Community up in arms about proposed use of Manzil Park as builders yard

Manzil Park in AutumnI’ve had nearly 20 emails from East Oxford residents today voicing great concern about the proposal to hand some of Manzil Park over to builders as a yard for 2 years while doing a building project.  I too am rather concerned about this.  My reply to people is:

“I entirely agree that turning a large part of Manzil Park into a builders yard for such a period would be hugely detrimental to the local community and the amenity of all local residents, particularly younger children. There must be better local sites to use as a builders’ yard. As a resident of East Oxford myself I am extremely concerned about this.

I am unfortunately not part of the City Executive Board or indeed the ruling political group on the City Council so my absolute powers are limited but I will undertake to do all I can to influence those in power to rethink this potentially disastrous proposal.”

Social Landlord tenancy and the problems it brings

A small piece of casework today.  A resident of some social housing in Carfax rang to say his area’s glass recycling bin is full and that when he rings City Works to arrange a collection he gets told that they need to check if the Registered Social Landlord (OCHA in this case) has paid for the service.  Then nothing happens.

Glass recycling

This would not happen if the City Council owned and managed all the council housing in Oxford City.  And to think the Labour Group was trying to hand it all off to registered social landlords not so long ago.  The problem is there is no accountability – at least Council Housing tenants have councillors to hold their landlord to account.

An interesting discussion with Carlyle Group

I had a meeting to discuss the proposals for the area between St. Aldates and Queen Street today and it seems there is a bit of an impasse between the City Council and the Developer over what to do with the site that we know as St. Aldate’s Chambers.   There is a planning application that has been waiting for determination for over a year now and the problem seems to be over a section 106 agreement

I’ll write more on this later.

Planning and Development Control Training

An interesting training session this evening teaching how Development Control is a balance between the needs of all interested parties.  I was pleased to see that legislation now better recognises that councillors are political animals and that as such we are able to take part in planning decisions so long as we do so with an open mind (and say so) even if we have publicly expressed strong views before.

Reliance WayI was also interested to hear about the new House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) legislation and how Oxford City Council will apply it.  It could make quite a difference to places like Reliance Way, where I live.

Annual Council and Mayor Making

We had the anmayor.JPGnual council meeting today which passed off without event and with much good humour.  I wish all full council meetings were like that.

We the had the first meeting of the Licencing and Gambling Acts committee.  I was elected vice-chair and Mary Clarkson is chair.

At 5pm we had the ceremonial council meeting in the Assembly Room.  John Goddard formally took over the role of Lord Mayor of Oxford and many speeches were made proposing and seconding him, the Sherrif (Colin Cook) and the Deputy Lord Mayor (Dee Sinclair) as well as the outgoing postholders.

Induction Training

I was invited to attend this as I haven’t been a councillor for four
years and things have changed!

We had a good introduction from Peter Sloman, the Chief Executive and
then some overviews by three strategic managers.  Jeremy Thomas, the
Head of Law and Governance gave a useful overview of services and
decision making, including delegation, and there was an excellent
“Freshers Fair” set up for us new councillors where we could meet all
the council services and their staff.

We had a sandwich lunch and then we were given information about legal
rules.  There was useful instruction about the difference between
personal and prejudicial interests and I was interested to note that the
bar for prejudicial interest is now much higher than it used to be.  It
essentially has to be a pecuniary interest.  We also learned about the
difference between pre-disposition and pre-determination.

The last session I attended was about Partnership Working and this is
extremely important in an area with two-tier local government but also
includes lots of other statutory bodies.

I was unable to stay for the session about Scrutiny and Scrutiny
committees as I needed to get back to my day job!

Criminalising people a success?

I’ve just read a City Council Press release entitled “Successful Prosecutions for Littering in the Citnewscleanergreeneroxfordlogo.jpgy Centre”.  I’m afraid to say that I don’t really see prosecution and issuing of fines as a success, more as a failure.  Surely the objective here is to make the City Centre tidier – not turn people into criminals?  Now I’m not for a minute condoning littering and I entirely support holding people to account for their actions but wouldn’t it have been much better to make the offenders take part in a City Centre clean-up / litter pick rather than just fining them?  I think that would have a much more positive effect on their future behaviour and would be a success in terms of tidying up the City.

Maybe I’m just too Liberal?  But it would have been nice to see a more positive headline than this.

Street Pastors training

I’d actuallyspastor2.jpg started this before being elected.  I am quite excited about it for two reasons:

1.  As an active Christian I believe we are called to take the love and care of Christ to people wherever they are.  This is a great opportunity to do that.
2. As a Carfax Councillor it will really help me to keep in touch with what happens in my ward during the small hours.

We were given a huge amount of useful information about drugs and alcohol and how they affect people we might be assisting as Street Pastors.  There are two more evening sessions to attend and then I’ll have attended all sessions bar one which I will have to catch up with as I was in Cornwall last weekend.

Student night-time safety issues meeting

Just had a useful meeting with two VPs from OUSU (Eorann Lean, and Katherine Wall).  City Council staff including Karen Crossan, Nightsafe Manager, attended as did Thames Valley Police.

We discussed issues around student safety; perceived as well as actual threat; street lighting (particularly on Magdalen Bridge and Norham Gardens); the Safety Bus (which has had some less than ideal press coverage) and various other issues.

Attendance at the City Centre Neighbourhood Action group was important and it is good that there will be more student representation now that the OUSU person for that role has more time dedicated to safety.