Category Archives: News

Monday 6^th May 2019 – The trespassers finally left here yesterday.

A good number of residents have kindly volunteered to clean up the mess. Please don’t attempt this; the rubbish includes commercial waste, human excrement and other potentially hazardous items.

The Landowners, Taylor Wimpey, have already arranged for the professional removal and clean up of the area. This will likely take several days to complete, so please continue to avoid, especially if you have children or pets with you.

The GWPRA will continue to work with the Landowners, District Councils and Police, to prevent a re-occurrence of the illegal encampment. This will take to form of physical defensive measures, Court Orders in place and push for a change in legislation, to give greater powers of enforcement to protect the GWP Public Open Spaces long term.

Thank you to all who reported crimes and suspicious activity to the Police and informed the rest of the community. Remaining vigilant and looking out for your neighbours helps minimise the impact and reinforces the great community spirit we have here in Great Western Park.

This is to give acknowledgement to outstanding members of our Community, who otherwise might not receive the recognition they deserve. The aim is to encourage them and others to continue or start deeds, which benefit the whole community. This is a new initiative for 2019 and we are working it out as we go along, if you have any suggestions, please do contact the committee.

First ever to receive the award was Tammi Williams, for ALL HER HARD WORK AND DEDICATION IN ORGANISING THE GWP LITTER PICKS AND PROMOTING GOOD PRACTICES AMONGST HER FELLOW DOG WALKERS. She was presented her award on Monday 8^th April 2019 at the Residents Meeting.

Ian Snowdon will receive his GWPRA Community Award for HIS EXCEPTIONAL SUPPORT OF THE GWP RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION, SPECIFICALLY ALL THE WORK DONE TO REPRESENT THOSE AREAS OUTSIDE HIS ROLE

Steve Dosset will receive his GWPRA Community Award for ALL HIS EFFORTS IN BRINGING JOY TO GWP WITH HIS HALLOWEEN AND CHRISTMAS LIGHTING SPECTACULARS, ALSO FOR ALL HIS GOOD WORK KEEPING THE ROADS CLEAR OF SNOW.

Steve and Ian will both be presented their awards at the next meeting and AGM on Monday 13^th May 2019, at 19:30hrs, Boundary Park Pavilion. Please do come along to wish them well.

Jimmy Reade will receive his
GWPRA Community Award for HIS INSPIRATIONAL EFFORT IN CLEARING SNOW FROM THE GWP ROADS AND PATHS, HIS RUNNING TO RAISE FUNDS FOR CHARITY, ALONG WITH THE COMMUNITY WORK FOR GWP CHURCH.

Jimmy will be presented his award at the Monday 10^th June 2019 Residents meeting.

Well done to those receiving GWPRA Community Awards and thank you to all the other residents, who contribute so positively to making GWP a pleasant place to live.

Gareth Clarke [GWPRA Chairperson]

The GWPRA Service Awards are to give recognition and thanks to long serving members of the GWPRA, who have committed their valuable time, without payment, to serve their community by working for the Residents Association.

Currently the awards are personally funded by the other members of the GWPRA committee.

Former GWPRA Secretary – Natalie Houghton (Hudson) served as the GWPRA Secretary between May 2012 and December 2018.

Natalie attended over 60 meetings and many of the Community Events. She directed countless queries from the pubic and provided the vital regular communications email to GWP Residents.

She only left after getting married and moving house to outside the area. Aside being a huge credit to the GWPRA, she provided exceptional service to the Great Western Park Community over nearly 7 years.

There is currently a Poll running on our Facebook group to gauge the opinions of Residents.
“Do you support plans to help prevent people setting up illegal encampments on the Public Open Spaces of GWP in the future? ” Yes or No. If you are unable to use Facebook to vote and are a Resident or work in GWP, please email chairperson@gwpra.org.uk to register your opinion before 7th May 2019 .

On Friday 26th April 2019, one of our District Councillors, Cllr. Ian Snowdon, organised a meeting with Matthew Barber, the deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police and I.

This was to look at measures to improve the current immediate response, the medium term response and long term.

Immediately

1. Please report all criminal or antisocial behaviour to Thames Valley Police appropriately; evidence of breaches of the S61 conduct notices is required. (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/61) So if safe to do so, please include photographs or save CCTV footage to be used in evidence and make factual notes of the incident. If it is too lower level to report to the Police, but causing you harassment, alarm and distress please email chairperson@gwpra.org.uk with the details as above. Cllr. Ian Snowdon and I are collating all the community impact factors for future use.
2. Please be extra vigilant for you and your neighbours and be aware that other criminal elements will potentially take advantage of the illegal encampment, to mask their own illegal activities.
3. If you have any related animal or child welfare concerns please report to the RSPCA or Social Services.
4. Matthew Barber is personally raising the issue with TVP Senior Officers, to ensure the response is stepped up and measures are in place ready to enforce the legal eviction.
5. I appreciate it is very frustrating and difficult but please refrain from posting unhelpful or malicious comments but do share facts and information between the community, to allow us to protect ourselves from the adverse consequences of the illegal encampment.
6. Ian Snowdon is organising the clean up plans for after they leave are in place, with the Developer and other authorities
7. Ultimately this is the legal responsibility of the landowners, Taylor Wimpey, to arrange eviction. So if you have concerns or want to impress upon them the urgency of the problem, please email
   *oxfordshirecustomerservices@taylorwimpey.com and register your concerns.

Medium Term measures are to improve the “hardening” against further incursions, without spoiling the view. Residents will be involved in this process.

It is also to develop a rapid response plan, which involves all agencies, in order to deliver a high quality response in a timely manner. It will also include the clean up process and improved warning and intelligence sharing with neighbouring areas, to assist in preventing the encampments being able to be established. Ian Snowdon will endeavour to get SODC involvement in this process even prior to the adoption from Taylor Wimpey, which is over 3 years late already. Matthew Barber also stated it was his goal to arrange other practical measures, such a better provision of Transit Camps, in order to assist with resolving the issues.

Long term measures were also discussed and Matthew Barber was keen to get the legislation reviewed in Parliament around illegal encampments. This is in order to provide better legal protection to landowners, local authorities, the police and ultimately the local residents.

We are fortunate enough to live in a lovely part of Oxfordshire and naturally want to keep it that way. The GWPRA will update residents with any further information, hopefully you can be reassured that things are being done to resolve the situation now and help prevent it occurring again in the future.

Gareth

GWPRA Chairperson *Updated

Dear Residents,

The next GWPRA meeting will take place on Monday 8th April 2019 at 7.30pm, at the Boundary Park Pavilion, Great Western Park.

Everyone is invited to the meetings, so please come along, take the opportunity to meet your neighbours and find out more about your community. 

The agenda for the meeting will be introduced on Facebook, suggestions welcome and is published here.
 

We hope you can join us.
Kind regards,

Gareth – GWPRA Chairperson

Dear Residents,

The next GWPRA meeting will take place on Monday 11th March 2019 at 7.30pm, at the Boundary Park Pavilion, Great Western Park.

Everyone is invited to the meetings, so please come along, take the opportunity to meet your neighbours and find out more about your community. 

The agenda for the meeting will be published on our website prior to the meeting. 

We hope you can join us.
Kind regards,

Gareth – GWPRA Chairperson

Dear Residents,

The next GWPRA meeting will take place on Monday 11th February 2019 at 7.30pm, at the Boundary Park Pavilion, Great Western Park.

Everyone is invited to the meetings, so please come along, take the opportunity to meet your neighbours and find out more about your community. 

The agenda for the meeting will be published on our website prior to the meeting. 

We hope you can join us.
Kind regards,

Gareth – GWPRA Chairperson