In a year-end interview, Oxford Mayor Gregory Henley reflects on the year that was, and looks ahead to the new year…
The year that was
Looking back on the past 12 months, Oxford residents certainly had things to talk about. We saw the rather concerning results of the U.S. election and wondered what it meant for little old us. Talk about an upheaval… and the repercussions were wide. Canada’s own federal election outcome was a direct result of the concern we felt for a new uncertain time in cross-border politics, not to mention the economic fallout… which shows no sign of becoming any smoother (or believable) for the immediate future.
Our little corner of the world, though, keeps ticking along. In the past year, Oxford has seen:
- one year (October ’24-’25) of off-road vehicles prowling two of our main streets (legally);
- construction of the new community centre moved into high gear;
- Oxford Recreation found a new leader with more energy than the Energizer Bunny;
- the provincial government moved to open up resource extraction, prompting concern that uranium mines and fracking may be coming to our backyards;
- a severe drought hit the agricultural sector hard;
- a passel of new housing developments were announced, building on the pandemic housing boom of recent years;
- our downtown businesses began an effort to make their buildings look spiffy;
- a new Bylaw Enforcement officer hit the ground running (after some chickens);
- and on a personal note, Hello Oxford lost people near and dear to us: former Six Rivers News publisher / Morning Talk host Bill Martin, and our unofficial Poet Laureate, Mike Stonehouse.
We connected with Mayor Greg Henley to talk about some of these issues, to see how he viewed the year that was, and to see if we can hope for bigger and better things in the year to come.
Free wheelin’
In October, 2024, the Town of Oxford brought into force a bylaw that allows for limited access to the community’s main thoroughfares by folks driving off-road vehicles (OHVs). Mayor Henley says the experience in the past year has been “great — you know, get downtown, get some traffic happening. I think it’s good for all parties concerned… I’m not hearing any complaints.” Henley says the committee tasked with overseeing the regulations governing those vehicles is reviewing options to expand the access to other downtown streets. In recent years, the off-road community has exploded in popularity, as can be seen on any given weekend at the trailhead on Station Street in South Oxford. Communities all over the province have enacted similar legislation allowing registered, insured OHVs to operate alongside regular traffic.
Garbage on our minds
In the 2024 municipal election, Mayor Henley made no secret of his desire to close the Oxford Depot (“Transfer Station”) and contract out a service for curbside pickup. That was soundly defeated in a plebiscite question added to the ballot, and he promised to drop the issue. That said, according to the Mayor, “I got a request from a citizen yesterday about reopening the case for having curbside pickup.” Since he’s dropping that hot potato, Henley suggested the citizen in question put it in writing to Town Council. Perhaps it could become a question that is regularly put to the townspeople, but it isn’t something he’s personally going to be advocating. Mayor Henley is concerned, though, that increasing provincial regulations may one day force the town into shutting down the Depot, due to the cost of operation.
We’re poised for real growth.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, you would be excused if you thought the town was caught in the doldrums. But emerging from those lockdowns, we saw the real estate market heat up, new houses built at a blistering pace, and that ball keeps on rolling. The creation of a new sub-division off Little River Road by Mervil Rushton continues to fill up its lots. Where three years ago there was a muddy road and more bushes and stumpage than houses, a real neighbourhood has come to fruition on Seven Lee Way.
On the South Side of Oxford, more than half of the lots between Pugwash Road and Horton Street are now occupied by houses and families. Foundry Street — which saw a $2.1-million major infrastructure project in 2024, bringing new water lines and pavement — is seeing new housing construction.
On upper Main Street, two separate developments by Robin Blake and Tim Ellis are underway on lands behind the RCMP station. And in November came surprising news, as Casey Realty Ltd. announced it had purchased land from the town along the Black River, and would break ground in 2026 on not one, but two three-storey apartment buildings, bringing upwards of 30 new apartments to the downtown core.
Mayor Henley looks at the downtown situation in particular, where on concern comes to mind: “Well, I think one of the biggest issues we’re going to be dealing with is finding parking spots for them…. almost everybody’s got a vehicle. Casey Realty, they’ll have to put in parking for their place. But there’s not a lot of parking around there. You know, we’ve got that Black River Park parking lot… maybe people will start to walk a little further… but it’s going to make a real difference. And we will see some, an increase in downtown businesses starting up or restart.”
Once the Casey Realty Ltd. apartment buildings are in place, Henley expects the sidewalk on the South Side of the Black River bridge to be re-opened, with the removal of the concrete blocks which currently divert pedestrians across the street to the footbridge by Town Hall. There may also be a need for additional crosswalks and sidewalks along Lower Main St. leading to the community centre and school.
2026: The Big Picture
If you were to ask almost any Oxford resident what needs to change in this town in the new year, you could bet on the answer being “pave Main Street!”
And it looks like that just might happen.
Town staff — particularly, Finance Manager RuthAnn Brookins and Oxford CAO Linda Cloney — have been doing the immensely complicated juggling act of stashing away cold hard cash in the capital reserve bank account, while scouring the provincial and federal government departments that could provide matching funds (and then some) to make the Main Street project happen. All the ducks are lining up, it seems, and it was accomplished by going bigger, not smaller.
Oxford has a long history, as a small municipality, of being at the mercy of the companies who bid on our “small potatoes” paving projects. Mayor Henley has frequently mentioned the exorbitant cost of paving small sections of road, since they’re just not worth the companies’ time, to bring in all the heavy equipment, labourers, secure permits and traffic control, only to realize a small profit on little jobs. That leads tenders to be higher than the typically estimated value of the job to be done. In the case of the Main Street project, the goal was to make it worth the attention of the companies that do this kind of work.
The Main Street reconstruction project, which will include not only a new water main and pavement, but also new storm drain system and a potentially major redesign of the street itself, will be undertaken at the same time as a large water works and paving project down Pugwash Road that will see the (at least) 60-year-old reservoir replaced at the town limits. Mayor Henley expects that project to have additional benefits for south side residents, as the design should include the creation of a sidewalk running from the corner of Water St. and Pugwash Rd. out to the intersection of the Thompson Rd.
The Pugwash Rd. water, sewer, and paving project is essential for growth in South Oxford: In recent years, new housing developments in the area ran up against insufficient water pressure, a situation that led the town to contract an engineering study (the “Water CAD” initiative) that mapped out the condition of the water lines in that part of town, and provided the evidence to support the proposed water line replacement effort. Oxford Town Council was left in a position where it was facing the potential need to deny further development in that area, since water service could not be assured.
It’s also a concern with regard to fire protection, as the Pugwash Road reservoir is a key source of water in the event of a situation where the fire department might need to rapidly pull significant water from the town’s hydrants. For a town where the early history saw a number of major fire catastrophes, ensuring the ability to deal with them is a priority.
As for timing, Mayor Henley expects the projects to be tendered separately, though a single company could make a successful bid for both, and only need to bring in equipment and workers for one continuous job. Henley notes, “…we want the biggest bang for our buck… there might be somebody out there who can build a reservoir quite well, but doesn’t know anything about laying roads. This is all new to pretty well all of us. So we’re going to hopefully get the okay from the province and from the feds and get the wheels on this moving.”
Walking the beat?
From the beginning of his term in office, Mayor Henley’s concern — shared by his councillors — has been finding a way to reduce the “unreasonable” bill that the Town of Oxford pays for policing services ($610-thousand in the 2025–26 budget). It’s a story that involves changing staffing deployment models, approvals (or not) from the provincial Minister of Justice, a multi-partner agreement of which Oxford is the smaller player in a scheme with the Municipality of Cumberland County and the province… in short, a complicated mechanism that despite years of review, public hearings, and pointed questions to the powers-that-be, left little room for Oxford to find much financial relief.
With the provincial government’s review of policing services completed in 2025, decisions were taken that appeared to fly in the face of the Portapique Mass Casualty Review recommendations. The RCMP remain the only option for policing services, with some slight changes. Mayor Henley says he’s communicated to the Minister of Justice “that perhaps they will start looking at communities and having what they call safety officers. They’re not policemen, but they’re enabled to enforce traffic violations, that type of thing. And they would work within the town boundaries. But in order for us to be a viable candidate to try to run this, we would have to go from 2.7 mounties to one, so we’d have money to run this program.”
At this point, Henley doesn’t know if this is a proposal that will be realized in Oxford, but he’s hopeful that there’s some wiggle room for police services that consume a significant portion of the town’s annual budget.
Onward to the New Year
Mayor Henley says he’s “very confident for 2026.” And he heaps praise on town staff for getting things under control: “I want to give a lot of credit to our financial officer (RuthAnn Brookins). She has done wonders to help us get from being the next town that was to go under to being, yeah, we’re in pretty good shape now.”
Henley is pleased at what the Town has been able to accomplish, and while he’s not anxiously awaiting the end of his time in office, “‘I’m glad I went the second term, because if this big project comes off, it’ll be a big boom to the town. The council and staff have done a wonderful job trying to make this happen. So, I mean, I’ll feel pretty good leaving on that.”
Happy New Year, Oxford!
