Bicester Asylum Site A: Three Councils Lodge Objections

North Oxfordshire has two towns and they are nothing like each other. Banbury sits on the Cherwell and the canal at the top of the county, an old market and manufacturing town with the cross in the middle of it. Bicester, fifteen miles south, is a growing town on the M40 with new estates going up around its edges and a long-running argument about the roads to serve them.

Banbury Online covers both, along with the villages strung between them. They share a district council, which means they share a planning policy, a bin round and a set of car park charges, and the decisions behind those are published where few people look. We read them and report what is in them, linking to the document each time.

Start here

• Banbury house prices: the median Banbury home sold for £290,000 over the last year, £56,000 less than Bicester. Ward by ward, from Land Registry sales.
• Trains to London: 1 hour 2 minutes at best, first train 05:17, and what the season ticket actually costs.
• Roadworks and travel: what is shut now, what is ordered for the autumn, and the routes that carry the town.
• Things to do: the free museum, the £13 castle and the brewery tour you have to book.
• Planning news: 20,042 homes to 2042, 3.1 years of land supply, and a council the government has designated.

Three sections

• Local Info: house prices, trains, roadworks and the practical detail you look up rather than read.
• News: the public record, including planning decisions in Banbury, Bicester and the villages.
• What’s On: what is happening in both towns this week.

Nothing goes up without a link to the source it came from.