Oxford City Conservatives

This ward is dissected on a diagonal, SW to NE, by the southern bypass. On the east side lie the remaining car plants, other factories, warehouses and retail outlets. To the west, adjoining Cowley Marsh ward, with Hollow Way as the boundary, lies a housing area. This continues northwards into Quarry ward, together with the expansions of hospital buildings in the 1930s, 1950s.) Currently the NHS is considering the sale of some of its open land, to raise funds for health services..

Lye Valley is at the furthest edge of the Oxford City area. Beyond the old factories, new light industry and warehousing on the Southern Bypass, farmland stretches out, eventually to the village of Horspath, and Shotover Park on the edge of the A40 to London.

Incomes are low, employment low, health statistics poor (12% with limiting longterm illness [2001], and 13.53% on income support [2003]. About one-quarter of adults have no qualifications. 14.45% [2001) live in Council or Housing Association properties. Private housing is atypically low-priced for Oxford – an average of £1283.495 [2002]. Rubbish dumping, commercial fly-tipping, arson attacks and drug use are urgent issues (especially in its parks, playing fields, and other open areas.)

Lye Valley is distinguished for a large area designated as an SSSI – although this is now under threat from the usual forces of housing need and the growing presence of the commercial park on its southern edge. The Lye Valley especially the North and South Fens, were for centuries (until the 1930s industrial expansion) rough grassland, with plant and wildlife habitats of great antiquity.


		Oxford City Conservatives

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