The former restaurant on Witney High Street which will be turned into flats. Picture: Google Maps A RESTAURANT that never had much success on Witney High Street will be turned into three flats, with a promise they will be aimed at young professionals. The former Thai Bangla restaurant at 79 High Street, will be gutted and turned into the flats, one of which will be built into a new extension to the back of the building. Several businesses have tried to make a go of the restaurant, but none have lasted long. The building’s current owner, Nathan Pathmanathan, said the restaurant has become ‘commercially unviable’.
A brand new farm shop and cafe is planned for Ducklington by a well-known farming family. Randal and Helen Strainge, of Ducklington Farm, are planning to offer high welfare butchery and deli counters at the shop and to sell craft drinks, fresh, frozen and pantry goods as well as weigh-your-own dry ingredients. The Ducklington Farm Shop and Café will create up to 15 full-time jobs and provide an outlet for fellow farmers and food producers in the county. Up to a third of its products will come from within a 30-mile radius and around 20% from the Strainges own farm – including Ducklington Farm’s Easycare lamb, Oxford Sandy and Black pork and Boer goat.
YOUNG people are being asked to take part in a competition designed to highlight hate crime. The aim is to create a piece of work, which can be a video, song, poem, play, short story, artwork or even a meme. Organised by the West Oxfordshire Community Safety Partnership (WOCSP), participants need to be aged between 11 and 16, with themes focussing on discrimination, experiencing and reporting hate crime, and accessing support. Merilyn Davies, cabinet member for communities and housing at West Oxfordshire District Council, said: “Hate crime should never be tolerated at any level and it is important that our young people understand it and know what to do if they are a victim or witness it.
ORGANISERS of two of Oxfordshire’s biggest music festivals are still hoping to stage events for tens of thousands of people this summer despite the cancellation of the country’s biggest festival, Glastonbury. Cornbury Festival, in Great Tew, near Chipping Norton, and Truck Festival, in Steventon, told the Oxford Mail that they were cautiously planning to proceed, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Glastonbury Festival was cancelled for the second year in a row because of Covid. It had been hoped that the celebration of music and arts – which was set to feature Oxford band Supergrass – would be able to go ahead this June, after it was called off in 2020 on what would have been its 50th anniversary. However, farm owner Michael Eavis and his daughter Emily said last month: “In spite of our efforts to move heaven and earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the festival happen this year.”
Teresa Archer, chief officer at Citizens Advice West Oxfordshire In March, some of our volunteers decided to start isolating prior to the national lockdown announcement. We started to restrict our appointments as we had fewer resources, and more clients started cancelling face-to-face appointments. During the week of March 23 when lockdown was finally announced, we saw unprecedented demand on our Adviceline at the point where we had little capacity to answer it. Within two weeks we had 35 volunteers and all of our staff working remotely from home. We adapted our support systems to ensure that we are providing quality supervision and support to our volunteers and staff, providing supervision remotely through video calls.