If the question is how can we reduce the congestion in Witney then Cogges Link and Shores Green are valid choices but they fall for the simplistic assumption that by building more roads congestion will decrease. Anyone who has done process engineering, trying to eliminate bottle necks, will know that when you remove one you create another. The congestion in Witney acts as a deterrent to drive so a certain number of people will choose alternate routes, vehicles or times. If sufficient demand exists then moving the bottlenecks and adding capacity will result in more journeys.

I won’t argue against adding capacity, I loath queuing traffic, but extra capacity alone is a 20th century solution. The town council leaflet uses the e-word several times. How can a proposal that bisects the only piece of natural land the public has access to in Witney ever claim to have environmental credentials.

This is Caleb sitting in country park, as far as I can tell the proposed road will cut through about 20m from where he was sitting.

What we need is a joined up planning strategy to support and promote Witney while reducing the number of cars coming into and travelling through the town. The government has committed us all to 80% cuts in CO2. Let’s fix the congestion and have genuine benefits to the environment and to peoples daily lives.

My suggestion:

- Build the Shores Green junction and…
- Start a super-frequent £1 bus service from Madley Park and Cogges
- Depending on how radical you want to be: Shut the bottom of Newland to either all cars or to single occupancy cars during peak hours

The Implications:
- Cars are forced onto A40 or the Woodstock road
- but Newland becomes much quieter
- Stagecoach buses coming in from Oxford takes less time (they use Newland)
- (hopefully) frequent buses from the main housing areas mean it’s quicker and easier than driving (along all routes)
- reduced (not just re-routed) traffic improves

So planners: make a bold choice and make a modern choice don’t be afraid to walk away from a two decade old plan.

Found this photo of a tiny Caleb

• 90 miles, 6, 7, perhaps 8 hours
• 1400ft uphill
• 1500ft downhill
• bacon sandwiches at 8 to start
• fish & chips on the beach for tea

So June 6th 13th 2009 if you’re up for it. (Typical - I pick the only weekend next summer when Rachel is busy)

(Victoria and I were working from home on Friday so we missed the usual cake)

An amazing weekend in Snowdonia. We reduced our planned four peaks to three peaks (Tryfan, Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr) due to some sore legs and incoming cloud. The weather was near perfect, 20C sunshine and a gentle breeze for nearly all the day. At the top of Tryfan we had to wait our turn to perform the traditional jump between the two rocks. It’s an easy jump but the tops have been warn smooth, they aren’t very big and the drop to one side is a long, long way down.

This is my nervous jump: Jumping Adam and Eve. I went first, by the time Paul and Pete were up they were making it look easy.

We ended the day with an unfortunately mediocre steak at ‘The Heights’ pub Llanberis and a very nice bottle of red around a campfire.

My cycle route to work is full of blackberries so I’m making the most of it and picking a punnet most evenings. The freezer is getting full so I thought I’d make up a recipe:

Ingredients

300g fresh west oxfordshire blackberries
75g fairtrade golden caster sugar
75g margarine
1 free range organic egg
125g organic plain flour
1.5  tsp baking powder
little bit of milk to mix in

Method

1. Simmer all but a few of the blackberries with 2 tbsp water then purée through a sieve.
2. Beat the butter, sugar and eggs. Add the flour and baking powder and mix add a little milk if it needs it.
   
3. Put 6 tbsp blackberry purée into the basin. Top with the sponge and remaining blackberries.
4. Microwave on high for several lots of 1 minute, when it starts to look done put a knife in (it will come out clean when it’s done).
5. Serve with any remaining purée and berries.

Serves between 1 and 3

The Rt Hon John Hutton MP
Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
1 Victoria Street
London SW1H OET

Dear Mr Hutton,

Please review the governements energy policy.

I’m happy with any source of energy so long as the carbon emitted into the atmosphere is limited. i.e Set a maximum, binding level for carbon pollution per megawatt-hour of electricity production with a medium term deadline.

If CSS can be developed to bring coal below that level then great if not then it should be used. If
nuclear is cost effective then great.

Yours sincerely,

Mr James Webster

Dear Sir,

I’d like to register my opposition to the planned Cogges Link Road. In my view the road will serious impact the beautiful public park which I enjoy running through and visiting with my two young children.

The park land is part of the Windrush floodplain which if reduced further will only exacerbate future flooding. It appears to me that the link road will simply move the traffic bottleneck and won’t reduce traffic congestion. Expanding the A40 junction at the top of Oxford Hill would achieve the same objective as the link road but with a greatly reduced impact. In the past promises have been made (regarding Mill St, Marriots Close) to replace lost park land with alternative land. In neither case the promise has been kept.

I have a beautiful photo of my son sitting in the long grass surrounded by daisies and buttercups. I’d like that photo to represent a place we can continue to enjoy and not become just a memory.

yours faithfully
James Webster

I hope we’ll see a decent level of oppostion. People are starting to get organised: http://witneyfirst.com
, and on facebook.

Magpies seem to be jacks of all trades - scavengers, predators and pest-destroyers, their challenging, almost arrogant attitude has won them few friends. With its noisy chattering, black-and-white plumage and long tail, there is nothing else quite like the magpie in the UK. When seen close-up its black plumage takes on an altogether more colourful hue with a purplish-blue iridescent sheen to the wing feathers, and a green gloss to the tail. Non-breeding birds will gather together in flocks.

source RSBP

Magpies are, perhaps, most famous for the peculiar habit of lining their nests with shiny items. As a manager I’m also tempted to allow the glittery and the shiny to distract me. The symptom is most prevalent in the absence of long term goals. When there isn’t a long term direction to maintain then the latest development framework, methodology or web app can easily take over. (It’s not hard to find something more shiny than writing a process document or performance review.) Shiny is also a metaphor for ‘the now’, it’s very easy to make your decisions based upon ‘the now’; the current project or the current performance of an employee. Think very hard about your long term objectives and keep them in focus. Then learn to recognise the genuine opportunity from the shiny bottle top.

Predator, Challenging and Arrogant are words often used to describe managers and like magpies few friends result. I don’t watch The Apprentice, not because it isn’t good tv - it’s great, but because all the hopefuls seem to be trying to make themselves into the very worst kind of managers. Noisy chattering, arrogant, predatory, glitter chasing managers.

The UI and integration with other feeds is really nice - it just works.