January:
- The year began with a Cherwell District councillor warning that the Vendee Drive roundabout on the A41 was still dangerous despite the council having made safety improvements in the previous year, following the death of David Lewis.
Ian Corkin, deputy leader of Cerwell District Council said: “The roundabout remains a problem and it will only get worse as the developments around Charles Shouler Way open up.
“Sadly, it’s only a matter of time before the coroner will have another opportunity to comment.”
- January also saw most of the store spaces in Pioneer Square opening – with gourmet kebab restaurant German Doner Kebab securing one of the units.
Business owners said they were happy to see new shops opening up, particularly after the struggle for high street businesses caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.
February:
- Swimmers took an icy plunge in February to raise money for homelessness charity, Crisis.
The charity hosted its annual Icebreaker Challenge which saw people braving a freezing cold swim at the Bicester Hotel and Spa lake.
A total of 35 people took part, with £3,577 having been raised within a week of the event.
- The first phase of the Howes Lane realignment project was also completed in February.
The project, funded by Homes England and the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal, is designed to ease increasing traffic between Howes Lane and Bucknell Road, as housing and economic development continues in and around Bicester.
A spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council said: “The county council has developed the preliminary design for the second phase, which includes the realigned road through the North West Bicester housing development.”
March:
- The owner of a dessert parlour in Bicester town centre called on the police to take action against youths who were harassing him and his staff.
Gagan Singh and his wife Harman Singh opened The Harvest Cafe in May 2021, in Evans Yard, and although business was good, the couple said that youngsters had been shouting abuse at them and damaging their cafe.
The problem reached new heights when Mr Singh and a member of his staff were attacked.
- Somewhat related, the threat of axing live monitoring of CCTV across Banbury, Bicester and Kidlington was made "in order to get attention" from police bosses.
Councillor Andrew McHugh claimed that the proposed £99,000 cut to Cherwell District Council’s funding of CCTV operations had been put forward to push through a long-awaited review of how the system works.
Mr McHugh said: “I spoke to the police and crime commissioner and pointed out to him that the vast majority of the money that goes into CCTV is to employ people to sit and watch screens where nothing happens apart from perhaps two minutes of interest per day.”
April:
- A light aircraft hit a block of flats near Camp Road, in Heyford Park Village in the first week of April.
Eyewitnesses said the pilot had escaped with a parachute and landed away from the plane.
Thames Valley Police confirmed the pilot was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
- Five houses in the Heyford Park development were allocated to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.
Dorchester Living, the developers behind Heyford Park, set aside a mix of bungalows and two-bed houses from their portfolio.
The refugee families’ visa applications were all made by this time, and they moved into the allotted houses within the next couple of months.
A spokesperson for Dorchester Living said: “We’ve been on site for years as a community house builder. We’re interested in building a community as well as houses.”
May:
- Voters across the county took to the polls in local elections.
16 of Cherwell District Council’s 48 councillor positions were up for election.
- The ever-active over 50s walking football team, the Bicester Fossils, raised money for Cancer Research with their annual auction.
Bicester Fossils over 50's walking football team
The club was successful in receiving donations from local businesses for the event.
Mark Paton, Bicester Fossil’s Charity Organiser, said: “At our last charity game we raised £3,500.”
- In preparation for more prisoners to arrive plans to expand HMP Bullingdon were submitted.
The growth of the prison – which occupies roughly 21 hectares of former of Ministry of Defence land near Bicester – is set to begin in early 2023.
June:
- More than two hundred people rallied together to put a stop to a slew of warehouse developments.
Three separate giant warehouse developments were proposed for countryside land surrounding several villages in greater Bicester, most of which are located around three or four miles north of the town.
The proposals put forward by three separate developers - Albion land, Tritax Symmetry and Oxfordshire Railfreight Ltd - would replace more than 1.2 million square metres of green space with concrete and warehouses.
Stoke Lyne resident Margot Hannah, said: “Since the developer’s proposal came in, all of us have blocked together into working groups and planned our attack.”
- Janet Ray, who set up the Bicester Food Bank in 2006, was awarded a BEM in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to the community.
Janet Ray, Bicester Food Bank founder
After founding the food bank, she recruited people to help and spread awareness of the service on radio and television, helping her to raise £250,000.
July:
- The Bicester Bean and Coffee shop’s full English breakfast challenge record was set by YouTube star and Europe’s number one female competitive eater, Leah Shutkever.
READ MORE: Breakfast challenge has a new record holder
She finished the meal - which includes five of each breakfast item: sausages, bacon rashers, black puddings, fried eggs, hash browns, pieces of toast, a bowl of beans and lots of tomatoes and mushrooms – in just eight minutes and two seconds.
Cafe owner Aly Clifton said: “She was a lovely girl. I was totally gobsmacked with how she managed to eat the whole breakfast so gracefully.”
- July also saw frustrated neighbours from a cluster of villages around Bicester campaigning to save the 250 bus – which had been serving its route for over 70 years.
The route was the villagers’ only means of public transport to reach Oxford’s city centre.
August:
- Housing developer, Hallam Land Management, submitted a planning application for a residential development of up to 75 dwellings to be built on land between the junction of Blackthorn Road and the B4011, in Ambrosden.
However, Oxfordshire County Archaeological Services said the site was an area of archaeological interest, and that an earlier evaluation had recorded Early Roman pits and ditches, which contained quantities of first century pottery, and a curved gully which contained pottery suggesting a Roman settlement nearby.
- A huge crowd turned up to indulge in renditions of classic Queen songs performed by a tribute band.
A Night with Queen – a tribute act to the legendary chart stars – brought out big smiles at Garth Park with covers of songs made famous by the 1970s and 1980s hitmakers.
September:
- The Queen sadly died in September; the news was met with politicians, councillors and religious figures in Cherwell district paying their respects to the Queen, with one former mayor describing her as the “cornerstone of our country”.
Councillor Nick Mawer, ex-mayor of Bicester, said: “She fulfilled her constitutional role in the most honourable way.
“She was the cornerstone of our country.
“She was such a long-standing monarch and therefore a lot of us associate the monarchy with her, rather than the institution itself.”
- Garth Park made the stage for the proclamation ceremony of King Charles III in Bicester, which was attended by members of the council, staff, local dignitaries and hundreds of members of the public.
October:
- A proposal to demolish Bicester East Community Centre, off the town’s Keble Road, and replace it with a new bespoke community hall and six homes was drawn up by Cherwell District Council.
However, a number of people living nearby, and who use the existing community centre, were sceptical about the building of more houses.
Householder Steve Archer commented on the planning application: “There does not seem to be enough parking for those using either the nursery or the community centre.
“It is likely the residents of the new builds will take some of the few parking spaces there are.”
- Thames Valley Police submitted proposals to establish a new ‘flagship’ technical services building in Bicester, to bring together its constituent teams.
An artist's impression of the new police building in Bicester (Image: Thames Valley Police)
The region’s Police and Crime Commissioner said the project could both launch the next phase of the North West Bicester Eco Town development and provide an example of best practice for forces around the nation.
November:
- County hostelry company Oakman vowed to plant a tree for each cup of coffee sold at its inns.
Peter Borg-Neal, founder and chairman of Oakman Group, celebrated by planting an oak in the company’s recently opened 1.2-acre Oakman Kitchen Garden at the Akerman Inn near Bicester.
- A new driving range and major golf course improvements were unveiled at Bicester hotel, Golf and Spa.
The developments are part of a £2 million investment from Great Wolf Resorts, which is building its first UK indoor water park and family resort on a site that was part of the old golf course.
Paul Morgan, general manager of Bicester Hotel, Golf and Spa, said: “We are delighted to open this new driving range and present the major improvements to our members and guests.”
December:
- After news of the death of four boys who had fallen into an icy lake in Solihull, Bicester resident Jamie Jessett took it upon himself to warn others about the dangers of playing on ice.
Mr Jessett shared a photograph of the pond in Kingsmere on the Bicester Community Chat Facebook group, and wrote: “Yesterday I noticed a few kids walking across the icy pond in Kingsmere, Redcar road (if you look at this image you can even see the footprints), one of them had a football.
“Be safe! Don’t be silly! Stay off icy ponds and lakes!”
- Bicester’s political future has hit a point of uncertainty, after MP Victoria Prentis announced she would step away from the town in favour of Banbury under plans to divide the constituency covering north Oxfordshire.
The latest set of proposals put forward by the Boundary Commission are moving forward and would see the constituency effectively split in half, with the creation of a new Bicester and Woodstock constituency alongside Banbury.
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