OUSU Summer Party

I was pleased to be invited to the (Oxford University Students Union) OUSU summer party today. It’s an annual event that commemorates the work of the sabbatical team just coming to the end of its year of office and it certainly did that. There were some great posters detailing all the great work that the sabbatical officers had done and there was a speech by the outgoing president, David J Townsend. He was gracious in to only thanking the sabbatical officers but also in thanking all the permanent staff for the incredible amount of hard work they do in ensuring that OUSU really does represent and serve Oxford University’s students.

I had the chance to be introduced to Tom Rutland, the incoming Sabbatical President and look forward to working with him in the 2013-14 academic year.

Finally I want to say what a huge pleasure it has been working with Sarah Santhosham, the outgoing Vice-President for Charities & Community. She has worked tirelessly to build working relationships with the City Council and Councillors and I’ve been hugely impressed by it all. She has brought student volunteering along in leaps and bounds with a showcase event earlier in the year and has been once of the most effective Charities and Community Vice-Presidents I have ever known. Thank you Sarah!

Lib Dem Achievements in Government

I don’t often post about the party rather than what I’m up to or what I think so I thought I would today.

Mark Pack, a well known Lib Dem has produced a wonderful poster to remind us of all the great things that the Lib Dems have achieved in government and I wanted to share it here.

There is also an A3 PDF available for printing. For those of you with screen readers I’ll list the achievements here too:

Income tax cuts with 2.7m lower earners being freed of income tax burden completely.
Tax hikes for the rich – a £1m/year earner will pay £381k tax more over the five years of this government than they did under the last 5 years of the Labour government
Created the world’s first National Green Development Bank
Started move than 502,600 apprenticeships in 20011/12 – more than Britain has ever had before.
The pupil premium – in 2013 their school is given £900 for each eligible child (generally those that get free school meals or have done so in the last six years)
Pensions and earnings are linked better again so we won’t see repeats of some of the awful derisory rises that we have seen in the past.
Bank reform means that High Street banks will be better protected from some of the excesses of casino banking that really hit the UK in the banking crisis
Civil Liberties: scrapping ID cards, banning storing DNA of innocent people, stopping detention of children during immigration cases, cutting the maximum period of detention without charge, and much more.
Protecting post offices
Building more homes. 190,000 affordable units over the next four years. The first net increase in social housing for over 30 years.
Equal Marriage – very nearly there!
Shared parental leave and 15 hours of free childcare for all 3 and 4 year olds.

All pretty amazing stuff!

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.

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.

Lord Mayor’s Christmas Reception

Santa This is the annual event held at the Town Hall where councillors all get to bring two guests from local charities doing good in the area and one personal guest.

This year I invited Wendy Woodcock, from the CfBT Education Trust, as she is Chair of Governors at Oxford Spires Academy where I am also a governor. CfBT is also the principal sponsor of Oxford Spires Academy. I also invited Sue Croft, the Principal of Oxford Spires Academy. My personal guest was my sister, Emma, as she’s been living in Oxford for a couple of years now and it seemed appropriate to introduce her to council colleagues.

The event is always a good opportunity to say thank you to those who work so hard for our City in various ways. Wendy has done a sterling job helping a fledgling academy and its fledgling Governing Body to become effective very quickly and Sue really is an inspirational leader of Oxford Spires Academy. The difference they will both make to education and educational attainment of Children in our City is, I think, extremely important. I was delighted to be able to invite them both to the reception. Some excellent links were made and it was good to raise the profile of Oxford Spires Academy among other councillors and their guests, as well as the City Council’s Chief executive.

My sister is an independent speech and language therapist and had some useful conversations about her work with some of those present too.

Planning Review Committee: Old Road Campus

The second Planning Review Committee that I have chaired. This was a reconsideration of the East Area Planning Committee’s decision to grant planning permission to Oxford University to build a new research building on the Roosevelt Drive site near Old Road. I am a member and employee of Oxford University so I had to consider carefully whether I could approach the decision with an open mind. As I work for the central IT department of Oxford University and have nothing to do (in my work, rather than councillor, capacity) with the estates department and have no vested interest in the Medical Sciences Division I decided that although I clearly had a personal interest in the matter it was not enough to prejudice me as there are many thousands of people in our City who have some relationship or another with Oxford University.

The meeting proceeded smoothly with some very well-considered and well-presented evidence and opinions both from objectors and applicants. The Planning Officer, Felicity Byrne presented very well and brought along a County Council Highways Officer (Martin Kraftl) to talk about the possibilities with regard to controlled parking zones. The professional advice was extremely useful, as always.

After quite a bit of debate and careful questioning of all parties there was eventually a motion to approve the planning application with some additional conditions and that passed so the permission is granted. The additional conditions are:

That the landscaping to the tree belt on Old Road includes new hedge and tree planting to the western edge, and mixed evergreens to the eastern end;
That the hours for deliveries during the construction of the development be controlled to avoid peak hours and the beginning of the school day;
That the external lighting to the campus be designed to avoid Light spillage, in order to prevent nuisance being caused to nearby residential properties;
That details of the maintenance regime for the attenuation tanks to be used in the drainage systems be submitted for approval by officers.

I hope these will go as far as possible in alleviating some of the concerns of the objectors.

New Library and Teaching Building Celebratory Event

I attend this exciting event today that was held at Oxford Brookes University. It was to mark the progress of the work on the New Library and Teaching Building that Brookes is building.

Lucie Acraman, Janet Beer, Lorna Fround

I was impressed by the speech from Janet Beer, the Vice-Chancellor of Brookes and her vision for making Brookes even better than it already is. We also had a talk from Lucie Acraman, the President of the Students Union (theSU), and I was pleased to hear that its focus has moved from trading and basically being a big nightclub to much more student welfare, advocacy and support. The new building will enable that to happen much more effectively than currently and will be very close other important services that students will use. One of those services is the Brookes Careers Centre and that took us to the next speaker Lorna Froud, the Head of the Careers Service, who told us about all the good work that it does and how the unemployment rate of Brookes graduates in their first year after graduating is much lower than for other comparable post-92 Universities.

The evening was a good event and it reminded me how luck Oxford is to have not only one of the world’s best “old” Universities but also one of the UK’s best post-92 Universities.

Oxford Chinese New Year Gala Evening

What an amazing evening! I was invited to this event as a ward councillor and I’m really glad I went. It really was a multi-talented, multi-colour spectacular of entertainment. The event was organised by the Oxford Chinese Students and Scholars Association.

The large audience included several important figures from the Chinese Embassy, including Minister Counsellor Mr Xiaogang Tian, as well as senior figures from Oxford University including Dr Stephen Goss, one of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors. Dr Goss gave an excellent speech about how important the Chinese link is to Oxford University with Chinese being the 2nd most common nationality among undergraduates, 3rd-most with graduates and 4th-most in staff.

We heard two choirs, one opera singer, some martial arts, a fashion show, a somewhat manic but very good violin player and much more. I was grateful to the Chinese embassy official sitting next to me for providing some translations!

The amazing multicultural mix in Oxford is one of the great things about our City and it really humbling and an honour to attend such a wonderful event.

My thoughts on the coalition vote on tuition fees

The short version of this post is that I think the decision stinks and I am ashamed of the way the most senior members of the Lib Dems have seemingly ignored party policy and reneged on their election pledges. I am staggered. Just this week I have been really upset to hear young people I know having lost all their aspirations to go to University because the sort of debt figures they are facing are numbers they cannot even consider, however much later in life and higher in salary they might have to pay them off.

I represent a ward that is about 65% students and I am feeling like they have all been terribly let down by my party. I have considered resigning, and indeed Richard Huzzey, who used to be a City Councillor for Holywell Ward until his academic career took him abroad, had indeed done so. He’s written an excellent article about it in Lib Dem Voice.

I could leave the Lib Dems over this but all that would achieve is effectively terminating any representation I can offer for students, and the other people that live in Carfax, to Oxford City Council. As an independent I would immediately have virtually no voice, no committee seats and no power. It would make me far less effective as a representative of those who elected me. We may not like it, but that’s the way party groups work in local authorities. It’s the law! I stood as a LibDem in 2010 and was elected by nearly 1000 people who I believe expected me to represent them as a LibDem for four years. I don’t intend to renege on that promise even if my party’s MPs have reneged on theirs. I certainly won’t be joining any other parties as if people in Carfax ward had wanted a councillor from another party I guess they would have voted for one.

To those who say that we’re in a coalition so we can’t win all the battles and pursue everything in our manifesto, that’s true but not pursuing a policy is one thing – that’s called abstention.
Pursuing an entirely opposite and contrary policy is entirely different – that’s called selling out and reneging on promises. The first is pragmatic, the second is shameful.

I can entirely sympathise with those who feel the Lib Dem government ministers are not representing them at the moment, and indeed I don’t think they are representing me, but I do feel that I still have a duty to carry on representing my constituents as a Lib Dem so will no be resigning from the party at this stage. From the inside of the party I will of course continue to put as much pressure as I can on Clegg, Cable and the others who voted for this disastrous attack on Higher Education. None of them would currently be getting my vote in a leadership election.

Remember: The Government Lib Dems may have let you (and me) down but I promise to carrying on striving to represent you and your views to Oxford City Council to the best of my ability and in line with what I and my party promised in May 2010.

The launch of the Blavatnik School of Government

I attended the launch of the Blavatnik School of Government today at the Examination Schools on the High Street in Oxford. It was a very grand affair and one of those cross-hat things where I am attending as a Councillor even though I’m also a member of The University of Oxford.

We had inspiring speeches by the Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Andy Hamilton, Leonard Blavatnik himself and Dr Ngaire Woods. We also had a pre-recorded video message from Bill Clinton. Lord Patten commented that the lighting in the room made it look rather like a nightclub and I have to say I agreed!

Proceedings then moved to the formal signing of the agreement to open to school and for Mr Blavatnik to give a record-breaking £75M towards the establishment of the school. This was followed by a reception which was an excellent chance to meet many foreign dignitaries and diplomats and many interesting academics. I also met and spoke to Oxford West and Abingdon’s new MP for the first time.

I really appreciate the opportunity to attend these events as a councillor. Next week I’m going to listen to concerns and issues at the wet (i.e. alcohol allowed) room of O’Hanlon House, an excellent project used by many of Oxford’s homeless folk. Oxford is an amazing City of contrasts and I find experiencing them first-hand very humbling.

Tony Brett

Liberal Democrat Campaigner and ex-Councillor