The utter hypocrisy!

I took this screen shot just now, 2320hrs. It shows a Labour Oxford City Councillor saying how much he enjoys the Gym and Swimming Facilities at Temple Cowley Pools. And Mike Rowley, the Labour executive member with responsibility for leisure facilities, has "liked" the status.  The Labour Councillor would have been at the pool and gym first thing this morning by my reckoning.

This is just a few hours after the Labour ruling group on the City Council was laughing at and interrupting Jane Alexander of the Save Temple Cowley Pools campaign when she gave a public address to the full City Council meeting yesterday evening about how much the pools, gym, sauna and steam are used and loved by the local community.  Flabbergasted only starts to describe how I feel about this Labour contempt for the people of Oxford.

That is truly shocking hypocrisy!

Note the post I have reproduced here has a little icon of the world just beside the words "17 hours ago via Mobile".  That icon means the post is public and visible to anyone in the world with a facebook account, so I haven't breached any privacy.

Full Council: Labour denying any errors with Covered Market

I'm going to do two blog posts about today's full council meeting as there were two important issues I want to mention. The first is a motion from Cllr Jim Campbell, and Cllr Elise Benjamin about the findings of the Covered Market Scrutiny Review. The motion was fully supported by Cllr Mary Clarkson, a member of the Labour administration of the Council.  Jim, Elise and Mary have all spent many hours working on a big review of the Covered Market, working with The Retail Group who have produced an excellent and comprehensive report.
Jim's motion read:

"Council:

noting that the latest edition of Your Oxford has a full page  advertising “Oxford's Amazing Christmas Markets”, which highlights new arrangements at Gloucester Green but makes no mention whatsoever of the Covered Market;

noting further no provision has been made during the Three Day Winter Light Festival to include the Covered Market in its programme;

regretting the lack of trust that has developed between the Council, as  Landlord, and the Traders, as tenants;  

welcoming the excellent report of the Retail Group, its analysis of the reasons behind the current under-performance of the Covered Market, and its proposals for how it can once again be a key part of Oxford's Retail Offer;

hoping that the residents of Oxford will respond, in numbers and in depth, to the four week public consultation on the report;

supporting the Council's already stated intention to appoint an interim Market Manager,

therefore calls on The City Executive Board:

• to recognise that, in recent years, there has been a lack of effective  management by the Council and that this has been a significant contributory factor to the poor performance of the market;

• to consider thoroughly the findings of the Public Consultation on the future of the market;

• to ensure that the Covered Market has a key role in future City Centre events;

• to respond positively to the short term proposals put forward by the Retail Group;

• to examine in detail the long term proposals made by the Retail Group, and to draw up, by November 2014, a full report of how it will respond to these proposals."

I was highly dismayed to see and hear Bob Price, the Labour Leader of the Council propose what can only be called a wrecking amendment to the motion that completely removes any suggestion that the council might have done anything wrong or been at all remiss in how it manages the market  Colin Cook, Executive councillor with responsibility for the Covered Market also entirely supported the amendment despite objection to it from fellow Labour Councillor Mary Clarkson who has a huge amount of experience of the Covered Market and has spent many hours as part of the scrutiny review of it.  Colin Cook said he must be a Market Supporter and must be right because he had recently bought some cheese there.  I was quite disgusted that the whole of the rest of the Labour Group, even my Carfax ward colleague Cllr Canning, supported the Labour amendment that essentially takes all the blame off Labour and puts it all on the traders.  This is absolutely not the way the political group leading a local authority should behave.  I am quite ashamed.  This is not the first time I have commented about Labour neglect and arrogance towards the Jewel in Oxford's Crown that is the Covered Market either.

See my previous posts about Labour Contempt (Oct 12) and Neglect (Sep 11) of the Covered Market.

You can see the briefing note for the meeting, that includes the motions at http://mycouncil.oxford.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=3120

Proud to be part of a City Supporting LGBT rights in Russia

This is my second post about full council today and concerns a motion that I was extremely pleased to put to Oxford City Council.  I (think) I am the first openly LGBT (G in my case) Civic Office Holder in Oxford CIty, as Deputy Lord Mayor, and this made me even more proud to be able to put this motion and have it (almost) unanimously supported.  I chose to target Perm because it is a city that is twinned with Oxford.  My motion was seconded by Cllr Mary Clarkson and reads thus:

"Oxford City Council notes with horror the appalling human rights abuses happening in Russia that are denying LGBT people their basic rights to be themselves, to express themselves freely and to live in relationships with whoever they choose, free from government and police persecution.

This Council notes that Oxford enjoys a twinning arrangement with the City of Perm and, while a strong supporter of all human rights the world over, is concerned particularly about the plight of LGBT people in that city. This Council, further notes that some cities have chosen to sever twinning relationships with Russian cities because of Russian's LGBT human rights actions but considers this may be a disproportionate response in the case of Oxford and Perm as the abuses come from Russian central government, not from Perm local government.

As a more appropriate action for this situation, this Council therefore resolves to ask the Leader of the Council and the other Group Leaders to write a letter to their opposite number in Perm expressing Oxford's concern for Perm's LGBT people and their human rights situation, offering our solidarity and friendship to them in any way they feel able to request."

I gave a short speech supporting the motion and Mary Clarkson was also very supportive, telling the council of her experiences in a recent trip to Perm.  I was grateful too, to David Williams, leader of the Green Group, for speaking also strongly in favour of the motion.  On voting, virtually everyone in the room voted in favour with no objection.  There were two abstentions, one from Cllr Shah Khan (Lab) and one from Cllr Mohammed Altaf-Khan (LibDem).  The Sheriff, Cllr Mohammed Abbasi, left the chamber just before the vote and returned shortly afterwards.

The three abstentions aside, I am very pleased that the City Council is such a progressive place.  It's easy and safe to live as an openly gay man in Oxford and I think it good for all of us to remember that doing the same in Russia is now a completely different proposition.

100 years of Oxford Cinema Memories - book launch at the Phoenix

This was a fabulous afternoon spent at the Phoenix Picture House on Walton Street in Jericho.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this Mayoral engagement but was keen to find out.  I was welcomed by Kenny Gold, the general manager of the Phoenix Picture House and then we were taken into screen 1 where we were treated to a fascination presentation on the History of what is now called the Phoenix Picture House by Dborah Allison, one of the authors of the book that was being launched.

I was fascinated to hear how many different owners and proprietors the Phoenix has had in its 100 year life and how much it has served the local community in its time.  I'm amused that students used to be charged the top rates for tickets because they were considered to be the most well-off people in Oxford.  I hadn't realised either that the cinema had a rather seedy period in the 1970s where it was owned by a company called Star, and became a bit of a notorious sex cinema.  We saw an amusing press cutting from the era that said "students were accused of kinds of atrocities ranging from shouting, urinating and slamming car doors, to consuming Chinese take-away meals while sitting on walls and discussing films in an obscene manner."

The talk was finished off with some wonderful memories from Martin Selwood who had been a projectionist in the 1930s and is now 97 years old.  He has some amazing memories to share and was a major source of historical information for the book.

After the presentation we were taken to the Phoenix's bar for tea and cakes and I very much enjoyed more conversation with the other authors, Hiu M. Chan and Daniela Treveri Gennari.  What an absolutely fascinating afternoon learning about the secrets of one of Oxford's most lovely cinemas.  I hope it will go on serving the people of Jericho and beyond for many years to come!

Pretty impressive work by City Council streetscene team

[caption id="attachment_1088" align="alignleft" width="225"] Before[/caption]

On Monday, I reported that the bike markings going into Wellington Square from Little Clarendon Street were very badly faded and that this was sometimes causing conflict between cyclists and pedestrians. I reported this to streetscene@oxford.gov.uk

[caption id="attachment_1089" align="alignright" width="300"] After[/caption]

I am very impressed that by yesterday evening the lines were re-painted. A big thank you and well done to the council staff that did this. I'm very grateful as I'm sure are all those that use that route regularly, live or work near it.

I know this seems like a small thing but things like this are quite important to lots of people and it's great to see the Council being so helpful and responsive.

A victory for Gloucester Green residents and their right to sleep at night

I attended a licensing hearing yesterday as ward councillor as I had made a representation against an application for yet another late night takeaway on Gloucester Green. The application was by a food outlet very similar to the other two that are already there with late night licences.

Although I like to see businesses thrive in my ward, there always must be a balance between the needs of business and the needs of residents. The problem with having lots of late night food outlets on Gloucester Green is that it is more-or-less en route to taxis and buses for people leaving the bars and clubs.   Many of these now shut at 3am and do so for most nights of the week what with different themed nights for students, locals, and other groups etc.  The effect of the takeaways is to make the (often drunk and aggressive) people gather and it makes it very hard for the Police to encourage them to go home.  As Thames Valley Police said at the hearing there has been a marked increase in crime and disorder or Gloucester Green since the later food outlets have been open and this is in direct contravention to the licensing objective of reducing crime and disorder.  Although CCTV and SIA-registered door supervisors were requested, these still won't stop drunk people making a lot of noise and causing much public nuisance for the residents of Gloucester Green - the flats called the Chilterns and the Heyes.  Prevention of public nuisance is another licensing objective that the licensing act says licences should encourage.  It seemed clear to me that this one would not do that.

In my speech I did suggest it might be just about bearable to allow this new business to trade until 2am and that would mean it closed before most of the club but unfortunately the applicant was not able or willing to pay for door supervisors so in the end the panel made what I think was the right decision and rejected the application in its entirety.  This means the outlet will not be allowed to trade past 11pm, as is the current situation.

I have written to all residents of Gloucester Green today to tell them this good news and hope it might well be the start of a move to cut back the hours of some of the other food outlets in the area so that they don't attract the crime and disorder and public nuisance that is currently blighting Gloucester Green in the small hours at a totally unacceptable level.

This blog post has no official status as a record of the licensing hearing and I can’t guarantee it’s error free so please don’t rely on it. Written notification of the decision is available from the Council.