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.