Roads Maintenance and Housing Repairs

 More from the City Council as of 5pm Monday 20th Dec

Roads Maintenance

Two bulk gritters, complete with snow ploughs, have been working throughout the day on our priority gritting routes in the City to enable the majority of bus routes to continue to operate.

In addition to the two main gritting routes, additional snowploughs and gritters have been deployed across the City to deal with localised problems.

The Direct Services Streetscene teams have been re-deployed to clear snow and apply grit to high footfall and shopping areas across the City including the City Centre, Summertown, Headington, Cowley Road and other local shopping areas such as Templar Road, Cherwell Drive, St Nicholas Road, Blackbird Leys Road and Underhill Circus.

Resources have also been deployed to clear snow and ice from the approaches to health centres including Manzil Way and Dunnock Way.

We are working closely with the County Council to manage our salt supplies and arrangements are in place to supplement our supplies from the County’s large stock at Drayton.

Our gritters will commence work at 8pm and will work through the night to cover major routes

Housing Repairs

We are currently dealing with a large number of frozen or burst water pipes and loss of heating in Council properties. Our first priority is the elderly and vulnerable but our aim is to get to everyone within our Service Standard of 24 hours for an emergency call.

Our emergency service is being run using 4x4 vehicles and we have escalation plans in place should the snow arrive this evening.

Recycling and Waste update from Oxford City Council

I don't normally put service announcements in this blog but we are in extreme weather at the moment so please see below:

Subject to there being no more significant snowfall overnight, Oxford City Council  plans  to run the following Recycling and Waste service:

For those who live on major bus routes that have been gritted and whose normal residual or food waste collection day is Tuesday we intend to run a reduced service where possible.

The following services are suspended:

• garden waste


• bulky waste (including white goods and fridge freezers)


• bin and box deliveries


• co-mingled recycling

We will be running a limited trade waste collection service within the city centre and major retail areas where possible. We will also, where accessible, provide a collection service to flats.

We will collect clinical waste where possible.

For collections the rest of the week we will confirm the afternoon on the day before they are due to take place whether or not our crews will go out – for instance the decision on whether crews go out on Wednesday will be made on Tuesday afternoon.

Due to the anticipated build up of extra waste in the next few days, where collections have been missed, a reasonable amount of side waste can be put out on collection days. This should be placed out as follows:

• general/residual waste – black sacks only


• recycling – either in recycling or cardboard box or clear bags


• food waste – in extra biodegradable bags or, if not available, please place in normal household waste.

Central South and West Area Committee

We met this evening at West Oxford Community Centre.  The agenda was not huge.

We started with a good summary from Craig Rossington from the County Council about transport and roads plans for the next 20 years.  Clearly this is a long term strategy but it's good to see the County Council thinking strategically even in these straightened times.  I think we all agreed that there has hitherto been over-regulation in the City Centre and that the cycling restrictions on Cornmarket and Queen Street are not ideal as considerate cyclists would be careful to work with, rather than against, pedestrians and careless inconsiderate ones probably ignore the restrictions anyway.  We also agreed that the traffic lights at the junction of Broad Street, Catte Street, Holywell Street and Parks Road are a waste of time as there is very low traffic flow at that junction, many cyclists ignore them and they don't even have a pedestrian phase!

We had a good report from Dave Huddle who has done some excellent work on street scene issues and similarly from Matthew Bullivant of Thames Valley Police.

We had two planning applications to determine - one was a technical matter that had to come to committee and be done in public because it was an application by the council to the council.  We approved that without discussion.  The other was for the old Marlborough House pub in Grandpont that has been vacant and boarded up for some time.  It read "Demolition of rear outbuilding. Erection of ground floor extension. Change of use from public house to cafe on ground floor and 4 x 1 bedroom holiday apartments on the ground and 1st floor and 1 x 1 bed flat on 2nd floor. Provision of cycle parking and bin storage."  It's always a shame to lose a pub but it had gone anyway so the application was approved.  A very local resident also took the trouble to come along to give her supporting views of the application, for which I was grateful.

The other planning application was just for our comments and was for a for a big redevelopment on the corner of St. Aldates and Queen Street which has been festering for a long time.  As with all major projects, developers have to provide money sometimes called "section 106" money to the local authorities to mitigate the effects of the development on infrastructure things such as roads, schools, libraries etc.  This application had reached stalemate as the developers were offering about £200k and the planners were recommending about £1.9M.  Personally I thought some of the proposed buildings would have been a bit out of place too although I would have welcomed a new way through to Queen Street from St. Aldates that didn't go via Carfax.

We meet again on 11th Jan if there are any planning applications to determine.  If not, then on  8th Feb.  We may not have many area committees left as the Labour administration of Oxford City Council is planning to abolish them early in the new year.  I think this is a terrible blow for local democracy but rather typical of Labour.

Full Council and Lord Mayor's Christmas reception

We had two brief full council meetings today.  The first was to decide on which of the government modernistation schemes we wanted to adopt.  It was a bit pointless as this is legislation that is a hangover from the last Labour government that will probably now never come into force.  As a City Council we don't like either option but have a statutory duty to choose one of them at the moment.  The Greens wasted a lot of time with a ridiculous amendment trying to wreck the whole thing.  Thankfully it fell otherwise we would have risked being outside of current legal requirements on the council.  I fully expect the Greens to produce another misleading leaflet that claims that Labour and the LibDems have voted against democracy.  We'll see.

The other council meeting (which legally had to be a separate meeting) decided on a couple of committee memberships following the Barton by-election and I'm pleased to see that our own Cllr Mark Mills is now a Lib Dem member of the appointments committee.  We also talked about e-petitions and I got an amendment accepted by the leader of the council that just clarified a few things around e-petitons and collecting validated e-mail addresses rather than actual signatures.  I was pleased to be able to  make a constructive and accepted amendment, as a member of the opposition.

After those meetings we had the Lord Mayor's Christmas reception which is a great opportunity to invite people from local charities to meet local councillors and other dignitaries.  Councillors all get to invite a friend too so I invited Pearl Lewis, the coordinator of Oxford Street Pastors and Martyn Chalk, a neighbour and local film director, founder of Chalkstar Films.   Excellent networking opportunities were exploited to the full by all present.  The event is always a joyous occasion and it's a great opportunity for the Lord Mayor to express his or her gratitude to all those who do so much for our City on a voluntary basis or as part of its many charities.

My thoughts on the coalition vote on tuition fees

The short version of this post is that I think the decision stinks and I am ashamed of the way the most senior members of the Lib Dems have seemingly ignored party policy and reneged on their election pledges.  I am staggered.  Just this week I have been really upset to hear young people I know having lost all their aspirations to go to University because the sort of debt figures they are facing are numbers they cannot even consider, however much later in life and higher in salary they might have to pay them off.

I represent a ward that is about 65% students and I am feeling like they have all been terribly let down by my party.  I have considered resigning, and indeed Richard Huzzey, who used to be a City Councillor for Holywell Ward until his academic career took him abroad, had indeed done so.  He's written an excellent article about it in Lib Dem Voice.

I could leave the Lib Dems over this but all that would achieve is effectively terminating any representation I can offer for students, and the other people that live in Carfax, to Oxford City Council.  As an independent I would immediately have virtually no voice, no committee seats and no power.  It would make me far less effective as a representative of those who elected me.  We may not like it, but that's the way party groups work in local authorities.  It's the law!  I stood as a LibDem in 2010 and was elected by nearly 1000 people who I believe expected me to represent them as a LibDem for four years. I don’t intend to renege on that promise even if my party’s MPs have reneged on theirs. I certainly won’t be joining any other parties as if people in Carfax ward had wanted a councillor from another party I guess they would have voted for one.

To those who say that we're in  a coalition so we can't win all the battles and pursue everything in our manifesto, that's true but  not pursuing a policy is one thing - that's called abstention.
Pursuing an entirely opposite and contrary policy is entirely different - that's called selling out and reneging on promises.  The first is pragmatic, the second is shameful.

I can entirely sympathise with those who feel the Lib Dem government ministers are not representing them at the moment, and indeed I don't think they are representing me, but I do feel that I still have a duty to carry on representing my constituents as a Lib Dem so will no be resigning from the party at this stage.  From the inside of the party I will of course continue to put as much pressure as I can on Clegg, Cable and the others who voted for this disastrous attack on Higher Education.  None of them would currently be getting my vote in a leadership election.

Remember: The Government Lib Dems may have let you (and me) down but I promise to carrying on striving to represent you and your views to Oxford City Council to the best of my ability and in line with what I and my party promised in May 2010.

Lib Dem Group Meeting

There should have been a post yesterday about the Oxford University Vice-Chancellor's Christmas reception yesterday but I was sadly laid up ill with the winter stomach bug that seems to be doing the rounds.

We had quite a long group meeting today that was rather well attended.  We started our discussions about the budget proposals from Labour and were pretty appalled that council officers have been persuaded to highlight things that have got worse since the new coalition government came into power.  I don't remember anyone ever hghlighting things that were a proeblem because of decisions by the previous government!  I thought the council officers were meant to be politically neutral!

Clearly group meetings are confidential so there is not really much more to say here.

Green councillors supporting disruption to students' studies

I've been getting more and more worried about the Oxford Green Party.  Today I was horrified to see the contents of a letter from all of Oxford's Green councillors.

One paragraph reads:  "We are proud to stand alongside those Oxford students and pupils who marched peacefully two weeks ago on the NUS/UCU demo in London, and who this week marched for their rights, and then undertook the occupation in Oxford."

I am indeed proud to stand alongside those who marched peacefully, and I am indeed ashamed of and entirely opposed to what my party's senior MPs are doing with student funding in the coalition, but I am much more ashamed of all those who think it's OK to practically vandalise one of Oxford's most historic buildings, the Radcliffe Camera, and to seriously disrupt those students who are trying to work extremely hard to get their degrees.  Did you see the dancing on the tables?  I have never seen such blatant disrespect of such an important and historical resource.  It's sheer hypocrisy to protest about student fees and at the same time disrupt the work and lives of many students who just want to get on with studying so they can get their degrees.  As you can see from the comments on the YouTube video linked above I appear not to be alone in that view.

It's nothing short of scandalous that Oxford Greens seem to be supporting this sort of behaviour.

Greens trying to trick the public again

We've just had a "Green News" through our door.  It has a story about how Oxford Greens are entirely behind the Save Temple Cowley Pools campaign and how they have tried to save the pool three times in full council.  All true.  Then it says that Liberal Democrat councillors have voted against them.  You get what they are trying to imply...

The fact is that yes, Lib Dems may have voted against ridiculous Green amendments to motions about the pools but we have NEVER voted in favour of losing first-class swimming facilities in Cowley.  We have accepted that maybe Temple Cowley Pools will have to go but have always made it crystal clear that we would only support that if there was a guarantee of an equivalent or better facility (and that includes the gym and sauna) in the immediate locality.  Personally I'd love to see a combined pools and ice-rink facility with a big heat-pump to warm the pool and cool the ice on the site of the now vacant Royal Mail facility on the corner of Garsington Road and Hollow Way.

I think it's this sort of blatant bending the truth by parties and attempting to deceive the public that puts so many people off politics and means so many have so little faith in local councillors.  I am frankly appalled that the Greens think people might be so stupid as to fall for this.

Christmas Light Night

This event is becoming a bit of a tradition in Oxford.  I went to the opening at the Divinity School.  The Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, Andrew Hamilton; the leader of Oxford City Council, Bob Price; and the Chair of Oxford Inspires, Tony Stratton all gave speeches thanking everyone for their involment in all that makes our City great at this time of year.

I had a wander round Broad Street and I thought it looked really magical with the main street lights off and all the Christmas stalls and lights.  I was quite surprised at how busy the area was.

The Frontline Councillor as a Community Leader

I went to this training session today at the Local Government Information Unit in London.  It was a useful session and gave a good overview of the roles and skills required to be an effective local community leader. Our trainers for the day were Alan Waters from LGIU and Steve Skinner, an LGIU Associate.

We talked about setting the context of community leadership since the Big Society agenda has come into effect as well as the comprehensive spending review and the Localism Bill.  It was described as councils having much more freedom and control but over much less.  Councillors need to balance community activities and needs with strategic corporate issues for local authorities and it's not always easy!

We talked about the eight leadership roles as in the star image (my self-scores are marked) and the ladder of participation which has five levels:  informing; consulting; joint decision-making; joint action; and supporting community organisations in self-help.



After lunch we talked about creating the right environment for community leadership and working with other community leaders.

A really interesting discussion then ensued about councillor-officer relations and it was a good to have a full and open discussion with members and officers from different authorities.  Trust and respect were two very important attributes of good working relationships as were good communication and regular updates.  I was interested to hear that in one authority new councillors have an officer mentor for a period.

I think my quote of the day was "sharp elbows and loud mouths", describing those who always seem to get hold of available community funding first.

25 years of the Luther Street Medical Centre

I felt very honoured to be invited to this celebration today.  We had a buffet lunch and it was fascinating to speak to so many people who have helped Luther Street Medical Centre in its support and services for Oxford's homeless people.  We heard excellent speeches from Pat Goodwin, the founder trustee of the Oxford Homeless Medical Fund; from Dr Sally Reynolds, a GP who has been working for Luther Street since the start and from Lesley Dewhurst, the chief executive of Oxford Homeless Pathways.



By far the most moving speeches were by two people who had been users of the Luther Street Medical Centre, both explained how they had had so much more help than just medical and how the centre had really helped them to turn their lives around by properly listening to their stories and understanding their needs and situations properly.

There was  an opportunity to look around the impressive facilities of the Centre including the dental surgery and now several consulting rooms and meeting rooms.  It's an amazing place with lots of amazing people doing amazing work!

Central South and West Area Committee

Well that came around quickly! We met today in the town hall but I was rather late as I'd been to a work meeting in Nottingham and got stuck in a huge jam driving back through Oxford to go home and get my bike to cycle back to the Town Hall.  Oxford would jam up on the one rare evening I choose drive through it!

We looked again at the Westgate redevelopment planning permission renewal and I was concerned to hear from some residents who were seriously worried about noise and fume pollution to their properties.  I hope this can be sorted out before any development proceeds. We also determined some other fairly minor planning applications.

We had an item of urgent business that  was essentially asking to divert some developer contributions in the Botley Road area away from public art and towards improved flood mitigation measures.  Given the disastrous flooding we have seen three times in that area in the last decade this was a bit of a no-brainer and was approved once we'd asked a few questions about how the council would be ensuring best value for money for the citizens of Oxford.

There was one final item that was rather unfortunate as it was about a retrospective application for funds for an event held in September by the Oxford City Canal Partnership.  The application should not have been retrospective but it seems that nobody in the council remembered to ask the organisation to apply for the grant once it had been agreed in principle by the area committee back in February 2010.  We reluctantly decided to overturn the officer recommendation not to pay the money as we felt it had only not been paid because of an error that was in no part the fault of the Canal Partnership.

Fast work from waste collections

I had a call from the owner of a property on Ship Street this morning complaining that nobody had informed the residents there of the change of collection day for their waste and recycling and that it was piling up.  I passed this on to the council officers concerned at 11.24 this morning and got the following reply at 14:14 this afternoon: "We have collected the waste from Ship Street today and will letter drop the residents in domestic dwellings. Unsure how this has happened but please accept our sincere apologies on behalf of the project team"

I have to say I am extremely impressed.  Well done and thank you to all at City Works for  sorting this out so quickly (170 minutes), particularly Ian Bourton!

Licensing Authority and Thames Valley Police partnership working meeting

A useful meeting today I thought.  It was attended by quite a few police officers including the chief inspector for Oxford as well as county council community safety people, neighbourhood action group council officers, and nightsafe.

It appears that disorder in Cowley Road  area, particularly on student club mights is becoming a bit of a problem.  Lots of Brookes Students attend Fuzzy Ducks at the O2 on Wednesdays and tend to be a bit noisy walking around the area afterwards, particularly Divinity Road and Southfield Road.  I'm sure many of us have been there - being noisy late a night, not going to Fuzzy Ducks! It's a problem though because it keeps the other residents of the streets around awake (remember students are residents too).

Thames Valley Police officers have been voluntarily working extra hours on Wednesdays to cover this but the Chief Inspector reminded us all that this is on a good will basis and she can't easily or quickly force her officers to do this.

The need for joined-up working was  re-iterated and all agreed that there should be a central repository of information about problems around the Cowley Road area be they noise, licensing issues, crime or general antisocial behaviour.  I think all were in agreement.

City Council Licensing Officers and The Police plan to take members of the Divinity Road area Residents' Association out with them as well as some Brookes senior staff so people can experience Cowley Road area first hand at busy times.  I suggested it would also be good to include students in this initiative as peers are often then best group to communicate with students, and indeed any group.

I hope this problem can be sorted out as it's not fair on anyone who wants to sleep at night in East Oxford.  I firmly believe that students are a good thing for Oxford and vital to our economy but it is really important that all groups in the city, particularly busy and densely populated areas like East Oxford, understand each other's needs and situations so that we can all get on with our own lives without disrupting others.  I am sure mutual understanding rather than penalising people is the way to move forward here.

St John Street Area Residents Association

I attended a good meeting at Rewley House in the Lecture Theatre this evening.  It was organised by Jonathan Brown, the chair of the association.  I was pleased to see such a well organised association and such a well-attended meeting.  There must have been about 30 there.  Cllr. Alan Armitage was there as he is a County Councillor for the area and local Police Community Support Officers also attended.

I was disappointed to hear that the  problems with the bins behind the Ashmolean Museum have not bee resolved despite the efforts of committee members Margaret Booth (Treasurer) and John Temple (Secretary).  We'll see what we can do about that.

One St. John Street resident Jonathan Michie, Director of the Department for Continuing Education and Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at Oxford University gave a couple of interesting talks: 'CONTINUING EDUCATION AT OXFORD' followed by 'THE CREDIT CRUNCH AND ITS AFTERMATH'.  Jonathan is also a former Director of the Birmingham Business School.  I think doing this sort of thing is an excellent way to increase attendance at such meetings.

The evening was nicely rounded off by drinks and nibbles in the Mawby Pavilion, also at Rewley House, where I had fascinating conversations with several extremely interesting people including Prof. Clive Booth, a past vice-chancellor of Oxford Polytechnic and Oxford Brookes University.

It was good to see one student resident of St. John Street at the meeting but would have been better to see even more.  It can be difficult getting people to feel enough part of a community to go to such events when they will probably only resident for a year but I think it's still important.  If you're a student reading this I encourage you to engage with your local community and take part in such events. I bet you'll be surprised at the welcome you receive!

The Frideswide Civic Service and Dinner

This annual service of thanksgiving takes place as Christ Church in the Cathedral and is a celebration of all the good work people do in a voluntary capacity around the county of Oxfordshire.  It is attended by senior dignitaries of Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council and the other districts in our county, as well as by senior figures from the University of Oxford.  Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action (OCVA) coordinates a lot of the good work we were celebrating.

There were some excellent contributions by children from several Oxfordshire Schools including a gospel choir from Cherwell School.  The order of service was beautifully illustrated by children from Yattendon Primary School.   We were read a poem by the Senior Proctor of the University of Oxford and there was an excellent address by Tim Stevenson, the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire with a contribution by Cheney School.

Towards the end of the service we all processed to the tomb of St. Frideswide who is, according to legend, the Patroness of Oxfordshire or Berkshire.  We dressed the tomb with sprigs of rosemary, as is customary, as a symbol of remembrance and thanksgiving for Frideswide and for all who have lived in Oxfordshire through the Centuries.

I felt extremely privileged after the service to have been invited to the celebration high table dinner in the Dining Hall at Christ Church (which some might recognise as Hogwarts in Harry Potter films).  There were lots of extremely important people there including the Dean of Christ Church, the Chief Executives of both the City and County Councils, the Lord Mayor of Oxford, The Chief Executive of OCVA, the High Sherrif of Oxfordshire, the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and several Fellows of Christ Church.  It was fascinating talking with so many of them.  I've said it before but I'll say again that this was one of the nicer things about being a City Centre Councillor and more than makes up for the torture of full council!

Full Council

Not my favourite part of being a councillor but here goes...

The meeting had a big agenda as normal with lots of motions and questions.  I won't attempt to go through them all here but will pick a few things I thought salient.

The Save Temple Cowley Pools group were at the meeting and two of its leading members, Nigel Gibson and Jane Alexander (pictured) addressed full council.  The Lord Mayor, who chairs full council, then tried to get agreement to take the two motions about Temple Cowley Pools immediately after that so the 20 or so members of the public in the viewing gallery wouldn't have to wait hours for those motions that were near the end of the meeting.  The Labour group refused to allow this, despite my saying I thought councillors were there to serve the public.  As it turned out, Labour made lots of long and repetitive speeches in the earlier motions and I know I'm not the only person who wondered if they were trying to exhaust the 90 minutes available for motions so they could avoid discussing the Temple Cowley Pools issue again.  I thought that was pretty poor given that most members of the public who had come to the meeting were mainly interested in just that issue.

We did  finally get to discuss one of the two motions but it of course fell as Labour have decided that Temple Cowley Pools are closing come hell or high water.

Other notable items for me where the question to the Leader of the Council about how the Council would try to get a more accurate register electors in areas with lots of students.  To my surprise the Labour Leader said  "the number of students in Oxford is a problem".  An unfortunate comment given that he himself is a senior member of staff at Oxford Brookes University.

We had a motion put by Alan Armitage that essentially asked the City Council to record all FOI requests, and their answers, on a website so that the public could consult them more easily and we could be a bit more transparent.  Even though Freedom of Information is a Labour initative, the Labour ruling group on Oxford City Council saw fit to vote this motion down.  I'm not sure why.

Finally, I was also surprised that the Labour group voted down a motion from our own Jean Fooks that essentially would have strengthened the planning controls the city could use to reduce the carbon footprint of all new buildings.  The argument was that it's more important to focus on existing buildings.  Which strikes me as not very forward-thinking!

The meeting finished around 10pm and we had a rather needed pint at The Old Tom afterwards.

City Centre Wayfinding meeting

I attended a meeting today with Placemarque and various figures from around the City Centre.  We had a good discussion about issues of finding your way around the city centre as a tourist, other visitor, local person, student or otherwise.

We had some interesting discussion about creating themes around areas and classes of attractions and how a balance needs to be struck between too much information on signs and too little.



We had a walk around the City Centre and it was striking how, in the eyes of someone who doesn't know the City, it can be so confusing.  Where, for example do you go from the station to get to the centre of town or to Tourist Information?  It's not at all clear!

We talked a bit about how mobile devices might help to make life easier for visitors without cluttering the streets with signs.  Some Cities have 3D barcodes on signs so people with mobile devices that can scan them (increasingly common these days) can easily find out more if they need to.  The Placemarque people were also very impressed with the Mobile Oxford site that I showed them as a piece of work by a couple of my colleagues at work.

Licensing and Gambling Acts Committee

I chaired this meeting today as the chair, Mary Clarkson was unavailable.  I'd had lunch with her on Monday to talk through the issues so I felt well briefed.  The agenda today consisted of three main items:

The review of the City Council's statement of licensing policy.  This policy has to be regularly reviewed and there were no major changes.  The most significant is that it now allows members of the City Council to have representations heard as an interested party for any licensable premises in the City - they not longer have to be resident locally to it.

The second item was the Committee's response to the Home Office Consultation entitled Rebalancing the Licensing Act.  A balanced and proportionate response had been prepared by our licensing team leader and the committee was happy to re-endorse it (as it had had to be sent last month after approval by me as vice chair and Mary as chair).  An interesting proposal is to give local authorities discretion to set license fee levels.  I think this might be useful firstly as a levy for very late opening so that the Police can be better resourced to cope with the consequences of later opening, and secondly as a levy on off-licences to fund test purchasing to make sure sales are not being made to those under the age of 18.

The third item was the update on licensing activities by The Council.  I was impressed at the can-do, proactive approach taken by our licensing team that had produced so much better control of licensable activities without stifling well-run operations.  We talked about the Tesco (St Aldates) appeal that had been allowed by magistrates and there was a feeling that the appeal had been allowed because the original panel had refused the application on grounds of crime and disorder even though there had been no objection from the Police.  We talked about a couple of other cases and about the need for panels to make proportionate decisions that actually address real problems for which there is evidence rather than second-guessing what might or might not happen.  We also talked about the special saturation policies in place for the City Centre and East Oxford and discussed how applicable they are to off-licenses selling alcohol outside of the troublesome times that the SSP is in place to address.

Finally, I couldn't resist linking to this image from a story in the Daily Mail from March 2008.  Thankfully things are not like that in Oxford, largely thanks to the excellent work of our licensing team headed by Julian Alison and its partnership working with Thames ValleyPolice, Nightsafe and other organisations.

We completed the meeting in a little under an hour.

Central South and West Area Committee

We met again today at St. Barnabas' School on Hart Street in Jericho.  The agenda was short so the meeting lasted on an hour.  We discussed the proposals to make Jericho a conservation area and talked about usual street scene issues including the mess near the "backside entrance" (phrase of the night award to Cllr Stephen Brown!) to a building in the Walton Street area.

We were disappointed that the person from First Great Western who had come to listen to the concerns of many residents about noise and pollution from Jericho sidings was unable to attend due to being stuck in a traffic jam on the M1.  What does that say about FGW's attitudes to transport I wonder?

We also expressed our horror and the County Council's proposal put increase the cost of residents' parking permits by a whopping 25%.

We were pleased to note our committee's unblemished record this year (rolling to 31 Aug 10) on planning appeals - not only had no appeals against our decisions been allowed, none had even been lodged.

It was good to see  Daniel Lowe, OUSU Vice President (Charities and Community) present at the meeting.

Street Pastors Training - Police briefing

I attended a training session today where we were briefed about the role and practices of Thames Valley Police in the City Centre.  This was a catch-up as I'd missed this session in the last series of street pastor training.  It was heartening to see how many new people are training to be street pastors.  The Police officers present gave a really good overview of how Policing works and how it will compliment us street pastors. We learned how we are separate and must stay separate but how Police support is always available for us if we need it.

Mansfield College Development Plans

This was a brief meeting set up by the architects Rick Mather and they showed us plans for the redevelopment of the inside of one of the Mansfield College buildings to improve the dining room and kitchens.  There is also proposed a link between the chapel and that building that would be built after demolition of some rather unattractive garages.  I shan't comment further on this as it may go to a planning application determination in a public meeting and I don't want to fetter myself.

Crown and Thistle Premises License Review

This was a long hearing today that I chaired with Cllrs Van Coulter and Clark Brundin joining me on the panel.  There was several local residents present, some supporting the pub and some against it.

The pub is owned by Greene King and has a new-ish tenant who is the  Designated Premises Supervisor. I think it would be fair to say he faced a few problems and problem customers when he took over the pub and that he has worked hard to manage and reduce the problems of noise and antisocial behaviour, with perhaps not quite as much success quite as soon as everyone, him included, would have wished.

I find it difficult that these hearings  are set up to be rather adversarial when they are actually trying to reach common ground between the licence holder and the relevant and/or interested parties.

This was a situation where it seems that communication had broken down between residents and the pub, even though the tenant lives there and so is a resident himself!  I hope we went some way to re-opening those channels  of communication and that the two councillors who requested the review will be able to help facilitate that.    I was pleased and grateful that the solicitor acting for Greene King and the tenant appeared to be trying to be conciliatory as did the opposing residents and the requestors of the review.

After much hearing of evidence and discussion we imposed several measures, many suggested by Greene King, to mitigate the problems but were conscious that to do too much would stop the business from being viable and all present had agreed that would be a bad thing.  Measures we took include (but are not limited to) the tenant will do a DPS training course; SIA-approved door supervisors will be in place when there is regulated entertainment and for as long as Thames Valley Police deem necessary; the tenant is to organise at least bi-monthly residents meetings with the Police, Greene King area manager and the City Council Licensing Manager present; and a noise limiter is to be fitted to make sure that neighbours are not disturbed by music from inside the pub.

We also asked for a prominent sign on the front of the pub giving a Greene King contact for residents to use if there were any further problems - although I did urge people to contact the tenant manager directly in the first instance.  I do think that taking complaints too high too early can often be a contributing factor to breakdowns of communication.

I hope that these measures, and the others we imposed, will enable local residents to have their peace restoredwhile also enabling the tenant to run a viable and community-orientated business.  Particularly, I hope the door staff will be able to prevent all the trouble outside and around the pub.

Please note this post does not form an official record of proceedings and should not be treated as such.  The decision notice from the City Council is the definitive document.

O'Hanlon House Service Users Meeting

I attended the weekly service users' meeting this morning at O'Hanlon House (which you might know as the night shelter but it is SO much more than that).

The meeting was run by Lucy Flanagan, one of the centre managers and there were several service users present.  We talked about what a councillor is and what councillors can do for their residents/electors.  I was also asked about who can become a councillor and what the process is.  I explained how nominations and elections worked, and the critera for being eligible to stand (resident in area, work in area, own property in area or registered to vote in area - all for the last 12 months).  I also explained a bit about what political parties are and how they work with and as part of local authorities.

I also explained how the electoral roll is no updated monthly and how O'Hanlon house could make sure its residents are registered to vote as soon as possible.  This is important not only for voting but as evidence of identity these days.

Service users had a few queries about when facilities could be used and a few issues which I thought were very well dealt with by the staff present.  Concerns were raised about the much-feared cuts to be announced on 20th October but there is not much anyone can say yet.  I hope the City Council continues to fund the wonderful place as it is hugely deserving of it, and if it is forced to reduce service or even close this will only result in the City Council having to spend much more money on its statutory homeless duties.  I don't believe that's any way to be treating its citizens.

It's wonderful how much is done for any by the residents of O'Hanlon house and I really do hope that national and local funding won't be reduced too much in the cuts that are going to have to be made because this is a really worthwhile service.

Every time I visit O'Hanlon house I am more and more impressed by its staff and users' work and the friendly welcome I receive.

Street Pastors: Commissioning and our first night on Oxford's Streets

What an exciting night!  I was commissioned along with around a dozen other Oxford Street Pastors yesterday evening and New Road Baptist Church.  We were addressed by DCI Colin Paine of Thames Valley Police and by Revd Paul Rush of the Ascension Trust, that sets up each Street Pastors Scheme.  I'm pictured here with Ruth Wilson, a member of St. Columba's United Reformed Church, like me.  There were people from many local churches and denominations being inducted as Street Pastors.  Rob and Gemma Winn from Wesley Memorial Church have worked very hard in setting up the scheme and we are very honoured to have Pearl Lewis from the Salvation Army as our coordinator.

We started at 10pm and walked around Cornmarket Street, George Street, Park End Street, Hythe Bridge Street, Frideswide Square and St. Ebbes.  We met and spoke to lots of people.  Many were just interested in what we were doing, some wanted to know where to find a cab, a few women had tired feet and had taken their shoes off and so were grateful for the Street Pastors flip-flops that we were handing out.  One group of us got into a really deep conversation with someone about problems at home and were the first people this person had felt able to talk to about it.   We picked up quite a few glass bottles off the street and put them in bins thereby reducing the likelihood of their causing injury or being used as weapons.    We spoke to quite a few homeless people who seemed genuinely pleased of the conversation and attention. There were some humbling stories.

I think we successfully stopped a fight from happening by going up and chatting to a group of young men who I think had had one to many drinks.  Street Pastors is not about breaking up fights - that the Police's job - but it is amazing the effect seeing a person wearing a clear Street Pastors uniform has on people.  They want to chat and their aggression just seems to evaporate.  Quite the opposite reaction that people unfortunately sometimes have to the Police.

Towards the end of our session we met a very drunk young man who couldn't stand up and was rather ill.  We helped him, giving him water, and making sure his friends knew how to look after him and were not going to leave him.   We finished around 3.45am after an incredibly rewarding evening.  I can't wait to go out again!

We were really grateful for the support of Karen Crossan, Oxford City Council's nightsafe manager; and of Thames Valley Police for being so friendly and supportive.  You may ask why I am writing about this in my council blog.  Well apart from the fact that most of our pastoring happens in my ward, Carfax, I think doing things in the community, whether they be as a response to faith or not, is very important for councillors if we are to stay in touch with our constituents.

On a theological note, I think that doing things together with other denominations of Christians is extremely important and is absolutely the way we grow together in common understanding of our calling.  Sure - we have differences of opinion on some things but I think we are all agreed that we are called to share God's love, care and listening with all those we meet on the streets in our 10pm-4am sessions.

Gagging attempt by Labour City Council IT department? Or just a mistake?

I received a slide pack today to read thorough about the Council's ICT policy. All councillors (members of Oxford City Council) are asked to sign it to say they will comply with it. I'm afraid I'm not happy about it at all.

Most of it is all good common-sense and common-decency stuff but there are two bits that worry me as a member of the council rather than an employee.  The first is about privacy:

I am not at all sure I want council staff to be able to examine data that is confidential to  political parties or worse, about constituents. Elected members work for our constituents, not the Council!

The other concern is about the blogging policy.  I am of course  more than happy not to divulge confidential information but this blog already has links to the council website and criticism of some council policies and decisions.  As a representative of the people of Carfax Ward I feel it is entirely appropriate that I should be able to express those views in a public blog.

Us councillors are here to work for and represent you, our constituents.  Our job is to represent you to the council as an organisation.  It is NOT to represent the council to you!

I have made my concerns known to the Head of IT and will update this post if and when I get a reply.

The launch of the Blavatnik School of Government

I attended the launch of the Blavatnik School of Government today at the Examination Schools on the High Street in Oxford.  It was a very grand affair and one of those cross-hat things where I am attending as a Councillor even though I'm also a member of The University of Oxford.

We had inspiring speeches by the Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Andy Hamilton, Leonard Blavatnik himself and Dr Ngaire Woods.  We also had a pre-recorded video message from Bill Clinton.  Lord Patten commented that the lighting in the room made it look rather like a nightclub and I have to say I agreed!

Proceedings then moved to the formal signing of the agreement to open to school and for Mr Blavatnik to give a record-breaking £75M towards the establishment of the school.   This was followed by a reception which was an excellent chance to meet many foreign dignitaries and diplomats and many interesting academics. I also met and spoke to Oxford West and Abingdon's new MP for the first time.

I really appreciate the opportunity to attend these events as a councillor.  Next week I'm going to listen to concerns and issues at the wet (i.e. alcohol allowed) room of O'Hanlon House, an excellent project used by many of Oxford's homeless folk.  Oxford is an amazing City of contrasts and I find experiencing them first-hand very humbling.

Full Council: Core Strategy and New Executive Board Member

We had a full council meeting at 4pm today.  It was primarily to discuss the council's response to the Core Strategy.  The leading group had tried to get our leader to jointly sign a letter with the leader but our group was of the view that this is far too important an issue to sign off behind closed doors so we asked for a full council meeting.  The main areas of contention were the numbers of new houses in the strategy, whether the Northern Gateway should be included and whether the employment land allocation needs reviewing, in the light of how much land earmarked for employment use has been fallow for such a long time.

The amendments to the response proposed by our group were:

Delete "8,000 new homes" in line 2 and substitute with "9,000 new homes" to read:

(1) Endorse the housing figure in the Core Strategy of at least 9,000 new homes between 2006 and 2026 and confirm that this level of growth is considered appropriate in the absence of the target from the South East Plan

After point (1) insert the following paragraph:

Council urges the Leader and the two Members of Parliament for Oxford to campaign immediately for a recognition that the housing needs of Oxford City over the plan period cannot be met solely by building within the city; and that a mechanism to meet economic, social and environmental needs of the economic unit of which Oxfordshire and the neighbouring Local Planning Authorities (unitaries and District Councils) should be formed as a Local Economic Partnership.

and

After point (1) [and amendment 2] insert the following paragraph:

Council calls for a new employment land study to be undertaken before any targets for quantity and diversity of jobs are enshrined in the Core Strategy
The Labour group outvoted all these amendments and I must say I have never seen them quite so tetchy.   I felt that the meeting was essential so that the Council's response could be debated and voted on in public but unfortunately some administration members had said they thought it was "silly politics.  The building and development plan for the next 20 years in Oxford doesn't seem like that to me!

Healing in Carfax?

I was in town today doing chores and was slightly alarmed to find a group of Christians performing healing on Cornmarket Street.

This work is a partnership between Oxford Vineyard Church, St Aldates Church, Living Stones Community Church and Emmanuel Church.  It happens in Oxford City Centre every Saturday from 1pm to 3pm according to the flyer.

Now don't get me wrong, I am a committed Christian and entirely approve of taking faith out onto the streets (I am after all about to start serving as a street pastor) but I just feel slightly uncomfortable with the claims the flyer is implying about the healing.  While I'm sure faith can cure serious diseases in some cases I can't help thinking that this sort of open air practice, with a huge banner, rather belittles and trivialises all the medical research and treatments that there are into such terrible diseases.  What do you think?  Comments welcome on this post.

RIP Temple Cowley Pools

After about an hour of propaganda from the consultants and the council officers the City Executive Board (CEB) unanimously decided to close Temple Cowley Pools and sell off the site.  This is a sad day for Oxford and I feel hugely sorry for the Save Temple Cowley Pools group, particularly Nigel and Jane, who have worked so hard and with such sincerity to try to save the pools.  I was particularly disgusted at the way at least one member of CEB sat and scowled at those making such well-considered and serious points.  I also didn't think it was very polite of the member who arrived late to clomp through the room in extremely loud shoes not once but three times while a member of the public was trying to address CEB.

I also note here that Cllr Malik, councillor for Cowley Marsh,gave apologies and was absent from the meeting.  What a shame there was nobody at the meeting to represent those who have Temple Cowley Pools at the heart of their ward.

The only good thing is that Stephen Brown (leader of our group) immediately called in the decision to the Value and Performance Scrutiny Committee of which he is chair. I don't think it will change anything but it will at least give the CEB members some time to reflect on the gravity of their decision and the disastrous impact it will have on Temple Cowley and the surrounding area's residents.

Lib Dem Group Meeting

Another group meeting tonight with lots on the agenda.  We discussed the outcomes from a recent Group away day and our response to the Core Strategy that will direct planning and development control until 2026.

As usual we worked through the paper's for next week's City Executive Board.  That promises to be a busy and controversial meeting as it will consider the future of Temple Cowley Pools.

I am really enjoying getting to know the new LibDem councillors since I was last on the Council in group meetings and I'm pleased to see good consensus building in the group on most issues and the very definite support for and confidence in our leader, Stephen Brown.

Back from Hols and a Temple Cowley Pools Meeting

Well I'm back and refreshed after a lovely three weeks' camping in France where the weather was fantastic.  My first council meeting was another public "consultation" about Temple Cowley Pools.  It was held in the Town Hall on 17 August and ran from about 7pm to 9.30pm.  There was a big panel of presenters including City Council officers and folk from MACE, the consultants the City is using to advise it about pool provision in the City.  I reckon around 100 members of the public attended.

Cllr John Tanner chaired the meeting which started with 30 minutes of so of presentation from Richard Smith of MACE and several others.  MACE did seem to spend a long time trying to convince the audience why they were the best for the job.

I put "consultation" in quotes because it is abundantly clear that the council officers have already decided what they will recommend to executive board (CEB) that makes the decision on 1st September.  One of the executive directors, Tim Sadler, even said as much! The chair said that the 1st Sept CEB would be a "public meeting".  That will be interesting.

Here is the financial "argument" the consultants were trying to put.

After the presentations many questions were asked and raised and it was quite a useful information gathering evening, even if it felt like the answer had already been decided.  A big flaw I think in the argument is that I believe the number of people living in close proximity to Temple Cowley Pools has been vastly understated.  I asked MACE to check the figure.  It also omits all the people who work near it on Cowley Business Park.

We had several excellent speeches and I was particularly impressed by the work Jane Alexander had done to work up a plan that would cost about £3million.  MACE did at least agree to discuss that with her but I doubt it will happen before 1st September. Here's Jane's proposal.



The comments from the Cowley Marsh councillors was interesting. One of them just wanted everyone to know how good he had been to arrange the consultation meeting and the other one suggested a vote of all present about whether they wanted Temple Cowley Pools to be closed and replaced with a new facility at Blackbird Leys.  The chair did that vote by show of hands at the end of the meeting and the result was about 5 in favour and almost everyone else there against.    An overwhelming disagreement with what the City Council officers were recommending.

You can read much more about this at http://www.savetemplecowleypools.webs.com/

and join the Facebook Group.

Labour may have a majority administration at the moment but if they close Temple Cowley Pools I can't see that lasting.  There was talk of it not happening for another two years so I have a nasty feeling they'll wait until just after the next local elections in 2012 to do it. We'll see.

Luther Street Neighbours Meeting

A fascinating meeting today that showed all the signs of being extremely useful. It had people from Oxford Homeless Pathways who run O'Hanlon House, PC Paul Phillips from Thames Valley Police, The Practice Manager and a Senior Receptionist from the Luther Street Medical Centre, a housing officer from A2Dominion, that runs Luther Court, me and a county councillor for the area.

Lots of  useful links were made and I felt there was much good will and willingness towards partnership working.  I'm glad to have attended and made the links.  I'm also extremely impressed with the breadth of services that Oxford Homeless Pathways provides for the people of Oxford.

Compulsory planning training

Today we had a 90 minute session about planning and how the law and all the various guidance works and importantly, what are and are not material considerations in making planning decisions.

We looked at a real case and how it had first been refused by officers and that decision upheld at an appeal but then on a second application with changes a new appeal was allowed by a planning inspector.

Councillors are in a difficult position because on the one hand we want to represent our constituents and decide according to their wishes but on the other hand we must abide by planning law because if we don't we can lose appeals and planning inspectors can award costs against us if they think we've refused something unreasonably - and that of course is a waste of public money.  Colin Cook put it nicely saying that it is the quality (i.e. is it a material consideration) of opposition rather than the quantity (300 people just not liking something) of opposition that matters in taking planning decisions.  It is for this reason that the planning training is compulsory as it's important that councillors get these decisions made as well as possible.

Central, South and West area committee

We met at the town hall this evening.  It was a long meeting, appropriately enough held in the Long Room.

There were lots of members of the public present and we heard about many issues. Some residents who live on Stable Close near the railway line and sidings and staff car park were being disturbed by train diesel engines being left idling for hours (something to do with the braking system) and by shunting and very antisocial small hours of the morning.  We also heard from a resident on Hamel Walk who was having trouble with an access route to his area that some developers were blocking off at times.  It sounded like the City Council had failed to put a proper enforceable legal agreement in place to ensure right of access was preserved for occupiers of the social housing on Hamel Walk.

We considered several planning applications - the most interesting was the one by Oxford University which would make internal changes to the Radcliffe Camera and the Old Bodleian.  It would open up some of the underground store for public access and would alter the level of the (1970s) paving in the schools quadrangle of the old Bodleian to improve level access to the building and remove the need for the unsightly temporary ramps.  I had to declare a personal interest in this application as I am a senior member of The University of Oxford.  As these are very well known buildings I don't consider that I have any more or less interest in the success or failure of the planning application than any other member of the public so I did remove myself from the meeting and did vote.  I did make the point that if lots of heavy vehicles were to be using the junction of Parks Road, Broad Street, Holywell Street and Catte Street then EXTREME care must be taken and enforced to ensure no nasty accidents with any of the hundreds of cyclists a day that use that junction.  There was a nasty and fatal accident at that junction not long ago and I don't want a repeat.

Full Council

Well this is always a bit of a theatrical experience.  Lots of political gesturing and lots of people who are normally perfectly polite being a little less than civil. We started with announcements and the one I want to mention is the forthcoming retirement of Jude Skipp, the members' support officer and Lord Mayor's secretary.  Jude is a wonderful woman and the council will be a poorer place without her.   She started work for the City Council in 1971 - the year I was born!

We then heard some excellent addresses by members of the public about Temple Cowley Pools.  Nigel Gibson and Jane Alexander spoke especially well.  I was amazed to hear that 120 people had turned up to the public meeting at Temple Cowley Pools to ask for it to be saved but only about 12 turned up at the meeting in Blackbird Leys where a new pool was being proposed.

We moved on to questions from the public and 24 had been notified. Quite a few people didn't turn up to ask their questions which I think is a shame as councillors had put time into preparing answers and the large number of questions were part of the reason the briefing note was 49 pages long!

Next up was City Executive Board recommendations.  The interesting one was the new governance arrangements forced on local authorities by the previous Labour Government. We had to choose between having an elected mayor and having a "strong leader". We chose the latter and that means the leader of the council has lots of power and can essentially hand-pick her or his cabinet.  The proposal for an elected Mayor was not supported as Oxford City had voted fairly convincingly against it in a referendum in 2002.

We broke for tea then and returned after 40 minutes for members' questions on notice. There were another 24 of these and they were used to quiz the administration further about Temple Cowley Pools.  The IWCA councillor was particularly nasty to Antonia Bance and it felt like he accused her of racism and homophobia, which knowing Antonia as I do, are both ridiculous.  I may disagree with her politics but she is most certainly not a racist or a homophobe.  The questions I liked most was the one from Graham Jones to the leader about how much the "Your Oxford" council publication costs to distribute and circulate.  I know that many of us see it as an administration propaganda device rather than being useful at actually getting to the most excluded people in our City.

The longest item in Council was the motions.  The Greens in particular seem to have had their creative hats on overdrive this time.  Of course with a majority administration the motions rarely change anything but they do enable open discussion of important items.  The notable motions were the one to recommend to the remuneration panel that councillor allowances be frozen for the next couple of years; a rather nasty motion about senior officers' salaries (rather embarrassing as they were all there for the discussion) and an important motion from Jean Fooks about biodiversity and applauding the work of the Oxfordshire Nature Conservation Forum.

Sadly I think the Greens won the bad behaviour award this time.  The leader of the Green group trampled all over the allowed 3 minutes for speeches and had to be reprimanded by the Lord Mayor.  Another Green councillor had a rather unfortunate outburst about Green attitudes to students that had to be stopped by the Lord Mayor standing to silence her.

We finished around 10pm - a long evening after a full day at work.

A new report on Temple Cowley Pools

It looks like the council officers may be having a rethink.  This was published yesterday by the Council's press office:

Temple Cowley Report

A report into the future of Temple Cowley Pools has been delayed after a draft report on the feasibility study raised a number of cost and affordability questions regarding the options. 

These are being pursued with Mace, the lead consultant, however, at present the report is incomplete and not ready to be published.

In the context of the challenging financial circumstances that we find ourselves in it is vital that cost and affordability issues are clear.  Only then can officers properly advise councillors on the affordability and risks of the options and place this in the overall context of the Council’s capital programme and budget.

The report was due to be discussed at Value and Performance Scrutiny yesterday (Wednesday). It was also due to be discussed at City Executive Board on 12 July.

There will be an opportunity for the scrutiny committee to consider the feasibility study and report to the City Executive Board prior to its meeting.

Tim Sadler, Executive Director, City Services, says: “We are disappointed that there has to be a delay but the financial circumstances are changing so rapidly that officers have to reassess the position carefully before advising councillors on this major strategic decision. We will also publish the feasibility study as soon as it is ready.”

Another group meeting

We met at 6pm today to discuss how we would approach everything on the agenda for Full Council on 12th July.  It's important that political groups do this so we can agree our line on the important issues at Council so that our constituents and the press get a clear and consistent message from our party.

We had a bit of discussion about how to handle the fact that our party is now part of the government.  We reminded ourselves that there has not been a Lib Dem-Tory merger and that it is OK not to agree with everything the Government says or decides.