Planning Review Committee: Old Road Campus

The second  Planning Review Committee that I have chaired.  This was a reconsideration of the East Area Planning Committee's decision to grant planning permission to Oxford University to build a new research building on the Roosevelt Drive site near Old Road.  I am a member and employee of Oxford University so I had to consider carefully whether I could approach the decision with an open mind.  As I work for the central IT department of Oxford University and have nothing to do (in my work, rather than councillor, capacity) with the estates department and have no vested interest in the Medical Sciences Division I decided that although I clearly had a personal interest in the matter it was not enough to prejudice me as there are many thousands of people in our City who have some relationship or another with Oxford University.

The meeting proceeded smoothly with some very well-considered and well-presented evidence and opinions both from objectors and applicants.  The Planning Officer, Felicity Byrne presented very well and brought along a County Council Highways Officer (Martin Kraftl) to talk about the possibilities with regard to controlled parking zones.  The professional advice was extremely useful, as always.

After quite a bit of debate and careful questioning of all parties there was eventually a motion to approve the planning application with some additional conditions and that passed so the permission is granted.   The additional conditions are:

• That the landscaping to the tree belt on Old Road includes new hedge and tree planting to the western edge, and mixed evergreens to the eastern end;


• That the hours for deliveries during the construction of the development be controlled to avoid peak hours and the beginning of the school day;


• That the external lighting to the campus be designed to avoid Light spillage, in order to prevent nuisance being caused to nearby residential properties;


• That details of the maintenance regime for the attenuation tanks to be used in the drainage systems be submitted for approval by officers.

I hope these will go as far as possible in alleviating some of the concerns of the objectors.

Old Road Campus Site Visit

This is another planning application called in to Planning Review committee.  This time from East Area Planning Committee.

Quite a few councillors visited the site and we also took time to view the scene from Bickerton Road and from the garden and some rooms of a local resident's house that she very kindly gave us access to.

This was again an extremely informative visit that I think will make sure planning review committee next week makes as informed a decision as it can.

Planning Review Committee is turning out to be quite a lot of work but I do think it is important to consider applications properly as they have a big and lasting effect on many people in our City.  The work is also enjoyable and interested and it's an honour to be the chair of such an important committee.  I am grateful to my Labour colleagues for allowing me to have it.

Planning Review Committee: Mill Street Student Block

And so we get to the Planning Review Commitee meeting that will reconsider the planning decision made at the last West Area Committee.  This is the first Planning Review Committee meeting I've chaired as the first meeting happened while I was in Bonn on the twinning trip.  I was very keen to get things right so ran the meeting as carefully and inclusively as I could.

I should point out that "review" is a slightly confusing name for this committee as its job is not to review the previous decision and the process followed to reach it, but rather to take a fresh look at the planning application and make a new decision based on all the evidence presented.

All objectors had time to speak as did the applicant's agent.  The planning officer (Murray Hancock) gave a very informative and useful report and though he was recommending approval, that is just one of the opinions we as a committee were to consider.  We had some debate among councillors and then a motion was put  seconded to refuse the application and this received almost unanimous assent.  The application was thus refused.

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Mill Street Site Visit

One of the planning applications that was approved on 13 July at West Area Planning Committee was for some accommodation for students of a local college to fit in a strip of land between the back of houses on Mill Street and the railway, just south of Oxford Station.  At West Area Planning Committee councillors and officers had largely spoken highly of it and it was given planning permission (although not unanimously).

The council has a procedure after such decisions where if 12 councillors request it the decision is "called in" and get re-determined at Planning Review Committee.  That happened in this case.  I am chair of the Planning Review Committee so decided that we should actually visit the site to see how things would look from the neighbouring properties and well as from other angles.  Quite a few members of the committee attended the visit and we were accompanied by Murray Hancock, one of the City Council's senior planners, as well as some local residents and the agent for the applicant so he could let us onto the site.

I found the visit extremely informative and instructive and I think councillors much better equipped to made informed decisions in the actual committee meeting.

There was some controversy over the accuracy of pictures submitted and I was slightly amused at this one (although the whole issue is of course a serious one) as I think it looks like the mockup of the propsed building is floating in the air!

Electronic Committee Management

I attended a brief training session today about the new software the City Council is adopting to better manage information about committees and councillors.  I have to say I was quite impressed with it.  It should make finding things much easier for the public and it will hold us councillors better to account as it records meeting attendance too!

West Area Planning Committee

I attended this meeting today as I wanted to see the outcome of the planning application to change the use of three shop units in Gloucester Green to A3 food use.  The meeting was ably chaired by Oscar Van Nooijen and there was some good discussion on all the applications considered.  The biggest item on the agenda was the St. Clements' Car park application but that was deferred.

Much discussion ensued on the Gloucester Green application and the voting was a dead heat.  I am pleased that Oscar used his casting vote as chair to decline the permission as I think three extra late-night food outlets in that area would have caused intolerable problems for the residents of the flats on Gloucester Green (the Chilterns).

The meeting papers are available online.

Full Council

Today was Elise Benjamin's first full council as Lord Mayor and thus chair of the meeting.  It was not too long a meeting and had the normal political gesturing and grandstanding.  Following some actual and anecdotal evidence about a worrying trend of landlords pulling out of the HMO market, I made the following statement on notice:

"Lord Mayor, I want to make a brief statement about the implementation of new additional HMO licensing scheme. While I recognise and fully support the vital work of holding landlords to account and ensuring adequate and safe conditions for tenants I do want to sound a note of caution about discouraging landlords to stay in the HMO market.



Oxford is a lively and vibrant City and has a large population of young people trying to make their way after School, College or University.  Housing is scarce and expensive and living in HMOs is the only way many such people can afford to stay in Oxford.  I have seen one example (next to my own home) and heard of others where I wonder if perhaps this council is requiring more work than is strictly necessary on properties that are being used as-built (i. e. with no extra bedrooms or partitions, or rooms being used as bedrooms that were intended for other use), and to modern building regulations standards. While I of course understand the duty of care the council has to HMO-residents I hope that will be kept in balance with the need to maintain a supply of HMOs for those who are not able to afford to live in our wonderful City of Oxford any other way. Our City's economy is strong and healthy and this is due in no small part to the number of skilled professionals that live here.  I would hate to get into a position where they can no longer afford to live in Oxford because too many landlords have chosen to leave the HMO market.



It is a delicate balance and I certainly have no sympathy for landlords that don't look after their properties ensuring they are safe for their tenants, nor for tenants who engage in antisocial behaviour.   On the other hand I don't want to see tenants who are responsible members of the community who do not keep neighbours awake, do not have loud parties, do not abuse parking and properly manage their refuse and recycling to be the unintentional victims of a licensing regime that is meant to protect them, not drive their landlords out of the rental market and therefore them out of their homes.



I am grateful to officers for taking the time to discuss this issue with me in the last week or so and grateful for all the excellent work they are doing in bringing Oxford HMO stock up to a good and safe standard.  I also welcome the fact that the council has taken my comments on board and I'm sure officers will bear them in mind when making future assessments of works required to recently-built and/or non-overcrowded residential dwellings.  I will be asking the portfolio member for housing for an update in a question to council later in the year on progress in this important and delicately-balanced area.



Thank you"

Cllr Ed Turner gave me a constructive reply on behalf of the administration and I do hope the administration will make sure the HMO policy is applied in a sensible way in future - Oxford cannot afford to lose all its HMO stock.

Licensing Training

This was an all-day event for which I and lots of others took a day's leave.  It was led by Barrister Leo Charalambides of Ely Place Chambers Licensing Group.  We covered lots of ground and it was pleasing to hear a case that we had covered in the past referred to by Leo as an example of good practice that he often quotes when training others.

It was all quite technical, but also very practical stuff.  I entirely approve of the advice to know your own authority's statement of licensing policy well, and this particularly applies to me as my name is on it!

There was also some good advice about how to lay decisions out clearly, with their evidential basis, as this would hopefully make them more robust to appeal.

It was extremely useful having a day to reflect on licensing while not actually having a licensing decision to make and it was also fascinating hearing what a Barrister had to say when he wasn't representing an applicant in a license hearing.  I am grateful to Leo for being so frank, honest and helpful.

Planning briefing

This was an interesting session, put on for councillors about some new planning law that is currently being discussed in parliament.  It felt a bit odd to be having a theoretical discussion about something that's not even law yet but I guess it was useful nonetheless.

Code of Conduct Training

A 90 minute training session today reminding us about the need to declare interests and the need to be consistent in doing so.

We also learned about pre-disposition and pre-determination and the difference between the two.

City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group

A useful meeting of the City Centre NAG today.  Nothing particularly exciting but it was good to meet the new OUSU VP for Charities and Community - conveniently also called Daniel like his successor!  Daniel Stone this time.

It's good to be keeping this link with Thames Valley Police open and it was good to meet the new City Centre Inspector, Katy Barrow-Grint.  You can see the current City Centre team on their web page.

Licensing and Gambling Acts Committee and General Purposes Licensing Committee

I attended both of these committees today although was last for the first as I had a work meeting that was longer than expected. I had attended the pre-meeting on Monday so I knew there was nothing too contentious.  I'm always impressed at how much hard work the licensing team does and how much they seem to get done.  You can read their update report on the council web site.

The General Purposes Licensing Committee was a bit more interesting and a few things a worthy of mention:

Firstly, my fellow LibDem councillor Gwynneth Royce made some excellent comments about having women represented on the taxi-licensing sub-committee (a panel of three councillors - two labour and one libdem).  It would be fair to say that the panel consists of three white, older males so is not very diverse.  I think diversity is always good on decision-making bodies and Jim Campbell pointed this out saying it's good to have to work with people who don't agree with you.  We resolved to invite both Labour and the LibDem group to consider if they might like to change their nominated councillors for this panel so as to make sure both sexes are represented.

Secondly, we discussed the issue of designation of streets for trading purposes.  We agreed to make all streets in the City "consent streets" which means that street trading has to have a licence from the City Council.  This is good because it will simply things and make issues such as on-street car selling on Cowley Road easier to deal with but the legislation has a very broad definition of "Street" so it may affect some food outlets in private car parks such as the one near Wickes on Botley Road and the one in the John Allen Centre at Cowley Centre.  We asked Officers to look carefully at this to see what could be done to mitigate the problem.

Finally we had a discussion about pavement trading stall as there is apparently a problem that the City's standard 1Mx2M is difficult for traders as the "standard" size you can buy is 1.3Mx2.4M (4ftx8ft).  I'm a bit worried that this represents over 50% increase in area but was assured that this will only be a discretionary increase when officers believe that the larger area is necessary for the type of items being sold (i.e. a flower stall may well need to be bigger than a jewellery stall).  Personally I don't like the stalls with large objects attached to the side of them either.  They clog up the street and impede pedestrian flow as well as being grossly outside the size limit.  Officers agreed to consider these carefully when doing enforcement.

The meeting finished soon after 7pm.

Town Twinning trip to Bonn

I’m just on the way home from a brilliant trip to Bonn, one of the towns with which Oxford is twinned.  The flight is delayed so I'm writing this.  There was a delegation of seven City Councillors and a few others from Oxford and I should say at this point that we all travelled at our own expense. I took Gordon, my partner too.  We flew into Cologne on Wednesday 1st June and visited the wonderful cathedral there before having a good lunch and getting the train South to Bonn.

The visit programme started at 5.30pm with a reception in the Stadhaus in Bonn and then had a welcome dinner at the old Rathaus, that is in the middle of a re-furb.

Day two consisted of a wonderful boat trip down the Rhine to Remargen, where there is the remains of a bridge that was very important towards the end of World War II and a museum about it.  We hopped across the river while we were there to a little village called Erpel and had a needed ice-cream.  We got the boat back to Bonn a bit later and spent the evening having a nice meal in a Turkish restaurant with our hosts, Elmar Konrads-Hassel and his wife Ursula Hassel.

Day three started at the Stadhaus with an interesting seminar about all the fair trade activity that Bonn and its council takes part in.  We share Oxford experiences and were all presented with some fair trade coffee.  Lunch followed and then we had a free afternoon.  Gordon and I used that time to visit the cathedral in Bonn and the Beethoven memorial as well as the protestant church.  We went on after that to the Scholsskirche (the University Church) for an excumenical service that was held in both English and German.  I was pleased to be able to take part in the prayers of intercession, fortunately in English!  We then processed in our robes to the Bonn Oxford Club where we were treated to a barbecue supper and entertainment by the Oxford Fiddle Group, another part of the English delegation visiting Bonn.

Day four was an incredibly hot day so worked well for the Bürgerfest where lots of groups both from Bonn and Oxford gave performances.  The Bonn Irish dancers were among them as were the group from the Pegasus Theatre and the Oxford Fiddle Group.  Gordon and I visited the Beethoven Haus in the afternoon where an really excellent audio guide (thankfully in English) gave me a real sense of a tour through the great composer’s life from start to finish.  There was also a very modern 3D rendition of some scenes from Fidelio where the singers were 3D shapes and we could move them around to hear the change in musical effect.  We briefly visited the Arithmeum, a fascinating collection of mathematical and arithmetical instruments.  We didn’t have long there as it shut at 6pm.  The final evening’s entertainment was as the Haus den Karnevals where we were fed again and then took part in a sort of gig called Losst mer Singe – where we had to join in with a band singing carnival songs in a local dialect called Bönnsch.

Our last day started with another wonderful breakfast from our hosts and then a trip to a fairly new museum of  the history of Germany.  It covered the period from 1945 right up to the current day and gave a fascinating insight in the German Democratic Republic (from 1949-1989) and the Federal Republic of Germany and how reunification had come about.  I was interested to hear about the struggles of the former GDR to adapt to the economic freedoms enjoyed by the Federal Republic.  We finished off our trip by taking our hosts to lunch at Restaurant am Rheinaue (basically a lea on the Rhine).

I was extremely pleased to be able to attend this twinning trip and I feel I know some of my fellow councillors in Oxford much better now, as well as having made some wonderful new friends in Germany.  I do think that twinning is great for Cities and brings about an international dimension to their civic lives.  It’s also great to be able to take young people along such as those from the Pegasus Theatre as I think such things hugely broaden their horizons.

I look forward both to welcoming new friends from Bonn back to Oxford and to visiting Bonn and other twins of Oxford and strongly encourage other councillors and members of community groups to do the same.  It’s definitely well worth the effort and expense of the travel.  The youngest member of our group was still at primary school and the oldest over 90 so there are no excuses!

Turning Gloucester Green into a food court?

I have received much correspondence this week from concerned residents of The Chilterns, the apartments that are along two sides of Gloucester Green.  The applications are 11/01135, 11/01140 and 11/01142. The first appears to be on the West side and the second two on the North side.  All applications are for a change of use from use class A1 (retail) to A3 (hot food restaurant and/or takeaway).

Concerns are around the much larger amount of rubbish A3 units tend to produce and its storage as these are quite constrained sites.  There is also concern that food waste not stored properly will cause bad smells and attract vermin.  I certainly share those concerns and also those about late night running of noisy ventilation fans and of course all the people-noise that more food outlets will inevitably bring.  Some objections are based on the impact more A3 will have on the viability of existing A3 premises but unfortunately this is not a planning reason that can be taken into account when determining a planning application.

What can be taken into account is the actual noise, smell, refuse problems that more A3 units will inevitably cause.  I think this would be a step too far in reducing amenity and increasing nuisance for residents of The Chilterns so I hope these applications are turned down.  There is already another hour added to the opening time (making it 4am) of a food outlet that backs onto the cinema (subject of an earlier blog post) and I really do think that enough is enough this time.

The applicants seem to make the argument that the retail units are not financially viable and that the only way to make these units viable is to let them be food outlets.  I think the applicants (who are the landlords) are rather forgetting that the financial equation also includes the rent payable to the landlord. These applications therefore do rather strike me as yet another landlord being greedy and trying to maximise profit without showing any regard for the amenity of the area, balance of uses of premises or the rights of quiet enjoyment of their properties that those living in the area have.

I am pleased that these applications have been called into the West Area Planning Committee by my Lib Dem colleagues Stephen Brown, Alan Armitage, David Rundle and Jim Campbell and I do hope that when it comes to determine the applications  the new West Area Planning Committee will turn them down.

In the event that the planning use changes are granted then I hope the provisions of the Licensing Act 2003 can be used to prevent any new A3 units from operating late at night and into the small hours that further disturbing the residents of The Chilterns.

Annual Council, Licensing, Mayor-making

Today at 4pm saw the formal annual meeting of council which does things such as approving the scheme of delegation and appointing councillors to committees. I have ended up on the Licensing and Gambling Acts committee again and also the Planning Review Committee.

After that brief meeting we had meetings of the two licensing committees, again very briefly. Mary Clarkson will carry on as chair of licensing and gambling acts committee and I will continue as the vice-chair of that committee. I was pleased to see that Lib Dem Clark Brundin will chair the General Purposes Licensing Committee, with Labour's Colin Cook being vice-chair.

At 5pm we gathered in our robes in the assembly room for the annual ceremonial mayor-making event.  This is a formal occasion but also ceremonial.  The tradition is that the councillor of the longest standing, who has not fulfilled the role before, gets to serve as Lord Mayor for the council year.  This year that honour falls to Elise Benjamin.  Lots of speeches of proposal and seconding are made for Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor and Sheriff of Oxford.  I was really pleased that Lib Dems Alan Armitage and Jean Fooks will serve as Deputy Lord Mayor and Sheriff respectively for this council year.

The evening was rounded off with a reception for civil dignitaries and guests in the main hall of the town hall.

City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group

This was a good meeting although our numbers were quite low.  It was ably chaired by Sgt Stuart Hudson, a City Centre Sergeant with Thames Valley Police. PCs Rob Parker and Paul Phillips were also present.

The issue of drug dealing in the Oxpens/Friars Wharf/Speedwell Street area seems to have gone quiet so this is a good thing.  There are still problems with drinking in the street and general disorder around the St. Michael Street and Luther Street areas.  This always becomes more of a problem as the weather gets warmer and the lighter evenings come along but I was a bit alarmed to hear that some residents are feeling St. Michael's Street is a becoming a no-go area after 4pm.  I am pleased that TVP is doing a lot of close work with residents to help ensure that this problem and their fear of it is tackled effectively.  The Luther Street issues are ongoing and TVP continue to work with O Hanlon House, A2 Dominion Housing Association and the Luther Street Medical Centre.  Some more signs about street drinking are also being investigated although I have my reservations about how effective these will be!

Big Issue selling still seems to be problematic with sellers actually begging (which is illegal) rather than selling and ignoring the 10pm curfew on such sales.

We talked about how many students want to help people on the streets but don't know how.  Giving cash was not recommended as most estimates think that over 75% of that goes on drugs and alcohol, which does not necessarily help.  A voucher scheme for O'Hanlon house (the "night shelter") has been tried but there was too much black-market selling and counterfeiting so it was stopped.  I don't believe this is an insurmountable problem and would like to see a scheme where people can buy vouchers online and print them themselves with a unique barcode on them (a bit like a boarding pass or a Groupon).

Finally, having complained about speeding on St Giles, I was horrified to find that 90% of drivers were speeding when TVP did a check recently.  I hope something can be done about this and suggested a firm letter to the Oxford Bus companies as buses are some of the worst offenders in my experience.

The last ever Central South and West Area Committee

This was a sad evening.  I have had six years of working with Central South and West Area Committee and we've had some great times and hopefully served the people of Central, South and West Oxford well over that time.  Today's meeting was at the Deaf Direct Centre, on Littlegate Street (St Ebbe’s) and I thought it worked rather well as a venue.  One of the few times we've had the area committee in Carfax ward so I hope we'll be able to hold some of the new Area Forum meetings there.

The agenda is available online and I was about 15 minutes late as I had been at a meeting at Oxford Spires Academy where I am a governor.

I think the most notable item was a rather large dormer window planning application for a property on the south corner of Abingdon Road and Kineton Road.  The planning officers were recommending us to approve as this was an improvement on an even more obtrusive previous application that they had declined under delegated powers but their steer was that we could probably decide either way quite legitimately.  The dormer windows were to be on the rear elevation of the property and would probably not be allowed on the front.  Stephen Brown's argument that the side of the house is also the front on a corner plot is what convinced me to vote against the application.  Most of the rest of the committee agreed and the application was turned down.

The meeting finished around 6.45pm giving just enough time for a quick dinner and a pint at the Swan and Castle in time to get to the Annual Lib Dem Group meeting at the town hall at 7.30pm.  A busy day for a councillor!

Lib Dem group annual meeting

This was our annual meeting where we choose group officers for the coming council year.

There's not much to be happy about nationally as a Lib Dem at the moment but this was a good and positive meeting and I remain convinced that LibDem councillors are good for the people of Oxford that we are doing our best to get Lib Dem policies put into effect at local level.  Remember policy is formed by the party, not just by those in government.

Our nominations to council committees for the next council year are:

Value and Performance Scrutiny: Cllrs Brown, Royce, Gotch and McCready
Communities and Partnerships Scrutiny: Cllrs Khan, Campbell, Jones and Wilkinson
East Area Planning: Cllrs Rundle, Brown and Fooks
West Area Planning: Cllrs Jones, Gotch and Goddard
Planning Review: Cllrs Altaf-Khan, Brett and Armitage
Audit & Governance: Cllrs Brundin and Mills
General Purposes Licensing: Cllrs Gotch, Royce, Brundin and Goddard
Licensing and Gambling Acts: Cllrs Brett, Gotch, Royce, Brundin and Goddard
Disciplinary Committee: Cllrs Brown and Mills
Appointments Committee: Cllrs Brown and Mills
Standards Committee: Cllrs Brundin and Gotch

I'm pleased that we have managed to spread what is quite a heavy workload between us and look forward to working with these colleagues and those from the other parties represented on the City Council.

Full Council

Well this was a mammoth of a meeting!  We started with the normal formalities and also observed a minute's silence to mark the death of Bob Hoyle, who served Oxford City Council as a member for many years.  Bob was also a personal friend so this was a particularly poignant moment.

We heard a few addresses from members of the public including several people objecting to the end of Area Committees and the new planning arrangements coming into force.  We also had addresses from Jane Alexander and Nigel Gibson about the proposed new pool at Blackbird Leys and how nobody seemed really to want it, and concerns of more elderly and infirm users that it would be much colder than the current pool, possibly meaning they couldn't use it.

We had the usual plethora of questions from members of council, which are really more about making a point in public than actually needing to ask in that forum.  There were then two petitions, one about publicly funded leisure in Oxford and one about the Chinese Advice Centre which has suffered a savage cut to its grant this year at the hands of the Labour-run Council.  We stopped then for council tea and I had to dash home and back on my bike as I'd forgotten my lights and it would be dark at the end of the meeting.

After tea we moved on to the motions on notice and I was quite appalled at how many members of the Labour administration appeared to be deliberately filibustering so that we would run out of time and not get to the motions that might embarrass them.  There was one motion about Bee colonies and I was flabbergasted at home much research and how many long speeches we heard from Labour councillors.

We also had a discussion about the new single-member decision-making that is coming into force and I expressed concerned about how transparent that would be and quite how a single member is going to make any decision other than the one recommended on the report that they will probably have requested and approved!

The final item that caught my attention was a tightening up of taxi licencing policy and making some recommendations on the relevance of offences, cautions and convictions of those applying to be private hire or hackney carriage drivers.  I think it must be right that the decision-making panels have discretion to take these into account even when they might be "spent" for other purposes as taxi drivers are in a huge position of trust and we as councillors cannot risk putting vulnerable members of our society at risk by allowing people with incompatible histories to take on such positions of responsibility.

The meeting finished after 10pm and I was very glad to get home and have a rest before bed!  You can see a video of this meeting (beware it's 338 minutes long!)

University of Oxford Building work programme briefing

This was a fascinating presentation by Oxford University's Estates department.  After a sandwich lunch we were shown a fascination presentation by Mike Wigg, the Acting Director of Estates.

It's great to see that the University has so much going on in this time of economic difficulty.    Mike covered areas including:  the Science Area; Outside Oxford; Bodleian Libraries Projects; the Headington Hospital Sites; International Projects  and the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.

I was particularly interested to hear about the roof replacement on the University Museum and also enjoyed the tour around the new Earth Sciences building.  We saw a mass spectrometer that had just been delivered and was in the process of being assembled, and had to wear shoe covers to go in that room.  I was also fascinated by the information about the burial ground that had been discovered on the old Radcliffe Infirmary site.

I think it's great that the University is showing that it has a proper strategic building plan and I am glad that all this work will keep lots of local people employed in these difficult financial times.  It also makes planning decisions easier if councillors can see them as part of a clearly well-thought out strategic plan.