I was invited to this event, I guess because I am a City Centre Councillor. It was held at the Deanery at Christ Church and all sorts of notable folk from the City and surrounding area were present. I had the great pleasure of meeting some senior county councillors as well as many of the senior staff of Christ Church itself. The Dean himself and is wife were both extremely gracious and very good and making sure people were introduced to each other. It was a fascinating gathering to which I felt extremely privileged to be invited.
City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group
This group met today and discussed various issues around crime and safety in the City Centre area. It consists of lots of Thames Valley Police staff right from Inspector to Police Community Support Officers. Community safety officers and estate managers are present as well as resident, park rangers, the City Centre Manager and Nightsafe.
The agenda included discussions about drug dealing & misuse, alcohol-related antisocial behaviour and litter issues.
The NAGs are actually very useful in terms of keeping all the relevant authorities, including the Police, in touch with each other and enable a much more holistic approach to general community safety and well-being than would otherwise be possible.
Full Council
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.
The saga of the street lights on Magdalen Bridge
Back in early December 2010 I noticed that none of the street lamps along the North side of Magdalen Bridge was working. This isn’t strictly in my ward but I cycle home that way every day and it’s still City Centre. I saw a potential safety issue with cyclists having to pull out to turn right at the Plain and the risk of drivers of buses, cars, vans etc. not seeing them, especially if the cyclists were dressed in dark clothes and not using lights. Sadly that still happens far more often than it should. Many students also report feeling unsafe walking over the bridge and the darkness was not going to help that!
I made a report about the problem to the County Council street light repair service on 9th December. That service is normally excellent and things get repaired in a few days, almost always less than a week. I got a response the same day saying a 24hr job had been raised.
On 13th December I got an update saying the street light repair contractors had attended and found a power supply fault so had passed the issue onto Scottish and Southern Energy the body responsible for dealing with such issues. SSE is contracted to repair such faults in 20 working days. I asked if this could be given priority as it affected so many lights and on 14th December the County Council said they would try to pull some strings.
On 12th January 2011 I reminded the County Council that the 20 working days were now up (count them yourself if you don’t believe me!). Unusually I got no reply so sent a reminder on 17th January. I got a reply quickly that said, among other things:
“Guaranteed Standards of Performance for street lighting cable fault repairs became a statutory requirement from 01 October 2010. We will therefore claim penalty payments from SSE at £10 a day, for every day over 20 working days the fault is outstanding.”
I was also given the contact details for a person at SSE and the job reference so I could complain directly. I did so, as did the Bursar of a nearby College. I got a “not me guv” type of reply yesterday helpfully giving the contact details of the Oxford Depot manager for SSE as well as the engineer dealing with the issue. But still no progress!
Earlier in the week, while I was dealing with the order for Cherwell Student Newspaper for our department I mentioned this issue to the person I was dealing with. He passed it on to one of the Cherwell journalists who has today pursued SSE about the issue. I think the word “journalist” must have worked better than the word “councillor” because the job has now magically been programmed!
I have had an email this afternoon from the County Council saying:
“I have been told by SSE that there is a major cable fault on the bridge, which will require a power shutdown affecting businesses in the area (such as Sainsbury’s). The work has been programmed for next Thursday to allow the relevant businesses to be informed.”
So there we are. Some casework is easy, some takes ages and far too much chasing! I am amused that a journalist managed to achieve, in about half an hour, more than I have achieved in a month with this issue! Well done Cherwell. The £10/day fine for missing the service deadline does seem a rather paltry amount and is hardly going to make contractors take much notice of the20-day limit. I wonder why it is set so low.
Watch out for working lights next Thursday (27th Jan)! Update: There is now an article in Cherwell about this.
Central South and West Area Committee
We met this evening at West Oxford Community Centre. The agenda was not huge.
We started with a good summary from Craig Rossington from the County Council about transport and roads plans for the next 20 years. Clearly this is a long term strategy but it’s good to see the County Council thinking strategically even in these straightened times. I think we all agreed that there has hitherto been over-regulation in the City Centre and that the cycling restrictions on Cornmarket and Queen Street are not ideal as considerate cyclists would be careful to work with, rather than against, pedestrians and careless inconsiderate ones probably ignore the restrictions anyway. We also agreed that the traffic lights at the junction of Broad Street, Catte Street, Holywell Street and Parks Road are a waste of time as there is very low traffic flow at that junction, many cyclists ignore them and they don’t even have a pedestrian phase!
We had a good report from Dave Huddle who has done some excellent work on street scene issues and similarly from Matthew Bullivant of Thames Valley Police.
We had two planning applications to determine – one was a technical matter that had to come to committee and be done in public because it was an application by the council to the council. We approved that without discussion. The other was for the old Marlborough House pub in Grandpont that has been vacant and boarded up for some time. It read “Demolition of rear outbuilding. Erection of ground floor extension. Change of use from public house to cafe on ground floor and 4 x 1 bedroom holiday apartments on the ground and 1st floor and 1 x 1 bed flat on 2nd floor. Provision of cycle parking and bin storage.” It’s always a shame to lose a pub but it had gone anyway so the application was approved. A very local resident also took the trouble to come along to give her supporting views of the application, for which I was grateful.
The other planning application was just for our comments and was for a for a big redevelopment on the corner of St. Aldates and Queen Street which has been festering for a long time. As with all major projects, developers have to provide money sometimes called “section 106” money to the local authorities to mitigate the effects of the development on infrastructure things such as roads, schools, libraries etc. This application had reached stalemate as the developers were offering about £200k and the planners were recommending about £1.9M. Personally I thought some of the proposed buildings would have been a bit out of place too although I would have welcomed a new way through to Queen Street from St. Aldates that didn’t go via Carfax.
We meet again on 11th Jan if there are any planning applications to determine. If not, then on 8th Feb. We may not have many area committees left as the Labour administration of Oxford City Council is planning to abolish them early in the new year. I think this is a terrible blow for local democracy but rather typical of Labour.
Christmas Light Night
This event is becoming a bit of a tradition in Oxford. I went to the opening at the Divinity School. The Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, Andrew Hamilton; the leader of Oxford City Council, Bob Price; and the Chair of
Oxford Inspires, Tony Stratton all gave speeches thanking everyone for their involment in all that makes our City great at this time of year.
I had a wander round Broad Street and I thought it looked really magical with the main street lights off and all the Christmas stalls and lights. I was quite surprised at how busy the area was.
25 years of the Luther Street Medical Centre
I felt very honoured to be invited to this celebration today. We had a buffet lunch and it was fascinating to speak to so many people who have helped Luther Street Medical Centre in its support and services for Oxford’s homeless people. We heard excellent speeches from Pat Goodwin, the founder trustee of the Oxford Homeless Medical Fund; from Dr Sally Reynolds, a GP who has been working for Luther Street since the start and from Lesley Dewhurst, the chief executive of Oxford Homeless Pathways.
By far the most moving speeches were by two people who had been users of the Luther Street Medical Centre, both explained how they had had so much more help than just medical and how the centre had really helped them to turn their lives around by properly listening to their stories and understanding their needs and situations properly.
There was an opportunity to look around the impressive facilities of the Centre including the dental surgery and now several consulting rooms and meeting rooms. It’s an amazing place with lots of amazing people doing amazing work!
Central South and West Area Committee
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.
St John Street Area Residents Association
I attended 
a good meeting at Rewley House in the Lecture Theatre this evening. It was organised by Jonathan Brown, the chair of the association. I was pleased to see such a well organised association and such a well-attended meeting. There must have been about 30 there. Cllr. Alan Armitage was there as he is a County Councillor for the area and local Police Community Support Officers also attended.
I was disappointed to hear that the problems with the bins behind the Ashmolean Museum have not bee resolved despite the efforts of committee members Margaret Booth (Treasurer) and John Temple (Secretary). We’ll see what we can do about that.
One St. John Street resident Jonathan Michie, Director of the Department for Continuing Education and Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at Oxford University gave a couple of interesting talks: ‘CONTINUING EDUCATION AT OXFORD’ followed by ‘THE CREDIT CRUNCH AND ITS AFTERMATH’. Jonathan is also a former Director of the Birmingham Business School. I think doing this sort of thing is an excellent way to increase attendance at such meetings.
The evening was nicely rounded off by drinks and nibbles in the Mawby Pavilion, also at Rewley House, where I had fascinating conversations with several extremely interesting people including Prof. Clive Booth, a past vice-chancellor of Oxford Polytechnic and Oxford Brookes University.
It was good to see one student resident of St. John Street at the meeting but would have been better to see even more. It can be difficult getting people to feel enough part of a community to go to such events when they will probably only resident for a year but I think it’s still important. If you’re a student reading this I encourage you to engage with your local community and take part in such events. I bet you’ll be surprised at the welcome you receive!
The Frideswide Civic Service and Dinner
This annual service of thanksgiving takes place as Christ Church in the Cathedral and is a celebration of all the good work people do in a voluntary capacity around the county of Oxfordshire. It is attended by senior dignitaries of Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council and the other districts in our county, as well as by senior figures from the University of Oxford. Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action (OCVA) coordinates a lot of the good work we were celebrating.
There were some excellent contributions by children from several Oxfordshire Schools including a gospel choir from Cherwell School. The order of service was beautifully illustrated by children from Yattendon Primary School. We were read a poem by the Senior Proctor of the University of Oxford and there was an excellent address by Tim Stevenson, the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire with a contribution by Cheney School.
Towards the end of the service we all processed to the tomb of St. Frideswide who is, according to legend, the Patroness of Oxfordshire or Berkshire. We dressed the tomb with sprigs of rosemary, as is customary, as a symbol of remembrance and thanksgiving for Frideswide and for all who have lived in Oxfordshire through the Centuries.
I felt extremely privileged after the service to have been invited to the celebration high table dinner in the Dining Hall at Christ Church (which some might recognise as Hogwarts in Harry Potter films). There were lots of extremely important people there including the Dean of Christ Church, the Chief Executives of both the City and County Councils, the Lord Mayor of Oxford, The Chief Executive of OCVA, the High Sherrif of Oxfordshire, the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and several Fellows of Christ Church. It was fascinating talking with so many of them. I’ve said it before but I’ll say again that this was one of the nicer things about being a City Centre Councillor and more than makes up for the torture of full council!