Category: Thame news

AN elderly woman is seriously injured in hospital following a head-on collision this lunch time on the Long Crendon to Bicester Road.
The woman had to be cut free from her car but a family in the second vehicle escaped serious injury and were tended by fire crew who were first on the scene.
The accident happened at around 12.30pm and the road was closed for almost three hours while a police investigation into the cause of the accident was begun and the road cleared.

PLANNING permission for two houses on the old Thame ambulance station has been granted despite the opposition of residents and the town council.
South Oxfordshire District Council stated that: “The principle of development of the site complies with the relevant Development Plan Polices. Sketch plans accompanying the application, whilst not definitive, serve to demonstrate that two dwellings can be accommodated on the site and meet the Council’s housing development standards.”
Some near-by residents were concerned that their gardens would be overlooked by the proposed development and that valuable parking space would be lost to residents of Mitchel Close.
See the original news report of the relevant meeting of the town council’s Planning committee.
Link

SWIMMER, Simon Burnett, formerly from Tetsworth, beat his training partner and fellow student on Sunday, to win a Gold medal at Melbourne.
The 22-year-old, who studies business and trains at the University of Arizona in the United States with his training partner, Schoeman, won the 100m freestyle in a new Commonwealth Games record time of 48.57 seconds.
Last Thursday, Simon was just pipped at the post in the 200m Freestyle event – by 9/10th of a second, taking the Silver medal.

THAME computer support company, SoundByte Response, have joined forces with a London-based charity to send obsolete computer equipment to schools and charity projects in the Developing world.

Soundbyte have agreed to act as a collection point for all suitable hardware and will bear the cost of getting the machines to London where volunteers prepare them for use overseas.

Computer Aid International has already shipped more than 60,000 PCs to 99 different countries. Of those 60,000 shipped, over 45,000 have gone to educational institutions and the remaining to community organisations working in fields as diverse as HIV/Aids, environment, human rights, and primary healthcare.

Soundbyte Managing Director, Simon Gray, explained:
“We have been supporting ComputerAid since the Thame Festival last year but didn?t have the space to act as a collection point for them. But now that we?ve moved to larger premises in Wellington Street, we can help forward this hardware rather than it ending up in landfill.”

As Computeraid themselves stress, not all equipment is suitable:”We are currently able to make use of any Pentium III or IV machines and any related peripheral equipment. Importantly we also need your mice, keyboards, modems, cables and power leads, memory and other peripheral parts.?

Soundbyte are also accepting monitors, as long as they are working and are not larger than 17? but make a nominal charge for testing and shipping. Soundbyte can also clean all the existing data from your machine prior to donation.

If you have equipment to donate then you can take it to Soundbyte?s computer clinic at Avon House, 82 Wellington Street, Thame, during office hours or call 01844 216981 for more information.

THAMES’s Member of Parliament, Boris Johnson, will be in Thame next Friday for his Surgery, despite being injured when he ran into a tourist in London yesterday.
Boris was treated for a sprained wrist at a London hospital and is not expected to be seen on his bike for some time.
Read the full story in the Daily Telegraph

Photo: Boris with his bike pictured at the inauguration of Art on the Phoenix Trail in Thame.

ONE of Thames Valley Police’S most experienced and senior Scenes of Crime Officers was honoured on Friday March 10, by the three High Sheriffs of Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

Karen Smith, the acting Forensic Services Manager, based at Thame, has been awarded the Shrievalty Merit Individual Award for her work investigating crime scenes including many high-profile murder enquiries during 2005.

Nominated for the award by the Chief Constable, her citation reads: ?Karen has demonstrated the ability to balance the needs of the case with the welfare of staff and has shown great empathy and consideration for the families of the victims.
?Karen is highly respected for her skills, professionalism and hard work.
?In addition, she has also devised the Forensic Unit response to the Safer Homes initiative and introduced systems which increased burglary scene attendance and which resulted in a quicker and more effective process for the submission of forensic evidence.?

Karen, who has been with Thames Valley Police since 1988, said: ?I am absolutely delighted to receive this award and pleased that my work has been recognised in this way.
?The award covers a particularly busy period for major crimes combined with the implementation of the Safer Homes campaign.
?I therefore hope that this award will reflect on my colleagues in the Forensic Investigation Unit without whom we would not have been able to achieve such notable results.?

Acting Chief Constable Sara Thornton said: ?The Shrievalty Award is very prestigious and the individual award in particular highlights exceptional work over a long period of time.
?Karen Smith?s award is very well deserved. Her role is a vitally important side of policing the public does not often see.
?Her work has helped catch criminals using the latest methods and brings them to justice.”

THE A418 road, between and Shabbington, was closed yesterday following a serious gas leak.
The incident began when water contractors were excavating to find their pipes along the stretch of the road where a cycle path is currently being built. During that operation, the contractors noticed a corosion hole in a main gas pipe and immediately Southern Gas was called to deal with the problem.
Workers in the near by offices of North Weston farm were evacuated for safety reasons and bowysers had to be called in to fill a header tank that feeds animal water troughs before it ran dry and caused air locks in the system. Local residents reported a very strong smell of gas and one farm worker reported feeling ill after working for several hours in and out of the farm.
The road was completely closed to traffic between 5pm yesterday, (Tuesday) and 4am this morning, and today, Southern Gas say repairs have been carried out and the area is now safe.
At the time of this report, some residents in the area were still without mains water.

AT a time when ‘Ethical purchasing’ is bucking the retail trend, by growing nationally, a Fair Trade fashion show, staged by a Thame retailer, has raised

ON the day that a hose-pipe ban throughout Oxfordshire, has been announced, the future of Thame’s summer hanging baskets is to be considered by the town council.
The county’s water shortage has reached crisis level and because of the amount of watering the town centre baskets require to survive the summer months, the town council’s Culture, Leisure and Recreation Committee will consider their future at its meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, 6.30pm in the council chamber.

Photo: For illustrative purposes only