Oxfordshire weekly round-up: 24 February – 1 March 2024

England's strongest man, Paddy Haynes, rolled up a frying pan live on a radio programme this week.

It was among our most read stories this week in Oxfordshire.

A variety of local issues were featured on the BBC News website, BBC Radio Oxford and South Today.

We have picked five stories to keep you up to date.

The decommissioning of a "world-leading" nuclear fusion reactor has begun after 40 years of operation.

The Joint European Torus (JET) facility in Culham, Oxfordshire, ended experiments in December.

In its last test, the reactor produced a record amount of energy.

It is expected to take about 12 years to repurpose the reactor, with the aim to reuse as much of the machine as possible.

Two sets of siblings have reached the final of the BBC's 500 Words competition.

Sisters Zemira and Akeeva, from Oxfordshire, and brother and sister Henry and Isabella, from Hampshire, are in the running for the competition.

Of the 50 finalists, they are the only siblings to have reached this stage.

They joined the other finalists, from across the country, at an event hosted by Queen Camilla at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.

Hand-made silhouettes of 1,475 servicemen set to stand in Normandy to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day are being put together in Oxfordshire.

The art installation, by Standing with Giants, has taken Witney-based artist Dan Barton four years to plan.

Made from recycled signs, 80 local groups from choirs to veterans, guides and scouts are assembling the figures ready for their journey to France.

They will stand at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer in late April.

More than one million coffee pods have been recycled in the first eight months of a new sustainability initiative, a local authority has said.

Cherwell District Council is working with non-profit organisation Podback to collect residents' used pods and ensure they are recycled.

About 3,000 households have so far signed up for the scheme, which launched in May 2023.

After collection, the pods are taken to specialist reprocessing plants.

Detailed plans for a new classic motorcar museum and housing development have been approved despite ongoing concerns about "intolerable" noise.

US collector Peter Mullin was granted outline planning permission in 2020 for a museum at Enstone Airfield near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Mr Mullin, who died last year aged 82, had wanted the attraction to be a "one-of-a-kind".

But nearby residents objected over congestion and noise pollution worries.

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