Bus stops right outside student rooms and windows!

I received a very worried email from a student yesterday who's college accommodation is on Beaumont Street. The County Council has temporarily relocated some bus stops from George Street to right outside his accommodation for the duration of the George Street Closure (several weeks).  As you can see from the picture, the pavement is narrow and the stops really are within centimetres of people's windows.

The student is understandably concerned because this is a critical time of the year when many students are studying extremely hard and have finals exams in the coming days and weeks. I remember my own finals exams so am acutely aware of what a sensitive time this is for those with exams and how destructive noise disturbance is to study and potentially exam results.

I have today written the Stagecoach and the County Council to try to mitigate or remove the problem and will keep those reading this page updated with any responses I get.  I don't believe any Oxford Bus Company buses use this route but have also written to them to check.

To Stagecoach (oxford.enquiries@stagecoachbus.com) I wrote:

I've had an email from some residents of 5-7 Beaumont Street in central Oxford, very concerned about the temporary bus stops right outside their windows. According to the attached snippet from the Oxford Mail today I think S1, S2, S3, 14, 17 and 18 routes will be using those stops so would you confirm if that is correct, while George Street is closed, and let me know the earliest and latest times that the stops will be serviced by buses please? I am trying to gauge the extent of the disturbance the residents of 5-7 Beaumont Street might be subjected to.

Would you also let me know if there is anything you can do to mitigate the problems of noise that will disturb study and sleep of those living and working at 5-7 Beaumont Street?

To County Highways (highways@oxfordshire.gov.uk) I wrote:

Dear Highways,

I'm afraid there is a serious problem with the relocation of the bus stops from George Street to right outside 5-7 Beaumont Street for the duration of the George Street closure. 5-7 George Street is occupied by some 35 students of Oxford University and many of them are currently studying very hard for their finals exams that are in the coming days and weeks. The bus stop relocation could not have come at a worse time for them as they are at a critical stage of their education and indeed lives. I quote the email from one of them:

"Today myself and the other 35 or so students living in these houses in Beaumont Street have discovered that the Council has installed bus stops directly outside our houses and is intending to use them to serve the bus services that currently run down George Street for 10 weeks. We have received absolutely no notice of this change or proposal, and the College have also informed me that they haven't received any information about this either. Given that we are all final year students with upcoming exams we are very concerned that what is currently a coach loading bay (used fairly irregularly and only really in daytime hours) and double yellow lines is now going to become several crowded bus stops with dozens of people standing around directly outside of our houses at peak times and into the late evening. We already suffer from quite severe noise from the infrequent use of the coach bay, and are very concerned that this looks likely to worsen severely."

So I am asking you as the Highways authority if there is any way that the location of these stops can be adjusted so as to reduce the impact on my constituents. Everyone appreciates that the George Street closure is needed but this really is a dreadful time this is to disturb (for about 18 hours per day, 7 days per week) those studying for critical exams. Starting it at the end of June would have been far less disruptive too but I imagine it's too late to change the schedule now.

Is there anything you can to do help?

So I'll keep people updated on this and if you are affected I urge you also to write to Stagecoach and to Highways to see if volume of requests to re-think this will have the desired effect.

Update 1151hrs 13 May:  Oxford Bus Co don't use these stops.  Stagecoach has just sent me a load of timetables.  No reply from County Highways at all.  I have nagged the County Council.

Update 1755 14 May:  I have now spoken with Highways Officers.  There is to be a meeting tomorrow morning (Thursday) to discuss this.  I will speak again to officers first thing to see if the bus stops can be moved a bit further down Beaumont Street to where the first floors of the buildings are not residential accommodation.  This should help a lot.

Update 0839 15 May:  I have just had a really helpful call from a County Council officer.  I feel he completely understand the problem and while the bus stops probably can't legally be moved in the short time needed, he has agreed to informally ask Stagecoach to see if they can stop a bit further down the road and turn engines off quickly. He's also going to see about putting some laminated signs on the bus stops asking people to wait quietly as there are residents needing to study very close by.  I'll monitor the situation - please comment here if you are noticing problems or changes.

Proposal for two-way traffic on Becket Street

I've also had notification from the County Council of a proposal to change Becket Street to two-way and to move some of its on-street parking to Osney Lane.  The idea is to enable traffic going West-South from Botley Road to Abingdon Road to avoid Frideswide Square in advance of the major works planned to it in spring of 2015.

The plan is here and if you click it you'll get a bigger version.



The deadline for comments is quite short so please let me know what you think or if you have any questions asap and I'll also forward any comments left here on this post to the County Council in about a week.

Proposal to change a major junction

I've been notified by the County Council of a major change to the junction of Worcester Street/Hythe Bridge Street and George Street to open it up to four-way traffic so that some traffic does not have to loop all the way round Hythe Bridge Street and Park End Street any more.  Traffic going East on Hythe Bridge Street would still only be able to go left into Worcester Street but traffic from all other directions would be able to turn in any direction.  There would also be share cycle/pedestrian features on some corners.  I think these are a good idea as if so many cyclists are jumping red-lights any way, the pragmatic way to deal with that is to design in a safe way of them being able to avoid those red signals in the first place.  You can see the plan here, and you'll get a large version if you click it.



Time is short on this consultation so if you have any views or questions please do let me or the County Council know as quickly as you can.  I will also forward all comments added to this blog post.

 

A walk around Carfax Ward

I spent a couple of hours this morning walking around Carfax Ward with officers from Street Scene, Housing, and Highways.  The map to the right shows the rough route we took.  You can click it to see a bigger verion.

We encountered quite a few issues and I will certainly be following them up in the coming days and weeks.  To list a few:

 



 

Lots of graffiti in the Southern part of the ward, near Rose Place.  I will get this reported and hopefully removed if building owners can be found so they can give permission

 

 

Neglected communal garden at Albert House - I've written to residents about this and housing officers have said they will see if they can get community payback to do some work there.  As the landlord, the City Council should have been maintaining it.

 

 

 

 



Lots of Cigarette Butts on the pavement outside the Castle Pub.  This was dealt with very quickly but I will ask the owners/managers if they can fit some ashtrays to the railings outside the pub.

 

 

 

Flytipping on Woodin's Way near the old Lion Brewery.  I'll get this reported so it is quickly removed.

 

 

 

 

Unsightly gatherings of commercial waste bins around Gloucester Green.  Officers said they would look at installing some fencing to contain these bins so they don't look quite as awful.

 

 

 

Graffiti on the railings around Wellington Square - I'll get this reported so it can be removed and see if some money can be found to repaint the railings as they are looking rather tatty.

 

 

 

Very dangerous road surface on Banbury Road by St Gile's church.  This is just outside the ward boundary but I wanted to mention it because I work so close to there and see it causing cyclists to wobble into the path of (often quite fast) traffic coming north from St. Giles. I'm disappointed with this one that I have previously been told by highways officers that it requires no work.  There seemed no harm in asking again.

 

 

The morning's walkabout was useful as a ward walk and I am grateful to officers for the time they gave to do this.  I hope all the issues I will follow up on are dealt with effectively and I will certainly be keeping an eye out!

 

Rip-off parking charges at the ice rink

I received an email today from someone who lives away from Oxford and normally takes her daughter to Milton Keynes ice rink for regular skating practice.  That rink is currently closed for refurbishment so she brings her to Oxford.  Her email was about the fact that the City Council appears to have changed the parking arrangements such that there is no longer a free hour concession for those who pay the overnight midnight to 8am charge so charges don't stack up and make things unfair on early, regular and dedicated skaters and/or their parents.  It appears the concession was dropped silently and when challenged (point 3 on the sign below clearly says it was there) the sign was also removed silently.  This means that although the normal parking charge during the day is £4.10 for two hours, if someone parks between 7.30am and 8.30am, for example, they have to pay a £2.50 night charge for the first half hour of that slot and then another £2.50 charge for the second half hour as it is in daytime.  This is £5 for one hour as against £4.10 for two hours if they had arrived after 8am.

This hardly seems fair and hardly seems a sensible way for the City Council to be attracting more use of its sports facilities.  I have asked the service manager to look into this but have not had an answer after nearly a week so I am also asking the portfolio holder for City Leisure a question at full council next week.  Watch this space!

Traffic problems from 7th-21st April in Frideswide Square area

I've received notification that there are to be major works on Hollybush Row from 7th April that will probably cause traffic chaos for a couple of weeks.  Thank goodness it's the school holidays!

The issue is that there is a collapsed sewer with a fat-berg in it so the whole road is going to have to be excavated to sort it out.  Please let me know if there are any specific problems that I can help with.  You can click the picture above for a larger version.

100 years of buses in Oxford

This morning I had the privilege of riding on a very old bus on a journey to commemorate 100 years of bus services in Oxford.  We started at the BMW museum in Cowley and travelled all the way to Oxford Station then back along Queen Street.  The old buses are looked after by the amazing volunteers of the Oxford Bus Museum Trust.  I was made to feel very welcome and learned some amazing facts about Oxford's long bus history including how they were preceded by horse-drawn trams but that Oxford never had electric trams because colleges wouldn't allow the hooks in their walls for the necessary cable suspension.

The bus we were in had no power steering and a "crash" gearbox, meaning no synchromesh.  Despite this it was dirven very expertly and smoothly by one of the museum trust volunteers and a long-time bus driver.

 

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 problem with a taxi rank location in the new Westgate Development?

I had a meeting with a council officer today to discuss concerns about a proposed taxi rank as part of the new Westgate Development that looks to me like it will be incredibly close to residential accommodation on Pike Terrace and Faulkner Street in my ward.  My concern is that in the small hours it will attract a lot of noise and antisocial behaviour from people leaving clubs and bars and that this will disturb a lot of residents in the area.

There is a very good consultation site about the west gate development and I recommend you have a look and give any feedback you want to give via that.

See http://www.westgateoxfordconsultation.co.uk/ and follow the navigation in the top right.

The City Council wants your views on Oxpens

Oxford City Council is launching a public consultation on a planning document that will help shape the future of Oxpens.

The Oxpens site, between Oxford Railway Station, the Westgate Centre and the River Thames, represents one of the most significant development opportunities in the city centre and has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the life and economy of the local area and Oxford as a whole.

The document, known as the Oxpens Masterplan Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), will help to establish appropriate uses for the Oxpens site, which could include houses and flats, offices, research & development (R&D) space, local amenities, green open space, a hotel and a public square. The development is also expected to bring regeneration benefits for neighbouring residents, such as improved public transport and better vehicle, cycle and pedestrian links to the city and surrounding areas.

Oxford City Council has an adopted Core Strategy and West End Area Action Plan which outline the policies for development at the Oxpens site. The purpose of the SPD is to determine how these policies can be interpreted and implemented, and to set out the Council's aspirations for the site, such as the preferred mix of housing, employment uses, open space and community facilities.

Could you take a few minutes to complete the survey about this, which is open from Monday 17 June until Monday 29 July 2013?  I've turned off comments on this post as they really need to be put in the survey.  Thanks!

 

Car number plate thefts - please be vigilant and secure yours

A set of car number plates were stolen on Wednesday 27th February in Marsh Road, Oxford. That's just by my local pub, the Marsh Harrier! Stolen number plates are used in a variety of crimes often replacing plates on stolen cars, or fitted to cars which are driven recklessly followed by non-payment of parking and speeding fines, also filling up with fuel and driving off without paying. All of these crimes will in the first instance lead the police back to you and can be very distressing.

This type of theft continues to happen weekly in Oxford, so I encourage you to consider fitting anti-tamper screws to your number plates. You can seek advice from your local garage or car dealer. I've just spoken to Motorists Discount Centre (two branches in Oxford). They stock kits of four of these security screws for £3.99 and I think they are really worth fitting if you can. Too many newer cars these days just have the plates stuck on with sticky pads leaving them too easy to remove intact then and use on another vehicle to commit crime that will be traced back to you!

Please check that your number plates are intact on a regular basis, if you do discover that they are missing report to the police immediately via the non-emergency number, 101. You are in a much better position if a crime is reported by someone with a vehicle displaying your plates if you have already reported them stolen! But it's even better to have taken steps to avoid having them stolen in the first place.

Consultation on changes to Woodstock Road near Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

I've just received an incredibly helpful email from a highways engineer in the County Council.  It is a pre-consultation on the proposals for making Woodstock Road safer and more attractive in the area of the development that Oxford University is undertaking on the site of the old Radcliffe Infirmary.  It starts:

"The University of Oxford is currently redeveloping the former Radcliffe Infirmary Hospital site adjacent to Woodstock Road and has provided funding to Oxfordshire County Council for improvements to the highway adjacent to the site. The new development will have two pedestrian through routes linking Woodstock Road and Walton Street on the northern and southern side of the site which will increase the number of pedestrians within the area.

The existing carriageway is of variable width with mandatory cycle lanes in both directions, bus stops and pay & display parking along the north western side. The buildings adjacent to Somerville College create a natural pinch-point and narrow the carriageway to approximately 8.5m which tends to help in reducing vehicle speeds.

Further north the road then widens to over 13.5m in the vicinity of the Royal Oak Public House making it difficult for pedestrians to cross, even during periods of low traffic flow.

The northbound bus stop has a modern glass and stainless steel shelter with Real Time journey Information (RTI) located within a 2.5m wide section of footway. The southbound stop has an old brick shelter poorly located at the back of a 2.1m wide footway and adjacent to a vehicle access. This shelter has no RTI and provides no forward visibility of approaching buses so passengers are forced to leave the shelter and stand outside where they reduce the usable width of footway."

There is then a list of proposals and a useful PDF that shows them in a more graphical form if, like me, you respond better to pictures than words!  Here are the proposals:

Widening the footways where possible to improve pedestrian movements within the area.

• Narrow the carriageway running lanes to 3.0m, this will help in encouraging lower vehicle speeds and reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians. To reduce the speed of approaching traffic this principle will be extended north to Observatory Street by applying a road surface treatment along the centreline.


• Maintain the existing 1.5m mandatory cycle lanes in both directions but replace the standard carriageway marking with a double row of cleft (rough) engineered granite setts 20mm high with tapered edges to discourage motorists from inadvertently entering the cycle lane.


• Use low height kerbs (50mm) within the general area to assist pedestrians when crossing especially for people with mobility problems with the exception of the bus stops which will have 120mm high kerbs to facilitate boarding and alighting.


• Relocate the southbound bus stop slightly further north to a wider area of footway and provide a new style shelter with improved visibility of approaching buses, capable of being fitted with RTI.


• Provide a flush central feature to act as a pedestrian refuge, similar to that used on Oxford High Street. This will allow pedestrians to cross an individual lane of traffic approaching from one direction at a time then wait in the central area before completing the crossing movement.


• Provide courtesy style crossings at the northern and southern limits to coincide with the link routes to Walton Street. This style of crossing has already been successfully used within Oxford Railway Station, Corn Street in Witney and Thame High Street. These flat topped humps will highlight pedestrian priority and will also be inlayed with engineered granite setts to give the appearance of a zebra crossing but without the need to provide unsightly zig-zag markings and flashing belisha beacons.


• The inclusion of enhanced crossing points will result in the loss of some on-street parking; all but four spaces will be re-located to the northern end of the scheme.


• The scheme will be sympathetic to the historical context of the adjacent buildings with improved paving, granite chippings in the road surface and reduced street clutter.

I'm very interested to hear people's view on this so please do let me know what you think.  Once the consultation is officially open I'll add the official consultation response details.  I should also remind you that under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 the Council is obliged to make any representations received in formal response open to public inspection.  Please do go ahead and comment on this post - those comments will be public anyway but do not form part of the official consultation responses.

A weekend test-drive of an i-MiEV electric car

I was asked by a friend, Barrie, to test drive a Mitsubishi i-MiEV for the weekend sometime and I had a few trips to make this weekend I agreed to give it a go. It came from Humphris on Rose Hill where he works - apparently they wanted the view of a councillor!  I picked the car up on Saturday morning and was quite pleasantly surprised at how similar to any other small automatic it was in driving style and appearance. You even have a key to put in the "ignition" to turn it on and "start" the electric motor.

Once home I had a good look around the car inside and out. As it has no internal combustion engine it has electric power steering and there is a dedicated electric vacuum pump to provide the brake servo assistance. The brakes feel very normal, just like on any car of that size. Under the bonnet there is a 12v battery just like in a petrol or diesel car - it's used for lights, wipers internal fans, indicators and so on. It also controls the electrics that manage the main traction motor and the big traction battery. The traction battery is huge and sits at the rear of the car under the back seat. It produces around 300v DC which is converted to 3-phase AC current to drive the traction motor. For those interested it produces about 66PS which is about the same a 1.1 litre small petrol car. The torque curve is very different though, with the electric motor having good torque right from a standstill, unlike a petrol engine which won't do much at all below 1000rpm. The flexibility of the electric motor means that the car only has one gear as the motor can cope right through the speed range and reverse is just achieved by running the motor backwards. There is no clutch either as a motor doesn't need it.  There is no spare wheel but instead a tyre repair kit and a small compressor for re-inflation.  A tiny gripe with the interior is that there is no clock so you can't see what time it is very easily.

The first journey was a little drive up to the ring road then back down Brasenose Driftway and Crescent Road to see how it coped with the downhill run. As well as "Drive" mode the car also has "Braking" and "Comfort" modes - they are really just variations on a theme. Regenerative braking is used in all modes, an average amount in D, more in B and less in C. The car slows down quite rapidly to about 10mph in B mode with your foot off the accelerator, giving the battery a little charge while it's doing it.

I got braver then and went with some friends up to Watlington Hill for a walk. We took the A40 and the M40 up to the Lewknor turn and while the car felt perfectly safe and stable at 70mph on the M40 (top speed is rated at around 80mph) it was eating the charge in the battery at an alarming rate so we slowed to 60mph. The car is definitely happier at City Speeds.  Up to about 50mph it is pretty efficient. There is a power gauge on the dashboard and the trick is to keep the needle in the "eco" area as the economy is far better then.

Later on Saturday we did the supermarket run in the i-MiEV. Again fine but the boot is rather little - we filled it with what I'd call a smaller than average weekly shop.

On Sunday I drove into Oxford and then out to Cumnor to lead worship at the United Reformed Church there. The car ran beautifully.  For lunch I took Gordon to the Bat and Ball at Cuddesdon then in the early evening I visited Wolvercote to babysit my nephew Oliver for a few hours.  I was glad of the small size of the i-MiEV in Wolvercote as my sister and her family live on a small side road with extremely tight parking!



Charging the car is achieved with a mains cable that is 5 metres long so quite easy to use if you have a driveway.  It takes 7 hours in total to charge the car from flat and does so at a rate of 3kW so uses about 21kWh of electricity to do it.  At today's prices that costs about £2.50 - £3.  A full charge claims to do 90 miles and I reckon I'll get pretty close to that if I stay off motorways.  In comparison, an efficient similarly-sized petrol car would probably use about 9 litres of petrol to do that, costing £12.60 at today's £1.40/litre fuel price.  That's quite a significant difference!  For someone with a daily commute up to about 20 or 30 miles away it would save a fortune in petrol or diesel costs!  You can also get a fast charge cable to use in dedicated charging points - this charges at 50kW and takes about half an hour to get the battery to 80%.

All in all I am impressed with the i-MiEV.  I could easily cope with it as my main car as almost all journeys I make are shorter than 20 miles and it's rare to need to go over 50mph in and around Oxford.  For the odd weekend away and the summer camping trip it would not be outrageous to hire a car as that can be done pretty cheaply and conveniently these days.  As electric plug-in cars get cheaper and their range gets longer it may well become a serious proposition for the masses in a few years' time. It makes particular sense if, like us, you have a Solar PV installation so you can charge the vehicle with electricity you've generated yourself.  At the moment the prices are too high and battery life (i.e. number of charges) is still uncertain but I'm sure this will all change in time.

I must say I was surprised at how drivable and comfortable the i-MiEV is.  It feels very much like a small auto with continuously variable transmission and I got used to it very quickly.  It will never win any speed trials but around town it's perfect - it has good acceleration from a standstill and has the great advantage over a petrol or diesel car that when it is stationary, even just in traffic, it is using no energy at all.  It emits zero Carbon Dioxide (although of course the electricity has to be generated somewhere and that might produce CO2) and is virtually silent in running. Its small size, with very little outside the visible area at the front or back makes it an absolute breeze to park.

I shall be sorry to return it on Monday morning!

Partnerships Training

This session was set up for councillors by two officers from Strategic Policy and Partnerships.

I found it useful to have an overview of how the City Council works in partnership with other bodies both at the City and the County level and there was some useful information about changes to partnerships since the change of government in May 2010.  In particular we noted:

•Scrapping of the Local Area Agreement
•Scrapping of the National Indicators
•Removal of statutory duty to develop a Sustainable Community Strategy (and therefore the need for Local Strategic Partnerships)
•Scrapping of regional bodies (SEEDA, GOSE)
•Introduction of Local Enterprise Partnerships
•Changes to the Health and Well Being Board linked to the NHS reforms

The Oxford Strategic Partnership has some new priorities, structure and subgroups also:

You can click the image to get an even bigger version.

I had no idea there were so many bodies involved in the Oxford Strategic Partnership.  They include:  Oxford City Council; Oxfordshire County Council; NHS Oxfordshire; Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action; Oxford University; Oxford Brookes University; Oxford and Cherwell Valley College; Thames Valley Police; Oxford Inspires; Critchleys; and Oxford Preservation Trust.

The one suggestion I made was that meetings of all the partnerships, which are public and published should be added to the Council's meetings newsfeed to get the importance of partnership working higher up on the agenda.

Full Council

The last full council of 2011 and a ridiculously full agenda! We met at 5pm and I didn't stop until 10.37pm and even then, had not dealt with the motions on notices, statements and questions.

There were some very important items at this meeting.

The council also considered plans for Barton West and also the latest round of attacks on HMO tenants and landlords.  The use of a house as an HMO (that means 3 or more unrelated people living there) is a different planning use class and Labour has made it a requirement that all changes to use class C4 will require planning permission and that change of use from C3 (family home) to C4 will require planning permission.  Even more worrying is that planning permission will be refused if there are more than 20% of properties in that street already in use as HMOs.  I think that will be catastrophically disastrous for Oxford's housing situation.  We'll see.

I am utterly appalled at some of the judgemental and social-sorting based on tenure language that is being used by this Labour Council.  Try "However, in some areas of the city, high concentrations of HMOs are resulting in changes to the character of the local area, and may also contribute to local parking problems, large numbers of transient households, and the affordability of renting or buying homes in Oxford. This has led some people to believe that their communities are becoming unbalanced, because the number of short‐term tenants with less established community ties has grown too large."

I think that's outrageous and hope that lots of Oxford-dwellers will agree. I see it as nothing more than a direct attack on students, honest landlords and anyone elsewho can't afford to live in Oxford in any other way than in an HMO.

Another thing discussed was the issue of adopting some legislation to allow the licensing of horse-drawn carriages in the City Centre. This was being recommended by the General Purposes Licensing Committee but I am pleased that the Full Council saw that any horse drawn carriages would be inappropriate in such a constrained City as Oxford for reasons both of horse welfare and pedestrian, cyclist safety. I was glad to be one of the 27 that voted against the Licensing Committee's recommendation.  This shocking video from New York is one of the things that convinced me to vote against.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWhmuUUeZKU&feature=player_embedded

A long and tiring meeting and some really stupid planning decisions rushed through by our current megalomaniac Labour Administration if you ask me!

Special Full Council: Core Strategy

We had a short full council meeting today to vote on the finalised Core Strategy document that puts a strategic framework around development of our City for the next fifteen years.

The meeting started with a few words from the Lord Mayor about the terrible disaster unfolding in Japan. We had a minutes' silence to reflect on all the suffering and loss of life.

The core strategy was then presented by the deputy leader of the Council. Two speeches of five minutes were allowed by each of the Labour (administration), LibDem, and Green Groups. We had decided to abstain on the vote - not because we didn't approve of the core strategy as presented but because we didn't think it went far enough on things like the need to build housing and being more energy-efficient. The Green voted against and for some reason demanded a named vote whereby every councillor present has their name read out and has to declare their vote for the record.

There were lots of people in the public gallery who seemed in the most part opposed to the Northern Gateway proposals for housing.

I must say arguing over housing in Oxford, while a serious matter, did feel rather insignificant compared to the troubles some Japanese Cities will be facing for years to come after this weekend's earthquake.

Sainsburys Heyford Hill and the roundabout there

I received a useful letter in the post today that is basically information from Sainsburys Heyford Hill that you may or may not find useful. It is essentially outlining the plans for an extension and refit of the shop and reconfiguration of the Heyford Hill Roundabout to which the shop is directly linked.   Sainsburys has worked constructively with Oxfordshire County Council to develop a roundabout improvement scheme. The current outline of works is:

• Sun 6 Mar to mid-April 2011: Reconfigure and resurface car park


• Early April to mid-October: Highway works to upgrade Heyford Hill Roundabout


• Early May to Mid-June: Demolition and ground works for shop extension


• Mid-June to Mid-July: Shop extension construction


• Mid-July to Mid-October: Internal re-fit


• Mid-late October: Re-opening

Sainsburys anticipate a short closure of up to a week in the run up to the re-opening in October.

I suppose my main concern with this is that it will involve even MORE traffic lights.  The ones on the Tesco Roundabout at Cowley, while of course extremely useful in the rush hour, are just an utter pain at other times and cause huge delays to everyone trying to navigate the roundabout.  I just hope the traffic lights here will be a bit better thought-out.

The saga of the street lights on Magdalen Bridge

Back in early December 2010 I noticed that none of the street lamps along the North side of Magdalen Bridge was working.  This isn't strictly in my ward but I cycle home that way every day and it's still City Centre.  I saw a potential safety issue with cyclists having to pull out to turn right at the Plain and the risk of drivers of buses, cars, vans etc. not seeing them, especially if the cyclists were dressed in dark clothes and not using lights.  Sadly that still happens far more often than it should.  Many students also report feeling unsafe walking over the bridge and the darkness was not going to help that!

I made a report about the problem to the County Council street light repair service on 9th December. That service is normally excellent and things get repaired in a few days, almost always less than a week.  I got a response the same day saying a 24hr job had been raised.

On 13th December I got an update saying the street light repair contractors had attended and found a power supply fault so had passed the issue onto Scottish and Southern Energy the body responsible for dealing with such issues.  SSE is contracted to repair such faults in 20 working days.  I asked if this could be given priority as it affected so many lights and on 14th December the County Council said they would try to pull some strings.

On 12th January 2011 I reminded the County Council that the 20 working days were now up (count them yourself if you don't believe me!).  Unusually I got no reply so sent a reminder on 17th January.  I got a reply quickly that said, among other things:

"Guaranteed Standards of Performance for street lighting cable fault repairs became a statutory requirement from 01 October 2010. We will therefore claim penalty payments from SSE at £10 a day, for every day over 20 working days the fault is outstanding."

I was also given the contact details for a person at SSE and the job reference so I could complain directly.  I did so, as did the Bursar of a nearby College.  I got a "not me guv" type of reply yesterday helpfully giving the contact details of the Oxford Depot manager for SSE as well as the engineer dealing with the issue. But still no progress!

Earlier in the week, while I was dealing with the order for Cherwell Student Newspaper for our department I mentioned this issue to the person I was dealing with.  He passed it on to one of the Cherwell journalists who has today pursued SSE about the issue.  I think the word "journalist" must have worked better than the word "councillor" because the job has now magically been programmed!

I have had an email this afternoon from the County Council saying:

"I have been told by SSE that there is a major cable fault on the bridge, which will require a power shutdown affecting businesses in the area (such as Sainsbury's). The work has been programmed for next Thursday to allow the relevant businesses to be informed."

So there we are.  Some casework is easy, some takes ages and far too much chasing!  I am amused that a journalist managed to achieve, in about half an hour, more than I have achieved in a month with this issue! Well done Cherwell.  The £10/day fine for missing the service deadline does seem a rather paltry amount and is hardly going to make contractors take much notice of the20-day limit.  I wonder why it is set so low.

Watch out for working lights next Thursday (27th Jan)!  Update:  There is now an article in Cherwell about this.

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!

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.