative Association was found dead at the Glastonbury music festival. Christopher Shale, 56, a friend of David Cameron, was discovered in a cubicle in the backstage area at the festival. A coroner later ruled that he had died of natural causes.

Tributes were paid to former Oxford GP Ann McPherson, a leading author and founder of healthtalkonline, a site that now covers 60 different illnesses and health issues. She died after continuing her work for the charity throughout her battle with cancer.

Tributes were also paid to Oxford High School student Olivia Jefferies, 18, who was killed in a car crash in the middle of taking her A-levels. She died when her Peugeot 107 was involved in a collision in Adderbury.

JULY

Up to 13,000 people attended the Cornbury Music Festival, in its first year at a new site at Great Tew, to see the reformed Faces and ex-Kinks man Ray Davies.

And some 144,000 people descended on Blenheim Palace for the CLA Game Fair.

A bid was launched to introduce horse-drawn carriages to Oxford City Centre, leading to a campaign of opposition from animal rights groups. Councillors rejected the plan last week.

AUGUST

The future of BBC Oxford looked to have been secured. Proposals to move TV operations from North Oxford to Southampton to save money had been unveiled in the spring. But an email to staff from BBC director general Mark Thompson, himself a North Oxford resident, said: “We won’t be closing any radio stations or television regions.”

The New Bodleian Library closed its doors ahead of a four-year, £78m redevelopment.

It may have survived some choppy waters over the past quarter of a century, but a party to celebrate 25 years of the Headington shark on New High Street went ahead swimmingly.

Ten years after the start of production, the two millionth Mini was driven off the production line at Plant Oxford by Prime Minister David Cameron.

SEPTEMBER

The £2.8m repatriation centre at RAF Brize Norton opened. The centre featured a memorial garden in Norton Way, Brize Norton, for residents to gather and pay their respects. It took over the role from Royal Wootton Bassett, where people gathered in the past.

The Union Flag that once flew over the Wiltshire town was symbolically handed over at the ceremony attended by the Prime Minister, who is also the local MP Comedian David Walliams swam through Oxfordshire in his successful bid to swim the length of the Thames for Sport Relief. Crowds lined the banks of the river at Osney Lock to see him get out of the water and walk the lock before restarting without a break. He had been suffering from ‘Thames Tummy’ but still made it to Big Ben in London.

The equally dedicated Oxford City runner Hannah England showed off the silver medal that she won at the World Athletics Championship in South Korea. England produced a stunning performance to finish second in the women’s 1,500m.

Olympic fever swelled the crowds at the Fidelity Blenheim International Horse Trials. More than 60,000 people turned up to see riders compete for Olympic places.

OCTOBER

The finishing touches were put to a multi-million-pound homeless centre in Oxford. The Old Fire Station in George Street was transformed into a Crisis Skylight education and training centre for the city’s homeless.

Women in Oxfordshire were all a flutter as they jostled to get a glimpse of actor Brad Pitt. The star was filming scenes for his new film World War Z at the former American airbase at Upper Heyford.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley approved plans to create the new Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, signalling the start of a new health era in the county. The new American-style trust puts the university at the centre of local hospitals, replacing Oxford’s two existing acute hospital trusts.

NOVEMBER

Hollywood star Johnny Depp was in Oxford to speak at the Oxford Union.

A new £130m rail service from Oxford to London Marylebone failed to win approval from a planning inspector because of bats in a tunnel at Wolvercote.

Chiltern Railways and Natural England were told by Transport Secretary Justine Greening to come up with proposals to resolve the problem of bats and great crested newts.

It all seemed batty to Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith Mitchell, who earlier announced his intention to step down next May after leading the council for a decade.

The city council gave the go-ahead to build a futuristic building in a Victorian area of North Oxford. The curved structure is the creation of the famous woman architect Zaha Hadid who was asked to create an extension to the Middle East Centre in Woodstock Road.

It emerged that the remains of hundreds of patients buried at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, are going to be exhumed as part of the £500m redevelopment of the former hospital site. Up to 700 bodies are believed to lie in trenches, having been buried on the site after dying at the city hospital.

Comedian Rowan Atkinson returned to his old college, The Queen’s College, as the Duchess of Cornwall came to open its new £5m auditorium.

DECEMBER

Visitors began flooding into the Ashmolean Museum’s £5m new Ancient Egypt galleries, showcasing the museum’s world famous collections.

Library campaigners warned they would seek legal advice after county councillors backed changes that will see 21 branches across the county having to rely on volunteer staff.

There was strong reaction too at news that Oxford’s Blackbird Leys could be annexed into the Henley constituency under new Conservative plans.

A scheme to create a new community of up to 1,200 homes at Barton West was approved by Oxford City Council.

Education chiefs will be looking for better news in 2012 as it emerged that almost one in three children in Oxford starts secondary school without mastering basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

We wish them luck and a happy New Year, as we do to all our readers.