We had a really good Lib Dem group meeting today. Lots of really good ideas and good discussion forming into consensus on many things. I thought the meeting was very ably chaired by Alan Armitage and it was clear that he and Stephen Brown have done a huge amount of work on our budget proposals. I think things will work really well in terms of our holding the administration to account on Monday evening at full council. Watch this space!
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.
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.
We had two brief full council meetings today. The first was to decide on which of the government modernistation schemes we wanted to adopt. It was a bit pointless as this is legislation that is a hangover from the last Labour government that will probably now never come into force. As a City Council we don’t like either option but have a statutory duty to choose one of them at the moment. The Greens wasted a lot of time with a ridiculous amendment trying to wreck the whole thing. Thankfully it fell otherwise we would have risked being outside of current legal requirements on the council. I fully expect the Greens to produce another misleading leaflet that claims that Labour and the LibDems have voted against democracy. We’ll see.
The other council meeting (which legally had to be a separate meeting) decided on a couple of committee memberships following the Barton by-election and I’m pleased to see that our own Cllr Mark Mills is now a Lib Dem member of the appointments committee. We also talked about e-petitions and I got an amendment accepted by the leader of the council that just clarified a few things around e-petitons and collecting validated e-mail addresses rather than actual signatures. I was pleased to be able to make a constructive and accepted amendment, as a member of the opposition.
After those meetings we had the Lord Mayor’s Christmas reception which is a great opportunity to invite people from local charities to meet local councillors and other dignitaries. Councillors all get to invite a friend too so I invited Pearl Lewis, the coordinator of Oxford Street Pastors and Martyn Chalk, a neighbour and local film director, founder of Chalkstar Films. Excellent networking opportunities were exploited to the full by all present. The event is always a joyous occasion and it’s a great opportunity for the Lord Mayor to express his or her gratitude to all those who do so much for our City on a voluntary basis or as part of its many charities.
There should have been a post yesterday about the Oxford University Vice-Chancellor’s Christmas reception yesterday but I was sadly laid up ill with the winter stomach bug that seems to be doing the rounds.
We had quite a long group meeting today that was rather well attended. We started our discussions about the budget proposals from Labour and were pretty appalled that council officers have been persuaded to highlight things that have got worse since the new coalition government came into power. I don’t remember anyone ever hghlighting things that were a proeblem because of decisions by the previous government! I thought the council officers were meant to be politically neutral!
Clearly group meetings are confidential so there is not really much more to say here.
I went to this training session today at the Local Government Information Unit in London. It was a useful session and gave a good overview of the roles and skills required to be an effective local community leader. Our trainers for the day were Alan Waters from LGIU and Steve Skinner, an LGIU Associate.
We talked about setting the context of community leadership since the Big Society agenda has come into effect as well as the comprehensive spending review and the Localism Bill. It was described as councils having much more freedom and control but over much less. Councillors need to balance community activities and needs with strategic corporate issues for local authorities and it’s not always easy!
We talked about the eight leadership roles as in the star image (my self-scores are marked) and the ladder of participation which has five levels: informing; consulting; joint decision-making; joint action; and supporting community organisations in self-help.
After lunch we talked about creating the right environment for community leadership and working with other community leaders.
A really interesting discussion then ensued about councillor-officer relations and it was a good to have a full and open discussion with members and officers from different authorities. Trust and respect were two very important attributes of good working relationships as were good communication and regular updates. I was interested to hear that in one authority new councillors have an officer mentor for a period.
I think my quote of the day was “sharp elbows and loud mouths”, describing those who always seem to get hold of available community funding first.
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.
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!
Not my favourite part of being a councillor but here goes…
The meeting had a big agenda as normal with lots of motions and questions. I won’t attempt to go through them all here but will pick a few things I thought salient.
The Save Temple Cowley Pools group were at the meeting and two of its leading members, Nigel Gibson and Jane Alexander (pictured) addressed full council. The Lord Mayor, who chairs full council, then tried to get agreement to take the two motions about Temple Cowley Pools immediately after that so the 20 or so members of the public in the viewing gallery wouldn’t have to wait hours for those motions that were near the end of the meeting. The Labour group refused to allow this, despite my saying I thought councillors were there to serve the public. As it turned out, Labour made lots of long and repetitive speeches in the earlier motions and I know I’m not the only person who wondered if they were trying to exhaust the 90 minutes available for motions so they could avoid discussing the Temple Cowley Pools issue again. I thought that was pretty poor given that most members of the public who had come to the meeting were mainly interested in just that issue.
We did finally get to discuss one of the two motions but it of course fell as Labour have decided that Temple Cowley Pools are closing come hell or high water.
Other notable items for me where the question to the Leader of the Council about how the Council would try to get a more accurate register electors in areas with lots of students. To my surprise the Labour Leader said “the number of students in Oxford is a problem”. An unfortunate comment given that he himself is a senior member of staff at Oxford Brookes University.
We had a motion put by Alan Armitage that essentially asked the City Council to record all FOI requests, and their answers, on a website so that the public could consult them more easily and we could be a bit more transparent. Even though Freedom of Information is a Labour initative, the Labour ruling group on Oxford City Council saw fit to vote this motion down. I’m not sure why.
Finally, I was also surprised that the Labour group voted down a motion from our own Jean Fooks that essentially would have strengthened the planning controls the city could use to reduce the carbon footprint of all new buildings. The argument was that it’s more important to focus on existing buildings. Which strikes me as not very forward-thinking!
The meeting finished around 10pm and we had a rather needed pint at The Old Tom afterwards.
I received a slide pack today to read thorough about the Council’s ICT policy. All councillors (members of Oxford City Council) are asked to sign it to say they will comply with it. I’m afraid I’m not happy about it at all.
Most of it is all good common-sense and common-decency stuff but there are two bits that worry me as a member of the council rather than an employee. The first is about privacy:
I am not at all sure I want council staff to be able to examine data that is confidential to political parties or worse, about constituents. Elected members work for our constituents, not the Council!
The other concern is about the blogging policy. I am of course more than happy not to divulge confidential information but this blog already has links to the council website and criticism of some council policies and decisions. As a representative of the people of Carfax Ward I feel it is entirely appropriate that I should be able to express those views in a public blog.
Us councillors are here to work for and represent you, our constituents. Our job is to represent you to the council as an organisation. It is NOT to represent the council to you!
I have made my concerns known to the Head of IT and will update this post if and when I get a reply.