St Ebbe’s loses lapdancing case

It’s reported today that St. Ebbe’s church as lost its appeal against the City Council’s licensing decision to allow regulated sex entertainment at the very nearby Thirst Lodge.  Costs of £12,000 were awarded against the church.

I don’t have much to say about this but thought I should comment as it is in my ward.  Firstly, I don’t think the City Council is here to be the moral guardian of Oxford, or its people, so should not make decisions solely on moral grounds. Secondly, I feel very sorry for both parties as they have both spent a large amount of time and money at an appeal that should probably have never happened.  The original decision was entirely soundly made and entirely within the licensing guidelines and the City Council’s licensing policy.  Finally, I hope that both parties can now enter into dialogue and try to understand the depth and sincerity of each other’s feelings and work out a way to coexist as neighbours as constructively as possible.

A walk around the ward with PC Paul Phillips

I met with PC Paul Phillips today and we had a walk around Carfax Ward.  Paul’s been policing this area for 8 years now and clearly knows lots of people and is generally accepted and liked in the neighbourhood.

28062010698.jpgWe talked about issues which include homelessness, drug dealing and binge drinking.  It was good to see Paul being firm but fair and polite with people being antisocial in the streets and we came across a couple of worries.  These were the £2 per pint of Stella all day at one pub and the complete blocking of the fire exit of another by a parked car – despite the sign!

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Licensing Training

Licensing Training SlideThis was a long but useful session.  It was introduced by Tony Payne, Support Development and Licensing Team manager, and we were given lots of useful information about the structure of the licensing committees and subcommittees in the Council.

There are two main committees:  The Licensing and Gambling Acts Committee deals with alcohol, entertainment and late food licensing as well as gambling establishments.

The General Purposes Licensing Committee deals with street trading; hackney carriage and private hire and sex establishment licensing (table dancing, pole dancing, lap dancing etc.).  There are also several subcommittees.

Julian Allison is the licensing team leader and told us lots about how the 2003 act works and is based around the Council’s licensing policy that it is legally require to have and regularly review.  We learned about personal licences and premises licences.

Finally, two of the City council’s solicitors, Daniel Smith and Jeremy Franklin, explained to us how licensing hearings work.  A very interesting and useful session.  You may be interested to know that you can check current licensing applications online.

City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group

This is somewhat of a gathering of the great and the good but useful nonetheless.  It is a Thames Valley Police initiative and includes councillors, council officers (including Ben Smith, Neighbourhood Policing Coordinator Community Housing & Community Development; Karen Crossan, Nightsafe Manager; Julian Allison from licensing; and Linda Jones, Estate Manager for Tenancy Services for Central Oxford), and several from Thames Valley Police.   Representatives from OUSU also attended.

We discussed the City Cente Situational Report which shows that most crime in the City Centre has reduced rather pleasingly.  Graffit was a bit on the rise and this would be looked at.

The OUSU reps, Eorann Lean and Kat Wall, also presented an excellent report about Student night-time safety which highlighted a few areas of concern that Thames Valley Police agreed to work on.  According to the survey, which was responded to by 148 students, the current challenges are as follows:

  • 41.6% leave clubs and pubs alone more often than not
  • 43.5% walk alone in the city centre at night more often than not
  • 38.9% walk beyond the immediate city centre at night
  • 48.4% never call a friend if they realise they will be walking alone in the dark
  • 33.3% sometimes feel threatened, 7.1% most times feel threatened (although 49.2% say they rarely feel threatened when out at night)
  • 7.9% sometimes have been threatened when out at night/54% never been threatened or harassed when out at night/37.3% rarely

Central South and West Area Committee

Another area committee meeting tonight.  I can’t believe it has been a month since the last one!  We met at St. Barnabas’ School in Jericho at 5.30pm.  As the committee is 4 Labour and 4 Lib Dems we voted Oscar and Mark as co-chairs and Susanna and Nathan as co-vice chairs.  So now half the committee is either chair or vice chair 🙂

Members of the public attending the meeting

We had an address from John Power about antisocial behaviour at Tumbling Bay, particularly in the light of last week’s fatality there.

Then we had an update from Thames Valley Police’s Oxford City Centre Inspector. Matthew Bullivant.  Crime statistics have dropped markedly although there are still a worrying number of thefts from the person.   Matthew was also asked why TVP had not objected to Tescos’ application to sell alcohol from 6am at the site of the the old lighting shop on St. Aldates.  He reassured us that he has a robust approach to licencing.

Mark and Oscar: co-chairs

We moved on to planning applications and the one we discussed was an outline application from the Jericho Community Association for a community centre.  There were some difficult issues raised and building the centre will not be without cost to some local trees and the amenity of immediate neighbours, but the permission was unanimously granted nonetheless.  I must say I entered the meeting thinking I may well vote against this but the discussion convinced me that the benefits outweighed the losses and that the chance to provide an important community facility should not be lost.

We agreed to the planning application at the ice rink for a small enclosure for a new chiller without discussion.  This only had to go to committee because it is the City Council applying to itself for planning permission and to do it in a closed office under delegated powers would not be very transparent!

Dave Huddle from Parks then gave us a street scene update.  He promised to look at the litter problems in Jericho and to make sure the bins along the river in Hinksey Park ward were emptied regularly enough during the summer months.

Our final discussion was about the proposed scheme for the licensing of Houses of Multiple Occupation, which is something I am very interested in, living in a very HMO-dense street.  It will be interesting to see how it operates but I’m afraid I can’t see the council inspecting an licensing the estimated 5,000 HMOs in the City in much less than a year! I would encourage you to comment during the consultation period (until 21 June) if you have a view.

I was a bit alarmed to discover that HMO licensing appears to be an executive function rather than a council function.  That in my view makes it too political but we’ll see how it pans out.

We finished just after 8pm.

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.

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.