This was supposed to be a normal council meeting but The Mayor had proposed that Abingdon be renamed as Abingdon-On-Thames and that issue took up most of the meeting.

But other matters first….

During the prayer at the start there was a few moments of silent prayer for Mr Peter Tyrer who died last Friday in a car accident in Kenya – where he led The African Children’s Fund.  He was also treasurer of the Abingdon-On-Thames Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of Governors at Longworth Primary.  He was one of those people who helps many others and will be impossible to replace. It was front page of the Abingdon Herald this morning and quite a shock to all who knew him.

After prayers the town council moved onto other business …

We were told that the County Council will paint Yellow lines at the top of East St Helen Street to stop any cars or taxis using the old Taxi Ranks.

An old MG could well be hoisted through one of the County Hall Museum windows as part of the permanent display.

Not much scaffolding left now as you can see in the picture of the County Hall above. The Christmas tree has arrived – donated by the Abingdon Market Traders. They have made sure it is very far from the spindly specimen that arrived a year ago which had to be replaced

Going through the planning applications I noted that the Town Council were very much in favour of the proposed changes to the precinct (aka Abbey Shopping Centre) but were against most of the changes to the Ox Pub to Tesco conversion which  subsequently got approved at the district council.

But then I saw elsewhere that the Town Council jubilee committee will be asking Tesco for buns for next years bun throwing.

Also the committee set up to oversea the jubilee celebrations now feel they have gained  a good skill-set at planning events and organising road closures and would also like to co-ordinate the town’s response to the Olympic torch being carried through town.

But the real important issue was whether Abingdon should be renamed as Abingdon-on-Thames. The Mayor said that this name change did not need to cost anything as businesses can just change the name next time they need to order stationary. All the Conservatives councillors voted in favour of this motion. They think Abingdon-On-Thames is a stronger brand name than just Abingdon on its own and will help local business to compete.

The Lib-Dems were split. Half were in favour of the rename but abstained because they thought it needed more thought and consultation before taking such a big step. Another town is going through a similar rename and have done far more investigation and consultation before taking this initial step: namely the soon to be Staines-on-Thames.

The other half of the Lib-Dems voted against. One said it was pretentious. Another said it devalued the unique status of Abingdon by adding unnecessary words.

It has been Abingdon-On-Thames before as can be seen in this sign hidden behind greenery on Broad Street …

and this sign on Ock Street. One councillor harked back to those pre 1974 days when Abingdon was a Borough saying “I look on this area of Oxfordshire as occupied Berkshire.”

I guess this rename will be a fairly popular attempt to boost Abingdon’s status and trade, but I am not sure yet how deep the rename must go and how it will play out. The district council must approve it first.  I have registered a new domain name for this blog just in case, and I see that somebody has already snapped up the domain abingdononthames.com a day ago. It is now parked on one of those domain resale sites – probably in the hope of making money from it.