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.