Antisocial behaviour by pub operators

This was an interesting piece of casework and a good opportunity to serve the people who elected me! My attention was drawn to the issue by an article in the Cherwell student newspaper.  So I contacted the Lincoln JCR president and we've had a very useful meeting. It appears the main problem is that the operators of the Turl Bar, which is part of the same block as lots of Lincoln College student accommodation, are making a lot of noise emptying containers of used bottles into recycling bins late at night and that loud music is becoming more and more of an issue.

As the venue (The Turl Bar) will close forever on 31st May this year there is probably no merit in taking formal action.  I hope the licensing team will, with a conciliatory approach, be able to persuade Whitbread's staff running the Turl Bar to be a bit more considerate.  I hope the staff will remember that many students have their living and studying space in extremely close proximity to the bar and that May is an extremely important month for study and revision, particularly for those facing finals exams. Finals directly dictate their degree result and to a large extend the path and/or success of the rest of their lives.  I am impressed at the amount of records and personal impact statements the students of Lincoln College have been able to provide. I hope this will underline the seriousness of the problem with Whitbread and their staff.

Although this is short-term problem on council time-scales it represents a huge risk to the success of Lincoln students if a solution is not found.  The month of May represents more than half of some students' final term of study and continuous noise and sleep disruption is quite intolerable.

Budget - and council tax-setting full council

A long meeting tonight ably chaired as ever by Cllr John Goddard, the Lord Mayor of Oxford.

We started with addresses from the public and heard a moving speech about the plight of the Oxfordshire Chinese Community and Advice Centre as well as some exciting information about a community-based film called NoBalls that is directed by my friend Martyn Chalk, owner and founder of Chalkstar films, and produced by Rubia Braun, of Metro Brava, who spoke at the meeting. That's her in the picture.  We heard more about Temple Cowley Pools from Nigel Gibson and Jane Alexander and a speech about Democratic openness as well as an address from a Unison representative urging the Council to save jobs and services with extra money now available in the budget.

We moved on next to the budget proper.  We had a lot of gesturing from the Labour Administration about how this was a budget nobody wanted and how it was all the coalition government's fault.  Funny how they seem to think the UK economy has got into the state it is in just since May 2010 and that everything Labour when in government did was right until then.  Next the Lib Dem budget was able presented by Alan Armitage and Stephen Brown.  We were the only party to suggests cuts to councillor allowances and we also put in provision to save administrative support for Area Committees and to keep Temple Cowley Pools open for a few more years while finances improved and better solution than losing a pool within the ring road in East Oxford could be found.  The Green budget was also presented and had some bizzare extra additions like saving St. Clement's car park even though the Greens are meant to be so anti-car.

After supper, of course with a majority administration the Labour Budget got through unamended.

We then set the council tax for 2012 and agreed a zero change in the City Council part of your bill.  Next was questions from members of council.  Jean Fooks asked a useful question about compelling business to be less wasteful with energy and John Tanner replied that there was no legal power to do that but that the administration was working with local businesses through low carbon Oxford to try to reduce the City's carbon footprint.  I asked questions about the possibility of having a separate dog training area in Cowley Marsh Park but was told the council has no money or policy for this and that it couldn't be done on the disused tennis courts.   The portfolio holder, Cllr Lygo, did agree to have a meeting with the founders of the Fellowship of Responsible Oxford Dog Owners to talk about possibilities so that's at least encouraging.  Interestingly he also said the tennis courts were to be refurbished and provided with new nets.  I know that will please Temple Cowley residents and am just sorry it's taken so long to get agreement to get that done.

We moved on to motions on notice and I tried to amend the one by the Deputy Leader of the Council as it started well, praising the constructive work of the Unions in minimising impact on staff and council services in these difficult times but then moved on to political gesturing and trying to get council staff to engage in political action.  I don't think it's appropriate for councillors formally to encourage staff to take part in any political action as many of them will be politically restricted.  The proposer refused to accept my amendment removing the problematic parts of the motion so our group was unable to support the motion at all which was a shame.

The council then agreed the statement of licensing policy very quickly as it had already been past all area committees and the licensing and gambling acts committee.

The final item was discussion of members allowances.  I believe very firmly that if we councillors are having to cut staff and services then we should also take a cut in our own allowances.  We LibDems proposed a 10% cut and also a cut in some special responsibility allowances for City Executive Board members but were voted against by the Greens and Labour who wanted to keep their personal allowances as they are.  Typical do as we do, not what we say attitude from Labour and Green.  One Labour member shouted at us that we should give our allowances to the Big Society - actually several of us in the LibDem group already do substantial charitable giving...

We finished around 9pm.

Brilliant Group Meeting

We had a really good Lib Dem group meeting today. Lots of really good ideas and good discussion forming into consensus on many things. I thought the meeting was very ably chaired by Alan Armitage and it was clear that he and Stephen Brown have done a huge amount of work on our budget proposals. I think things will work really well in terms of our holding the administration to account on Monday evening at full council. Watch this space!

Central South and West Area Committee

We met at St Barnabas School on Hart Street today.  It was freezing cold and sitting on children's chairs is not ideal.  There was not a huge amount on the agenda although we had a useful update on street scene issues and a City Centre Police report from Insp. Matt Bullivant.

There were no planning applications although we did talk about the plans to make Jericho a conservation area and put an article 4 direction area in place (which basically removes permitted development rights from building owners).  Although some buildings in Jericho, notably St. Barnabas Church, are worth preserving I must say that a lot of the housing is very substandard with no cavity walls, poorly insulated windows and incredibly insubstantial foundations.  I'm not quite sure why we are preserving rows and rows of cheap houses that were originally built as mass housing for the poor.  I think the planning restrictions will severely limit people's ability or inclination to make their properties more energy efficient and I think that's a real shame.

There was a presentation from a County Council officer about the cuts to libraries and youth services.  I was very embarrassed at the hard time one member of the committee gave the officer, especially in public!  It's not the officer that decided on the cuts - it was the Tory County Councillors!  Talk about shoot the messenger!

We finished just after 7.30pm all very cold and uncomfortable on the children's chairs.

Wesley Memorial Methodist Church redevelopment project

I was invited to go and have a tour and discussion with Derek Rawson, the chair of the Open Doors Steering group, about the exciting plans that Wesley Memorial Church has for its buildings.  The plans are well-outlined on their website and essentially aim to make the premises more welcoming, flexible and hospitable.  The plans add a glass enclosure between the main church building and the John Wesley Room and also remodel the stage at the back of the main hall.  Wesley Mem. houses the hugely successful Rainbow House Children's Café and the redevelopment will give it more space and a much better kitchen to use.  The plans also add more offices and meeting space to the site and provide access to a piece of the original City Wall that is of archaeological and historical significance.  I hope that some sort of grant from the City Council can be arranged as it is good for other fund-raising for projects such as this to have support from local authorities.

Licensing and Gambling Acts Committee special meeting

We met today for the sole purpose of signing off the revised statement of licensing policy.  It had been to all of the Area Committees but we still had quite a lot of discussion from two councillors who represent areas to the East of the City Centre about how they would like off-licences included in the special saturation policy (area pictured) for East Oxford.  Unfortunately councils can't change the law on when SSPs are applicable!

A picture was painted of chaos and bedlam on Cowley Road with people drinking in the streets and then getting even more drunk in pubs there.  I must say, as someone who cycles or walks home along Cowley Road practically every day and at all hours of the day and night I don't recognise that picture at all.  I don't deny there are problems in East Oxford but I hardly think closing off licences is going to help.  The two councillors that reported all this trouble live in Headington and Iffley Village and I can't help wondering how much they actually see Cowley Road late at night.  I of course don't doubt their integrity and I know there have been a few nasty incidents recently but I do think the issues we see in Cowley Road are sometimes rather exaggerated.

What worried me most was that one member of the committee thought that good work had been done by a panel that refused a recent off-licence application for a new premises in Oxford only to have it granted on appeal by the Oxford Magistrates.  I'm afraid that if panels refuse things with absolutely no evidence directly attributable to the site in question, and no objection from the Police, then that's not really good work in my book.  The licence will almost certainly get granted on appeal and runs the real risk of Magistrates (quite rightly) awarding costs against the City Council for behaving unreasonably in its decision.  Councillors sitting on licensing panels MUST make decisions based on evidence and evidence alone.  Licensing panel member do nobody any good at all if we don't base decisions on evidence, especially the council-tax paying residents of Oxford, as decisions will not stand up to appeal and costs awarded against the Council will just come from council tax-payers money meaning other services have to suffer.

After all that discussion we did eventually agree to the licensing policy.

At home with the Christopher Lewis, Dean of Christ Church

I was invited to this event, I guess because I am a City Centre Councillor.  It was held at the Deanery at Christ Church and all sorts of notable folk from the City and surrounding area were present.  I had the great pleasure of meeting some senior county councillors as well as many of the senior staff of Christ Church itself.  The Dean himself and is wife were both extremely gracious and very good and making sure people were introduced to each other.  It was a fascinating gathering to which I felt extremely privileged to be invited.

Oxford Chinese New Year Gala Evening

What an amazing evening!  I was invited to this event as a ward councillor and I'm really glad I went.  It really was a multi-talented, multi-colour spectacular of entertainment.  The event was organised by the Oxford Chinese Students and Scholars Association.

The large audience included several important figures from the Chinese Embassy, including Minister Counsellor Mr Xiaogang Tian, as well as senior figures from Oxford University including Dr Stephen Goss, one of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors.  Dr Goss gave an excellent speech about how important the Chinese link is to Oxford University with Chinese being the 2nd most common nationality among undergraduates, 3rd-most with graduates and 4th-most in staff.

We heard two choirs, one opera singer, some martial arts, a fashion show, a somewhat manic but very good violin player and much more.  I was grateful to the Chinese embassy official sitting next to me for providing some translations!

The amazing multicultural mix in Oxford is one of the great things about our City and it really humbling and an honour to attend such a wonderful event.

Grays Road Store informal premises licence review

This was interesting as it was about a premises licence that had previously been before a licensing panel for review in 2010.  That panel had resolved to revoke the licence but the shop owners had appealed to the Oxford Magistrates to reconsider the decision (as is their right).  It appears that the problems had arisen following the passing away of the original Designated Premises Supervisor as the deceased's family were continuing to run the store and were making mistakes, I suspect partly due to grieving the loss of their relative and partly due to inexperience.

Thames Valley Police had been working with the shops owners and the owners had clearly undertaken a lot of training and employed professional licensing experts to train them in running an off-licence operation properly, with particular focus on avoiding selling alcohol to minors.  Oxford Magistrates had asked the matter to be referred back to a licensing panel for consideration and opinion.

After some discussion and questioning  the shop owners and operators managed to come to agreement on a set of operating conditions with the Thames Valley Police licensing officer so the panel (of which I was part) was then able to direct the City Council Solicitor to advise the Magistrates that we thought the licence could probably safely remain in force now and invite the Magistrates to consider that in their decision.  It is of course open to the Magistrates to pursue any course they think suitable including revoking the licence completely or allowing it to stay in force with no extra conditions.  I hope neither of those things happens!

Please note this post does not form an official record of proceedings and should not be treated as such.  The meeting was not a formal hearing as such and Oxford Magistrates will be invited to make the final decision.

City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group

This group met today and discussed various issues around crime and safety in the City Centre area.  It consists of lots of Thames Valley Police staff right from Inspector to Police Community Support Officers.  Community safety officers and estate managers are present as well as resident, park rangers, the City Centre Manager and Nightsafe.

The agenda included discussions about drug dealing & misuse, alcohol-related antisocial behaviour and litter issues.

The NAGs are actually very useful in terms of keeping all the relevant authorities, including the Police,  in touch with each other and enable a much more holistic approach to general community safety and well-being than would otherwise be possible.

Full Council

We had quite a good meeting today.  We had some addresses by members of the public about disability access as well as more about Temple Cowley Pools.  It's such a shame the Labour administration seems so hell-bent on depriving the Temple Cowley and East Oxford of such a well-loved and well-used community facility but I do rather feel the battle is lost now.  I was rather disappointed to hear one speaker make entirely inappropriate remarks about the probity of the leader of the Council.

We moved through executive board recommendations, most of which were not controversial.  I am disappointed that City Council is going to start charging for parking in quite a few well-used places including those where people park to take their children to football practice etc. and I hope this won't decrease participation.  I do understand the need to balance the budget though.  I was also disappointed to see that the report proposes putting in mains-powered ticket machines rather than solar-powered ones, simply because the latter don't contain a heater to keep the tickets dry.  Surely there must be a better way!

We then moved into the questions on notice, starting with  a question from a Green councillor about the terrible human rights abuses happening in Iran at the moment.  Lots of members of the public were in the gallery to hear this question which is why it was taken first.  All present agreed that the council should send a strong message of support to those oppressed and a strong message of disapproval to the Iranian authorities.  The international links committee was not the right way to do it but the leader said he would do what was appropriate, as did the Lord Mayor.

I asked a question about why the "save East Oxford" banner had been targeted for enforcement by the planning department.  Colin Cook, the portfolio holder, said it had been done without his knowledge but was the result of a complaint from a member of the public and because it was a listed building it had received high priority.

I also asked a question about the threatened closure to the public of the waste and recycling centre at Redbridge and the risk of increased flytipping.  I received a somewhat reassuring response from John Tanner, the portfolio holder, that he (along with the other Oxfordshire districts) had had a very robust discussion with the County Council and were hoping to reach some agreement on keeping Redbridge and other centres open.  It wasn't a promise but it felt like a move in the right direction. The County is already offering money to the districts to cover increased fly-tipping clear-up cost but personally I'd rather see that money used keeping the tip open!

After the questions we had a break for tea and I had an extremely useful chat with the chair of licensing (I'm the vice chair) about a few issues.

After tea we moved to the motions, the usual political grandstanding that doesn't achieve a huge amount and is probably the ugliest part of being a councillor.  I thought the most significant motion was the one about tuition fees.  It was by a Labour Councillor.  Mark Mills, one of our group, put an amendment that pointed out some of the positive things that are happening around education funding which I actually thought was rather helpful.  Sadly the Labour and Green groups just mocked it and called it an apology for the coalition's actions on this (which I have already said I think are terrible).

I then stood up and said I was quite willing to say I was ashamed of what the government had done to higher education funding, just as I'm sure the Labour members were ashamed of at least some of what their party's leadership had done in government. That's what happens when you're in a party that is in government!  I urged us all to step back and to consider that although the cuts were very bad, I firmly believe that we as councillors have a duty to encourage our young people to take up educational opportunities and to encourage them, where appropriate, into higher education, not to scare them off with political grandstanding.  I received a round of applause for this and even a nice email from a Labour councillor today about it.  After the amendment fell the Labour group asked for a named vote on the substantive motion.  This happened.  Lib Dem group mostly abstained but I voted in favour of the motion.  It passed as the Labour group voted for it and they have a majority.

The meeting finished around 9pm.

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.

Labour's planning department trying to silence objectors?

There was an interesting story in the press today about how the Labour administration of Oxford City Council is trying to use its powers of planning enforcement to get a large poster objecting to the St. Clements' Car park redevelopment removed.  The poster is on the side of a listed building without consent so it is right that it shouldn't be there but I can't help finding it odd that the planning department is being so heavy-handed with this when it simply just doesn't do so much other enforcement work.  The poster was put up with the permission of the occupiers of the building so it does seem rather unfair (if not illegal) of the City Council to try to force the poster to be taken down.

Last night I had an email (it went to all councillors and our local MP so I'm assuming it's not very private!) which put the matter rather well, I thought:

"I read in the Oxford Times that a sign placed on Finders Keepers Estate Agents protesting against the development of the St Clements’ Car Park has been ordered to be removed by the council planning department as it allegedly infringes the status of the building as a listed property and contravenes advertising laws.

I myself phoned the planning department some months ago about the profusion of satellite dishes appearing in the East Oxford conservation area. I was told by a planning officer that this was a low priority and that the funds were not available to deal with the ‘60 or more’ dishes in the area of which the planning officer was aware, all of which infringed planning law. He also told me that his practise was to send in some cases a threatening letter to the property owner, but if the dish was not removed to do nothing thereafter.

Should we assume that following the threatening letter from the planning department about this sign (and assuming the sign is not removed)  the planning department will then do nothing, as it does with other minor infractions of local planning law ? Or does the council believe that the sign protesting the St Clements Car Park is a special case deserving of unusual resources from the taxpayer to remove ?"

The correspondent may well ask!  I certainly intend to.  It seems a bit of a conflict that the planning department is effectively using resources to stifle very wide public dissent to a scheme that it itself is supporting.  It doesn't feel very democratic to me.

Your views welcome.   You can also look at the Save St.Clements website.

LibDem Group Meeting

We met today in the town hall and had a good presentation from Helen Bishop and Karen Tarbox about the new customer service centre and the merging of current customer service provision.  I hope this project works well and hope that sufficient attention is paid to expectation management in the new system as I believe that's key to good customer service.  I also requested that councillors be able to have a read-only view of the job tracking system in use so that we can be more helpful to constituents when chasing up issues and hopefully more helpful to the customer services officers.

We discussed a few other things in the group meeting including how we we handle next week's City Executive Board meeting and the forthcoming Full Council meeting on 24th January.It was a good and positive meeting.

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.