The meeting began with a summary of the year

Maggie Black, Chair, welcomed residents to this highlight of the WMRA year, and thanked D’Overbroeck's School for the generous loan of the newly refurbished school hall. She summarised the year as follows:

Overall it has been a peaceful and productive year, mainly thanks to the excellent Committee.

• One of the WMRA’s main tasks is to help protect the physical character of the neighbourhood, both the built and the green environment, and WMRA is extremely lucky to have such an excellent team of Bryan Pickup and Helena Webster fulfilling this function.
• The other main task is to keep a lookout for Oxford City and County Council policies and programmes having an impact on Walton Manor, for example traffic and road schemes, on which Godfrey Cole keeps a watching brief. We often do this via our Councillors, Louise Upton and James Fry, and we keep the community informed in as timely a fashion as we can. This is done via the Website https://waltonmanor.org, and the Newsletter, sent out roughly every two weeks. Other helpful news and information is also included in these outlets. Caroline Martin runs both these communications channels on behalf of the Association, and the Association is very grateful to her. For those who prefer more traditional communications channels, Janet Minot maintains the presence of printed versions on the noticeboard in Leckford Road.
• If an issue becomes ‘hot’, we may decide to hold a special meeting about it; an example was the meeting held some time back about the traffic filters, run jointly with Oxford Liveable Streets. In due course, if the situation warrants, we may do this about the Congestion Charge. But as it has only just been introduced, it is too early to say whether this will be necessary or not. In the coming year we are also going to be hearing a lot about Local Government Reform. The three alternative formats for unitary authorities in the county are now published and available for scrutiny online. Sometime early next year we will know whether Oxford City is going to be submerged in a wider geographical area authority, or become, in an expanded form, a unitary authority itself.
• Finally, we run social activities. This year we held three ‘Meet Your Neighbours’ get-togethers at the Gardeners Arms in December, April, and July. The next one will be on December 10^th. Please come along, 5.30 onwards. These have been very popular so we may manage to hold them more often in the coming year. We also held a successful OxClean in March, organised by Mary Pegler, who provided litter pickers and bags to volunteers. We will be doing that again in 2026. We need lots of volunteers, so we hope people will step up for this and for next September’s biennial Canal Festival down on the Aristotle Lane recreation ground.

We would like extend our outreach by making sure that we get our notices onto street WhatsApps and Google/email groups. Since we cannot guarantee connection to every street group in Walton Manor via committee members, we are compiling a list of such existing groups. If anyone could add to our list, and act as our link to such a group, that would be very helpful, via our email waltonmanorra@gmail.com

The planning report illuminated both continuous and one off functions that the committee carry out

Helena Webster introduced herself and Bryan Pickup as the Committee members leading on planning and conservation matters.

Helena outlined activity over the last year:

• a detailed history of Kingston Road has been added to the History section of the WMRA website, to accompany those for Woodstock Road and Walton Street. More street by street histories will be uploaded in due course.
• we have provided input to OCC who are preparing an appraisal of the Walton Manor Conservation Area (the area from Observatory Street up to Leckford Road, designated as a Conservation Area in 1975). This will assess the special features of the area and set guidelines for future development. A similar process for the North Oxford Victorian Suburb Conservation Area took place in 2018/19. There will be public consultation on the proposed appraisal, which we will publicise to members.
• we have lobbied for clarity on future maintenance of the landscaped areas installed by the County Council at the Woodstock Road ends of our streets. Neither the City nor County Councils have properly taken responsibility for this. Some public-spirited individuals are doing what they can, but this is not a long-term solution.
• we have met with other local residents groups to share experience and improve coordination (with thanks to James Fry)
• we have continued our fortnightly monitoring of planning applications, publicising the more significant ones. Most relate to rear extensions not visible from the street. We have not been monitoring applications for permission for tree works but hope that our new Committee member Laura Heybrook will assist with this.

Bryan then gave an update on current significant planning applications:

• 179 Kingston Road (the former Party Shop) : planning permission was granted to St John’s College in November 2024 for demolition of the existing buildings and construction of a block of 5 “car-free” flats. This is a slightly smaller scheme than the one first proposed for 6 flats and the external “look” has been improved. Demolition is due to start within a few weeks. There will then be a pause for more ground investigations including archaeology. Construction will take at least 12 months. [Post meeting update: demolition is now scheduled for January, with some preparatory work in advance]. We have expressed concern about the proposed route for construction traffic using Leckford Road: larger traffic will follow a one way route by St Margaret’s Road/Kingston Road to the site and Walton Street/ Beaumont Street away from the site and is intended to avoid rush and school travel hours.
• 106/106A Walton Street: this application is for 5 “car-free” flats at the rear of 106 Walton Street (formerly Daisies, now a coffee shop), replacing a single storey storage building. The scheme will face Adelaide Street and the shop at 106 will remain as is. This application has just been approved.
• Radcliffe Observatory Quarter: lots of activity here; the Schwartzman Centre for Humanities is now open and the public -ie all of us- can access the ground floor cafes. Events in the performance spaces start in May 2026, details at www.schwartzmancentre.ox.ac.uk. There is no parking on site apart from 4 disabled spaces. We are told this will be made clear to event-goers who will be advised to use park-and-ride/public transport.
• There are also current proposals to improve the landscaping in front of the Observatory itself, to redevelop the Gibson and Harkness Buildings at the north end of the site using the existing structures and for Somerville to create a new building at the southern end. The future of Freud, the former St Paul’s Church, remains in limbo.

The Treasurer’s Report showed the Association in fine health

The Association has not run any fundraising events in the last year and relies on donations to cover its limited costs. These are mainly associated with running the AGM (equipment hire, refreshments) and our website (platform fees) but from this autumn, we will also be charged a monthly fee by Metro Bank for keeping our account with them. As of the AGM we have £652.60 in the account.

We were delighted to welcome some new Committee members

The rule is to have a maximum of ten Committee members. This year the Committee was sorry to lose two longstanding members, Mary Pegler, Secretary for many years, and Charlotte Beatson. Of other members, those who for re-election were Bryan Pickup, Helena Webster, Caroline Martin and Tom Landell-Mills. New applications had been received from three new candidates, Diane Pearson, Jonathon Davis and Laura Heybrook. All these candidates seemed excellent additions, so the meeting was asked if they could support the Committee’s decision to invite all three to join, but for one of them to be an Extraordinary Committee Member for the time being. Laura Heybrook had expressed willingness to be the Extraordinary Member for the Green Environment, becoming a full member when there is a vacancy. The meeting supported this proposal by a show of hands.

The evening concluded with a talk by David Clark, local vernacular historian of note, entitled 'Gates, Railings and Street Furniture: Historic Ironwork in Oxford and Walton Manor'

This illuminating lecture, illustrated by the Speaker’s superb slides, focused on an often-overlooked element of the historic environment – ironwork. The Walton Manor area played an important part in this due to the nearby presence of Lucy’s Eagle Ironworks. And although the works closed many years ago, the company’s legacy can be seen all over Oxford. The talk first looked at some splendid examples of eighteenth-century ironwork in the city, especially ornamental gates, before returning to Walton Manor and its variety of gates, railings, and street furniture of all kinds. Finally, David Clark considered some examples of the successful replacement of railings removed during World War II when iron was needed for the war effort.

It was lovely to see so many local residents at the meeting. For anyone considering adding iron railings to their own property, the Oxford Preservation Trust has produced a guide that gives some helpful advice on historic designs and the planning process.

Another chance to get bikes checked at the North Parade Market this weekend

This Saturday, 22nd November, Michal from Oxbyke will offer a free check-up of your bike. If he cannot fix iron the spot, he will provide a quotation.
Find him at the Winchester Road junction to Noth Parade from 10 am when the market will be in full swing.

Best wishes ... stay warm in the cold weather.

The WMRA committee