View all the latest details in reference to the planning permission for the village hall site

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Bletchingdon Community Project

Village Meeting

In the village hall At 7.30

On Tuesday April 5

Everyone is invited to come to this meeting.

 

The purposes are:

To explain the whole project and the responses to the questionnaire. To explain what we already know....and what we still don’t

To ask for discussion and comments.

To explain what may, with luck, happen next.

The meeting seems likely to take about two hours. Tony Saunders, Chair of the Parish Council, will chair the meeting.

All welcome.

Where we are now There have been two village surveys so far. Thanks to everyone who responded.

The questions we circulated in February/March have given as much outline thinking as was needed to build the best possible plan.

When we get nearer to an actual building we will need to ask more detailed questions about some of the activities.

We know where most of the money (quite a necessary item!) seems likely to come from. But not all of it.

We hope that people from the village will become more involved and offer help if they are able to give some time and thought. Thanks to all who have already.

A digest of responses from the questionnaire is on the next page. Many other detailed comments have been noted for future use. Once .again, thanks to all those who took the trouble to answer.

Bletchingdon Community Project The Questionnaire: Summary

What people wrote on the questionnaires arid told us on their doorsteps has helped to develop a shared idea of what the village needs. You could easily say there is nothing much here that people haven’t been saying for years. The survey has helped to bring it all together and put shape on it.

The whole idea does now centre on building two new buildings, but there is a much wider idea behind that. As we have nudged our way towards being able to say clearly “what we need in Bletchingdon” two main sets of themes have become a great deal more clear.

The first set of themes that the village identifies are: Health, Education, Transport, Family, Older People, Teenagers. We need important things in each of them.

One interesting finding within the Transport theme is that everyone knows we need to cut down on petrol. The more the village can keep activities in the village, the more affordable village life becomes. This is true for all parents who spend a lot of time (and petrol) at the moment bunging their kids into cars. It is just as true for the many older people who pointed out that the bus timetable is not convenient for either Woodstock or Kirtlington (unless you can do your shopping in about one minute flat!) Of course there is no transport to Islip.

Four general themes cut across these horizontally. These are Community, Keeping well, Life chances, Economic Development. Over quite a long time, measuring progress in each of these four themes will help us to know how the village is progressing and so to plan for further actions.

Findings from Second Village Survey

Including people who chatted but didn’t actually fill in a form we got nearly 50% response from the village. Most similar surveys would reckon that’s pretty good.

 

 

 

Hi, I used to live in Bletchingdon in the 1980s. I was very struck by the story of Bletchingdon Manor, Frank Windebank and Oliver Cromwell in 1644, and turned the tale into a a poem. Best wishes, John

Bletchingdon Manor

Candlelight and firelight within the hall were burning bright,
The wine was glowing in the glass to warm the chilly winter night,
Within the circuit of the walls, a holiday from war’s declared
The lovely Lady Windebank to meet her friends has long prepared.

As songs and games the night beguile, the soldiers on their duty smile,
They have not heard these pleasant sounds for such a long and dreary while,
It makes them think of distant homes, this present conflict but a dream:
Outside the walls a horse’s breath drifts upwards in a frosty steam.

Then like some dark and silent tide, the skilful troopers silent ride,
And flowing round about the house, encompass it from every side.
The moon is down: but starlight gleams on bit and bridle, gun and sword,
And, colder still, within their eyes, as they await their Leader’s word.

Their Leader rides up to the gate: sits easy, sure in his estate,
“Hollo, the Garrison!” he cries, and settles down again to wait.
Young Frank is fetched. “What force is this? The gate was locked long hours ago”.
“Yet Cromwell and his Eastern Horse will enter, be it locked or no.”

“General, you can but try, and I shall keep you out, or die.
One small request before we start I think you cannot well deny.
Some ladies are within the walls – the merest girls – my wife is one.
Give them safe conduct from the house before the battle is begun”.

“No, sir. You know as well as I the rules of war that here apply.
A summonsed garrison may yield, and safely lay its weapons by.
Or else resist. But if they lose, no mercy’s to the losers due.
Their lives are to the victors given, to sport with as they wish to do”.

“I owe a duty to my King, that custom sets o’er everything,
And to my name, that I should not dishonour on it ever bring,
And to my cause, to see that law and justice in the end endures,
And to my friends, lest they should fail, and fall in bloody hands like yours,

But King and country, name and friends must take their chance as Heaven sends,
If fortune brings them to defeat, then fortune yet may make amends,
If King and State should lose a round, time may their fortunes yet restore,
But if I lose my only love, then she is lost for ever more”.

Frank, together with his bride, to Oxford town next morning ride
His plea of overwhelming force he hears the King himself deride,
He hears himself a traitor named, whose cowardice is plainly seen;
He’s bundled swiftly from the place, and shot next day on Gloucester Green.

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