Oxton Village Annual Review 2004

Once again I come to the end of another eventful year in Oxton where a number of changes have taken place in and around the village. As I look out of my upstairs window I can see the Christmas lights that once again illuminate the centre of the village funded largely as a result of the fundraising efforts of the Oxton Society and also by local traders. Looking over the road the recently completed Roklis manor development has begun taking in new residents and we have a new restaurant and renamed Public House. Many of the developments underway at the start of the year in the centre of the village have been completed. Roklis Manor in Claughton Firs was completed during the year replacing the garage that previously sat half way down Claughton Firs and has greatly improved the general nature of the road. The flats in Prices Lane also went to market offering cosmopolitan living in the centre of the village. Towards the end of 2004 the Oxton Arms was refurbished, renamed and re-opened as the Oxton Bar and Terrace. Although I haven't had time to partake of a drink in it yet I have to say that it looks quite nice from the outside. Future Fraiche was the latest addition to the village restaurants which replaced the Restaurante Roma during 2004. It appears to have had a pretty successful first few months after being named as the Merseyside Restaurant of the year. It offers an alternative to the Bamboo and Villajazz with a much less "bistro" like atmosphere and a more select menu. Other changes in the village included the opening of a new gift shop called Olivers Gifts on the corner of Christchurch and Village Road. This shop offers specialised toys and gifts for Weddings Christenings and new born babies.. The much talked about Secret Gardens event was a huge success and, as promised, bigger and better than the previous year. I spent the full day of this years event making sure that I took at least three pictures from each of the 21 gardens on show. These were added to the newly developed Secret Gardens section of the site which this year had a butterfly theme. The event itself has now raised over £42,000 the majority of which has been given to Wirral based charities. the remainder of the money has been used to fund projects in the village such as the hanging baskets, new benches and the Christmas lights. As well as being a opportunity to visit varied gardens around Oxton, it has also turned into a great social event. During this years event Rose Mount was closed and street entertainers performed whilst the traders of Rose Mount provided refreshments including a bar-b-q. Local artists displayed their work on Mount Pleasant whilst bands entertained visitors at one of the gardens where a garden party was also held. At the start of December the first Oxton Art fair took place at the Williamson Art Gallery and was a huge success attracting a constant flow of visitors over weekend that it was open. The exhibition showed the varied artwork of fifteen local artists with plans already being made to repeat the event next December when no doubt it will be even bigger and better. The web site has continued to attract visitors over the year although I have unfortunately not had as much time as I would have liked to continue to develop it due to personal circumstances. I managed to complete a gallery throughout 2004 which was one of the targets that I set myself at the start of the year and also created a comprehensive gallery of pictures from the 2004 Secret Gardens event. On 8th July 2004 the site received its 20,000'th visitor	The Oxton Calender for 2005 is still available from a number of traders in the village with this years version including twelve pictures by residents of Oxton. A couple of Images from 2004 Claughton Firs view from Prices Lane (above) and Future Fraiche, new restaurant in the village (below)
During the year I decided to remove the noticeboard from the site as basically it didn't appear to be attracting that many visitors anyway. It was also costing me money to keep the adverts off the noticeboard and when I stopped paying this and the adverts appeared these were quite frankly slightly irritating. I may look to develop my own noticeboard during 2005 as I do think that it would be good to have a method for guests to leave comments on the site. In the meantime if anyone does want to give any feedback feel free to contact me via email. Recently I have noticed that the links section of the site definitely requires some attention so I may well spend the early part of next year looking at trying to renew existing links and to see if I can find any other interesting locally themed sites. So once again any suggestions for useful links would be greatly appreciated. After spending 10 years living in Oxton I am moving away from the area into Cheshire at the start of January. I have decided that I will leave the site up on the internet for the time being however, I will probably not be spending much time developing it. I do intend to remain a constant visitor to the area and will hopefully keep up my trips to the annual Secret Gardens and Oxton Art Fair plus I hope to visit many Tranmere Rovers games in the coming years... who knows I may even start an "Oxton thoughts from abroad" section for any ex-pats to send in comments on life in the village at they remember it ..any takers ? Finally I hope that everyone has an eventful and Happy 2005 and as usual I would welcome any thoughts or articles for the site that can be emailed to me directly on webhost@oxtonvillage.com