Baldons Parish Council News

Communications

The Parish Council use the Baldons info email regularly to update residents on issues and events and to inform of District and County initiatives. It also serves as a communication method for local interest groups and residents, local events are publicised, and important notices are circulated.

If you have not registered to receive these emails and you would like to receive them, please email baldonsinfo@18896799.mailchimpapp.com or John.clark@baldonspc.org and request you are included in the mailing list. The Baldons website hosts the parish council records of meetings and other papers: http://www.baldons.org.uk

Project Gigabit. FTTP to the Baldons

Some residents have received a letter from Gigaclear advising of upcoming works in their vicinity to progress project Gigabit and connect them to FTTP services. This is a government funded and led initiative with Gigaclear to provide fibre broadband to rural villages. 

Following our latest meeting with the project leaders, we now understand that not all properties in Marsh and Toot Baldon will be offered the service. This despite us working behind the scenes with the OCC team liaison and direct with Gigaclear to try to gain further funding for the project and us challenging the reasons why some homes are not included. 

Gigaclear can only connect those properties identified and funded by BDUK, the government department responsible. Those properties that are considered either too costly to connect at this stage or have a decent broadband speed just now, have unfortunately been excluded from the Gigabit project. Whilst this is disappointing and frustrating, the properties that are not on the plan for 2025, have been included in a further roll out of fibre to premises broadband via BT in late 2026/early 2027

Gigaclear will give us more specific details of works once known and they will also arrange a community meeting around the build start time. You can find out if your property is included in this current build and connection plan by going to https://gigaclear.com/ type in your postcode if you are returned with this message:  “ sorry we are growing fast but we haven’t reached you yet”  then it’s unlikely your property has been included. You can register your interest to be kept updated. 

If you have specific queries following receipt of a letter then Gigaclear ask that you contact their Customer Operations team in the first instance,  at networkbuildqueries@gigaclear.com or by calling 01865 591137, and a member of the team in the Abingdon office will address your query.

APNR enforcement of the access only restriction for The Baldons.

We received an update from Highways at the County Council. The Council is currently going through their renewal of contracts process and need to go through this for all ANPR contracts. As these are significant in terms of costs the decision to proceed needs to go through the Cabinet decision making process. They are scheduled to go to Cabinet in mid-July. Once they have cabinet approval, they can then go through the procurement process.  So, it’s likely that it will be nearer to the end of the year before we are likely to start installing cameras on the Oxfordshire network and this will include the Baldons.

Restoration of Marsh Baldon Ponds

We met with an officer of The Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) to seek advice on the works we can carry out to restore and maintain the ponds whilst ensuring the ecosystems that support wildlife, and amphibians are maintained and managed properly.

The advice was very helpful. Next steps are to prepare a plan that stages the removal of some self-seeded saplings and some more mature trees, and pollarding others, in the South side pond this winter. Further works to be detailed and scheduled next year with advice from an environmental consultant. This year we can tackle the overgrown pond by the School. Once we have a defined timeline and plan, we will call on volunteers to work alongside TOE volunteers to do the works. We will apply for grant funding from TOE to carry out the works and are confident that it will be approved.

Village roads and drainage

The gulleys in the village were due to be attended to in April, however, this has now been rescheduled to between the months of July to September. We will update once the exact dates are communicated.

A note on the Green by laws

As a reminder, please would everyone who lives around the Green remember to take their bins back into their driveway after they have been emptied. It not only keeps the Green looking nice but also makes sure we are adhering to the bylaws that govern the use of the Green set by The Queen’s College which state that nothing should be left on the Green. Thank you.