Overstepping the mark with protest

EDL-wreath

It was brought to my attention yesterday that an English Defence League event was being advertised today to lay wreaths/flowers at the Cenotaph in Oxford. Oxford doesn’t have a cenotaph so I assumed it meant the war memorial, at the top of St. Giles, which is just within my ward. There was a picture on the facebook page which you can see here [Update 9 June I’ve cropped it so as not to advertise the EDL].

I added myself to the facebook event and posted this on the event’s wall: “RIP Lee. I hope this is a peaceful and fitting memorial to a young man so cruelly taken by some extremely dangerous and misguided young men. I know that many Oxford people of all races and all religions would strongly share that with me.” Nobody deleted it so I went along at 1pm. You’ll note that the picture has no mention of Woolwich or of any particular faiths or races.

I arrived to the war memorial just after 1pm to find a huge bunch of people, including some with Socialist Worker Party literature. Here they are:

I stood and watched this group jeering at the people who had presumably laid the flowers on the war memorial and they jeered at them as they walked away down St. Giles. [Update 4 June: I had an email today saying: “Hi tony my name is shane and i attened the demo on sat to pay my respects to drummer lee rigby and was discusted in how the uaf was acting i got accused of being in edl just because i was wearing a help for heroes tshirt .i walk off with a friend. N got jeeard by the uaf . Would they react the same at a repat?”. He gave me permission to add it here]

The protestors were climbing all over the war memorial, as you can see, and when they got up I was horrified to see that they had been sitting on the floral tributes to Lee Rigby that had been laid on the memorial. [Update 6 June: It transpires that the reason the protestors were climbing the memorial is because a local press photographer asked them to. As such that means it’s unfair to blame that action on those present]. The floral tributes were squashed and badly damaged [although I concede I didn’t see them before the protestors arrived so that could have been anyone] and indeed one young woman tried to walk away with half of the flowers. I have a picture of her but it’s probably better if I share it with the authorities than post it here. She eventually put the flowers back after a bit of an argument with me. Here they are.

Now I want to be very clear that I in no way support any sort of hate activities that are associated with any political group, including the EDL, but today I saw absolutely no sign of any EDL banners or clothing and no sign of any stereotypical EDL behaviour. What I saw was a loud and unruly bunch who were showing hate towards what seemed to me to be a peaceful and lawful act of remembrance for a young solider who had lost his life at the hands of two very badly misguided other young men. If I do see any hate activity from ANY group in Oxford I will challenge it rigorously but the only hate I saw today was from the protesters in the picture above.

Decimating a floral tribute and climbing all over a war memorial is to me a mark of sheer contempt and disrespect and I’m afraid will just fuel hate, not peace. I will happily support an act of memorial as ward councillor. I will absolutely NOT support even any hint of racism, Islamophobia or any other form of hate – be it from the EDL or any other group. Today I saw it from another group.

The way to beat hate is with hope, not with hate.

Another shop loss on George Street – but good news on bins!

Today I spotted a planning application for a change of use of basement and ground floor from a retail unit (Use class A1) to a restaurant (Use class A3) at 63 George Street. That’s the now-closed Jessops shop. I was worried about the loss of another retail unit and the addition of yet another food outlet/bar (that’s what A3 is) so asked the planning officer about it. He explained that the council has to assess any against its own retail policies in the Local Plan depending on the number of retail units left within the street and how this affects these policy thresholds.

A couple of days later the planning officer came back to me and explained that he had reviewed the proportion of non-A1 (retail) uses within the secondary shopping frontage of the city centre (within which the site is located – in line with policy RC5 of the Local Plan). The proportion of A1 uses at ground floor level taking account of the change of proposed would equate to 51% (as based on January 2013 surveys by the Council). The policy minimum threshold for retail units is set at 50%. Consequently the proposal would not be contrary to the Council’s town centre/retail policies.

In English that means the retail units proportions policy does not give planning ground to refuse the application and so it would probably be granted. I have to accept that really. The only other thing I would like to see is a condition about is where the proposed A3 user will store waste. There is a growing problem of large industrial waste bins being left out all over the city centre’s pavements and I really don’t want this unit to be another that does that. I’ve asked it if can be conditioned that all waste must be stored onsite unless it is out for collection, say within the next two hours. There are currently too many A3 users that area leaving pavements looking awful all week and I really don’t want that to get worse – All Bar One and the bins all over Alfred Street is a an example of this poor practice as are some of the A3 units on Gloucester Green.

To my delight, the planning officer said it would be entirely possible to write such a condition into the permission requiring any future A3 user to store waste/bins on the premises at all times except immediately before and after waste collection. He said he would look at ways of making the condition as precise as possible (as required by Government guidance on conditions) so that it is enforceable if necessary and even went as far as to say he had circulated my concerns to all officers within the development control team for them to bear in mind when assessing such applications. I am extremely impressed!

Annual Council and Mayor-making

Today was annual Council. An inital meeting at 4.30pm in the council chamber to appoint committees for the council year, re-adopt the scheme of delegation and legally elect the civic office holders, Lord Mayor and Sheriff as well as the Deputy Lord Mayor (which a sort of pseudo Civic Office).

The exciting thing is that I was really honoured to be elected to the post of Deputy Lord Mayor!

DLM

The ceremonial part of the afternoon started at 5.30pm and I was really pleased to be able to have lots of friends and family present. My fellow councillors Graham Jones (LD) and Elise Benjamin (Green) both made lovely speeches and it is a real honour to be able to serve as Deputy to Dee Sinclair (Lab), who is Lord Mayor for this council year. I look forward to meeting lots of interesting people and going to lots of interesting events to represent our wonderful City. The picture shows me in a first wearing of the chain, with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law.

Widening Participation: Murder in the cloisters

I was invited to a dinner today that was part of the “Murder in the Cloisters” widening participation event run by Oxford University’s Widening Participation Team. This team works with state school students aged 9-16 (Year 5 to Year 11) in Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire to help them understand what they could gain from further or higher education, and what type of study might suit them best. I was pleased to see that it is not just about recruiting young people to Oxford University but about widening participation in all Higher Education

“Murder is the Cloisters” is a residential event for Year 8 and Year 9 students. This three day subject taster event allows students to experience Law, Classics and Chemistry in a university setting. Working with actors (the Oxford Imps), the students interrogate ‘suspects’, examine evidence and work together in their groups to solve a murder. Students stay in Pembroke College and eat in the dining hall giving them a real taste for what life at University is like. The dinner was good and there was some great acting designed to get the young people to think and work together to gather evidence and process it. I was so engrossed that I had to go back the next day to find out the solution to the murder mystery!

I think widening participation activity is incredibly important, particularly in Oxford where we have two world class Universities but have historically struggled with below-average educational attainment at secondary and primary level. I think this sort of event can work wonders to boost confidence and aspiration in Oxford’s young people and really encourage them to be the best they can be at school so they can then access higher education and all the life opportunities that offers.

The widening participation team also offers the Oxford Young Ambassadors scheme, aimed at young people who have little or no family history of Higher Education, and the Compass Young Carers programme, aimed at children and young people with caring responsibilities at home.

All of this work is fantastic at enabling young people in our area to make informed decisions about their future education and life and I think it’s an amazing initiative. It’s certainly something I’ll keep in mind with my work as a governor at Oxford Spires Academy.

How to check for an Oxford HMO licence or application

A few people have asked me how to check a property before signing a rental contact to occupy it as sharers. You can check quite easily via the City Council website but clicking this link:

http://www.oxford.gov.uk/PageRender/decB/Licensing_applications_search_occw.htm

You will arrive at the search start page where you need to click the blue “I accept” button which you find by scrolling down a bit through the text. You can read the guidance notes there if you wish. Once you’ve clicked the accept button you get taken to the search page where you can just type in the start of a street address. If you are searching for an existing licence rather than application it’s important to click the radio button to choose licences (circled in red) rather than applications otherwise you won’t find what you want.

I’ve chosen 15 Regent Street just as a random address that I know is an HMO. Once you’ve hit the search button you should get a results screen that looks like this (without the red circle):

If you click on “HMO Details” (circled in red) you’ll get another screen that shows you other things like how many rooms there are and how many occupants the license allows. These are important things to check. It is also very important to check that the license has not expired as this system will show those too. If it will expire during the period of your proposed tenancy then ask the letting agent or landlord what they are going to do about that.

If you cannot find a license for a property you are considering renting then I would advise you to contact the City Council for advice before signing a contract or paying any sort of deposit or holding fee. Don’t let an agency or a landlord bully you into rushing into anything as if there is no HMO license you will not be protected by the City Council and could be signing a lease for a dangerous or otherwise defective property. The landlord and letting agent will also be acting illegally if they let a property that does not have a license. I should say that if you don’t find a property on this search it may be because the application or license is still in processing. It doesn’t automatically mean the landlord or letting agent is doing anything wrong but it does mean you should check.

Phone: 01865 249811
Email: hmos@oxford.gov.uk
109 St Aldate’s Chambers,
St Aldate’s,
Oxford,
OX1 1DS

I hope people find this useful – it’s applicable to all those looking to share houses, not just students. Remember though that being included on the public access HMO register no more makes a landlord or letting agent good than not being included on it makes a landlord or letting agent bad.

Lib Dem Group fully supports Christmas Market in Broad Street

Councillors received details this week of an application to hold Oxford’s Christmas Market in Broad Street from 13-22 December 2013. It has been held at Castle site in Oxford’s West end for a few years but has always struggled with the lower footfall there. Last year there was an application to hold it in Broad Street but the council rejected it. It was extremely disappointed about that as the market is great fun and really adds to Oxford at Christmas time. One correspondent said

“To hear that the Council had turned-down your application to relocate to Broad Street just seems absolute madness. Not only was your event something rare, that many other Cities would be proud to host, but one that was particularly festive that brought joy and cheer and attracted people to visit Oxford itself. I simply cannot comprehend the Council’s decision, particularly in this time of economic hardship when such an event could only boost visitor numbers and trade to the City of Oxford.”

And I do rather agree! As far as I could tell there were several objections, some of which I’ll try to address:

1. Colleges on Broad Street don’t like the disturbance and traffic disruption. I reply that the Market is out of Term Time so although prospective students are being interviewed in the proposed weeks of the market they hardly are going to bring removal vans and I suspect the market will not make any more noise than the normal traffic on Broad Street during the day.

2. Local traders will lose business to the Christmas Market. This is I think is just nonsense. Looking at the Broad Street traders, they are things like bookshops, a newsagent, Boswells, Bravissimo and the tourist information centre – the Christmas Market would hardly compete with them and I think the increased footfall it would bring would actually boost their businesses.

3. The Covered Market would suffer. Again I think more people in the area will be a good thing for the Covered Market traders, not a detriment.

I think the area would be more vibrant in December with a Christmas Market and more profitable for everyone.

I am pleased to say that my colleagues on the LibDem Group on the City Council have agreed with this position this week so, Christmas Market, I am delighted to tell you that you have the full support of the Oxford City Council LibDem Group. You heard it here first!

You can read more about the Oxford Christmas Market at http://www.oxfordchristmasmarket.co.uk/ and don’t worry about the message on the front page – it refers to 2012, not this year! If you want to make comments on the application you can contact info@oxfordchristmasmarket.co.uk and I ask you please to copy in events@oxford.gov.uk

One message I have sent is that if the Colleges are concerned about noise then one thing they could do it arrange electrical power supplied between then for the market. That would avoid the need for a smelly and polluting generator and would presumably provide some income for the colleges during the period.

I would be great to see lots of messages of support so please do get emailing and tweet and facebook this blog post!

Car number plate thefts – please be vigilant and secure yours

A set of car number plates were stolen on Wednesday 27th February in Marsh Road, Oxford. That’s just by my local pub, the Marsh Harrier! Stolen number plates are used in a variety of crimes often replacing plates on stolen cars, or fitted to cars which are driven recklessly followed by non-payment of parking and speeding fines, also filling up with fuel and driving off without paying. All of these crimes will in the first instance lead the police back to you and can be very distressing.

This type of theft continues to happen weekly in Oxford, so I encourage you to consider fitting anti-tamper screws to your number plates. You can seek advice from your local garage or car dealer. I’ve just spoken to Motorists Discount Centre (two branches in Oxford). They stock kits of four of these security screws for £3.99 and I think they are really worth fitting if you can. Too many newer cars these days just have the plates stuck on with sticky pads leaving them too easy to remove intact then and use on another vehicle to commit crime that will be traced back to you!

Please check that your number plates are intact on a regular basis, if you do discover that they are missing report to the police immediately via the non-emergency number, 101. You are in a much better position if a crime is reported by someone with a vehicle displaying your plates if you have already reported them stolen! But it’s even better to have taken steps to avoid having them stolen in the first place.

Central South and West Area Forum – student volunteering and community engagement

This meeting was held in the town hall and was quite well attended given the horrible wet and cold weather. It was good to have people from OUSU and from the Oxford Hub student volunteering centre.

The meeting was chaired by Councillor Mark Mills and we fairly quickly broke into two groups – one to discuss student volunteering and one to discuss student community engagement. It became apparent quite quickly that there are large overlaps between the two. We talked about how students and more permanent residents can coexist constructively in the community and I was interested to hear about the work student voulunteers have been doing with elderly folk who live in the City Centre and often don’t feel able to go out. Quite a lot of these people are in my ward, Carfax, so this was of particular interest to me.

One thing that was picked up was that students are still having problems with Houses of Multiple Occupation, particularly around landlords and letting agents being slow to do repairs. I said I would post instructions about how to check if a property is registered as an HMO and see who is the licence holder so have done so in a separate blog post.

The meeting finished about 9pm and was a useful exchange of contacts, ideas and views and hopefully will enable more student engagement and volunteering.

Consultation on changes to Woodstock Road near Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

I’ve just received an incredibly helpful email from a highways engineer in the County Council. It is a pre-consultation on the proposals for making Woodstock Road safer and more attractive in the area of the development that Oxford University is undertaking on the site of the old Radcliffe Infirmary. It starts:

“The University of Oxford is currently redeveloping the former Radcliffe Infirmary Hospital site adjacent to Woodstock Road and has provided funding to Oxfordshire County Council for improvements to the highway adjacent to the site. The new development will have two pedestrian through routes linking Woodstock Road and Walton Street on the northern and southern side of the site which will increase the number of pedestrians within the area.

The existing carriageway is of variable width with mandatory cycle lanes in both directions, bus stops and pay & display parking along the north western side. The buildings adjacent to Somerville College create a natural pinch-point and narrow the carriageway to approximately 8.5m which tends to help in reducing vehicle speeds.

Further north the road then widens to over 13.5m in the vicinity of the Royal Oak Public House making it difficult for pedestrians to cross, even during periods of low traffic flow.

The northbound bus stop has a modern glass and stainless steel shelter with Real Time journey Information (RTI) located within a 2.5m wide section of footway. The southbound stop has an old brick shelter poorly located at the back of a 2.1m wide footway and adjacent to a vehicle access. This shelter has no RTI and provides no forward visibility of approaching buses so passengers are forced to leave the shelter and stand outside where they reduce the usable width of footway.”

There is then a list of proposals and a useful PDF that shows them in a more graphical form if, like me, you respond better to pictures than words! Here are the proposals:

Widening the footways where possible to improve pedestrian movements within the area.

Narrow the carriageway running lanes to 3.0m, this will help in encouraging lower vehicle speeds and reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians. To reduce the speed of approaching traffic this principle will be extended north to Observatory Street by applying a road surface treatment along the centreline.
Maintain the existing 1.5m mandatory cycle lanes in both directions but replace the standard carriageway marking with a double row of cleft (rough) engineered granite setts 20mm high with tapered edges to discourage motorists from inadvertently entering the cycle lane.
Use low height kerbs (50mm) within the general area to assist pedestrians when crossing especially for people with mobility problems with the exception of the bus stops which will have 120mm high kerbs to facilitate boarding and alighting.
Relocate the southbound bus stop slightly further north to a wider area of footway and provide a new style shelter with improved visibility of approaching buses, capable of being fitted with RTI.
Provide a flush central feature to act as a pedestrian refuge, similar to that used on Oxford High Street. This will allow pedestrians to cross an individual lane of traffic approaching from one direction at a time then wait in the central area before completing the crossing movement.
Provide courtesy style crossings at the northern and southern limits to coincide with the link routes to Walton Street. This style of crossing has already been successfully used within Oxford Railway Station, Corn Street in Witney and Thame High Street. These flat topped humps will highlight pedestrian priority and will also be inlayed with engineered granite setts to give the appearance of a zebra crossing but without the need to provide unsightly zig-zag markings and flashing belisha beacons.
The inclusion of enhanced crossing points will result in the loss of some on-street parking; all but four spaces will be re-located to the northern end of the scheme.
The scheme will be sympathetic to the historical context of the adjacent buildings with improved paving, granite chippings in the road surface and reduced street clutter.

I’m very interested to hear people’s view on this so please do let me know what you think. Once the consultation is officially open I’ll add the official consultation response details. I should also remind you that under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 the Council is obliged to make any representations received in formal response open to public inspection. Please do go ahead and comment on this post – those comments will be public anyway but do not form part of the official consultation responses.

« Previous
1
…
7
8
9
10
11
…
26
Next »

Tony Brett

Liberal Democrat Campaigner and ex-Councillor