Grove Challengers Annual Football Competition

Today I was a VIP guest at the Grove Challengers Football Club Annual 6-a-side competition. This important event in Grove has teams ranging from Under 7's through to Under 16's, attracts over 1600 children and 2500 adults from the local area and further afield.

The weather stayed good and was a bit cooler than the previous years where I have attended in sweltering heat. It was an excellent opportunity to have a look around the new clubhouse and changing facilities and to catch up on the latest news from the organisers of the event. The children and their families were all having a great time and the quality of some of the football matches being played was impressive too.

The club offers an important facility for the youngsters of Grove, Wantage and surrounding area - checkout their website here. I look forward to many more competitions to come.

LEADER funding in the North Wessex Downs

On Thursday I attended a meeting of the North Wessex Downs Council of Partners where I represent the Vale of White Horse District Council looking after our interests on the AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

We learned about the LEADER scheme (Liaisons Entre Actions de Développement de l'Economie Rurale) which will open up opportunities for funding in rural development which comes from Europe via the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). The idea is to help local projects get off the ground especially those helping rural communities. The North Wessex Downs Action Group successfully secured £2.5 million to help fund a wide range of activities including farm diversification, tourism activities and community groups who wish support for the local economy. If you wish to find out more click here. Funding for up to £50,000 may be requested so long as they meet the criteria set out.

It is always a pleasure to serve on this partnership where everyone works together in the best interests of the historic downland which is so close to us here in Grove and Wantage. What could be more pleasant on a beautiful day than a walk up on The Ridgeway with the whole landscape rolling before you. The Management Plan is now ready to be adopted by our respective councils in the area which will ensure that this important landscape can be enjoyed by all of us for many years to come.

Wantage Area Summer Concert

The Oxfordshire County Music Service has arranged a host of summer events this year, and I was able to go along last evening to the Wantage Area Music School Summer Concert held at King Alfred's School.

We listened to a whole range of different ensembles including string, brass, wind and jazz which made for a very lively evening. I was certainly impressed by the high standard of music on offer and the enthusiasm of the children involved. We are fortunate to have such a wealth of talent in our area.

You can visit the website here.

Flying the Flag in Oxfordshire

This morning I attended a ceremony outside County Hall in Oxford 'Flying the Flag for the first British Armed Forces Day'. Read more about it here

This was an opportunity to talk to many of the cadets who are serving in Oxford and who came along to take part in this nationally organised event. Officially this will take place on June 27th every year. On the many occasions where I have attended events with the military, I know how much they appreciate the support for all the hard work they undertake on our behalf.

Traditions at the Council

Today was the first annual meeting of the new Oxfordshire County Council after the recent elections. The Conservative-controlled Council decided to change the tradition of rotating the Chairman and Vice-Chairman amongst the three political groups to take both offices for themselves.

Liberal Democrats are the Opposition at the County Council and it was our turn to have been given the opportunity to take the Chair. Unfortunately, this was not allowed and Cllr. Anne Purse who had held office of Vice-Chairman over the past year was denied this honour. It was a shame. She has been an excellent ambassador for the Council in her role over the past year.

In true traditional style though, like the last time when taking control four years ago, all the Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of all 5 scrutiny committees were also given to the ruling group. Despite our co-operation with the Labour group collectively putting forward our own nominations for these posts - all were turned down. In effect, leaving not much confidence in the scrutiny process. The Cabinet needs to be held to account if the public are to believe that democracy is in action at County Hall.

Today, I was officially named Leader of the Opposition for the fourth year running. There will be challenging times ahead!

Wantage Summer Festival

Just a reminder that the 14th Wantage Summer Festival is underway until 5th July. Details can be found here with the programme of events here.

Street Pastors Launch

This evening it was a pleasure to attend the launch of a new initiative in Wantage and Grove called Street Pastors. You can read more about it here

Street Pastors go out and about in the community at night and give help and support especially to young people who may be in trouble. There are many cities all over the UK who are already part of the scheme. The Ascension Trust gives training and support for anyone who is interested in becoming a street pastor and all ten churches in Wantage and Grove are involved. Wantage and Grove Street Pastors can be contacted by telephoning 01235 771859 or by email at: wantageandgrove@streetpastors.org.uk

It is excellent that this scheme is being supported by Thames Valley Police and we hope this will lead to a reduction in crime across the whole area. I am sure it will be a great success.

Folk for MS Charity Concert

Last night, the annual Folk for Multiple Sclerosis (FfMS) charity concert was held at Old Mill Hall in Grove. This was the 20th anniversary of these concerts and this year the idea was to recreate the very first concert from 1990. As always, an excellent evening and fundraising for a very good cause.

More on FfMS can be found at http://folkforms.org/index.htm

Election Result - Thank You Grove and Wantage

Excellent news for Grove and Wantage as Jenny Hannaby and myself retain our 2-member division with an increased majority. Click here to see the full result

I believe the national scene has had a real impact on the local County Council results in Oxfordshire with many voters deciding to express their opinion locally or not at all. The European election results will not be known until Sunday.

We are both looking forward to working with our residents over the next four years, working hard to represent you all at County Hall. Liberal Democrats remain as the official opposition to the ruling group. I will continue to keep everyone posted - watch this space!

County Council Elections on Thursday 4th June

This Thursday, it is the Oxfordshire County Council elections which are being held at the same time as the European elections this year.

I have been your County Councillor for the last 8 years and have always worked hard for the community of Grove and Wantage, keep residents informed about the important issues and always been available by telephone or my face-to-face surgeries. It has been a real pleasure to serve you all.

There has been a lot of disillusionment with the national political scene, and I hope this does not mean people will be turned away from voting. It is an opportunity to exercise your democratic right. Who will be your local councillor really matters in this election. Jenny Hannaby and myself hope you will give us your support for the 2-member division of Grove and Wantage.

Recruitment Evening at Wantage Fire Station

This evening I went along to see the recruitment evening which was planned at Wantage Fire Station and to give my support. Oxfordshire has an excellent Fire and Rescue service and there are plans across the county to try to recruit more retained firefighters at many of our local fire stations. See the press release here

There are currently 16 retained firefighters at Wantage and we would like to encourage more. There are 2 fire engines at the station and the plan is to be able to keep them both active. One of the requirements is that you have to live close to the station so that you can get there in an emergency within 5 minutes.

There were quite a few who turned up this evening to 'have a go' at the various tests that were on offer. Climbing the high ladder looked one of the biggest challenges - I think I would have failed that one! Anyone interested - do look at the weblink above and find out more. Everyone will remember how busy they all were during the July 2007 floods.

World's Largest Picnic in Grove

It was a real pleasure to help officially witness this event today which hopefully will make the Guinness Book of Records. Families had to register before 1pm to take part in the family picnic which was taking place on the playing field of Grove Church of England Primary School and was organised by Grove Free Evangelical Church. Myself as County Councillor and Frank Parnell, Grove Parish Chairman were there to see that the rules were being followed. Read more about it here

The weather was excellent and there was fun and games including bouncy castle, water balloons, football, rounders and finally a big tug o' war. There were 123 families registered altogether which will go forward along with all the other numbers counted at other events happening all over the country. In Oxfordshire, there was an another event organised at Cogges Museum in Witney. A good day was had by all.

Local bus timetables changing

Stagecoach, who run our local bus services into Oxford and Abingdon are to change their timetables in July and are currently consulting with the public about their proposals. To read in full and to download a timetable click here

The good news is that there will be more frequent journeys of the popular X30 fast service into Oxford. Also the first X30 bus into Oxford which can be used by those who are eligible for concessionary fares will now be 9.35am instead of 10.15am, which will give more time to make hospital and other appointments in Oxford. There are also some additonal evening services to improve journeys for passengers coming home. Oxfordshire County Council will be subsidising some of the evening services until December because of the poor patronage on some of these journeys - so a plea to residents to use it or lose it!

There will be a public meeting in Wantage next Tuesday evening 19th May in the Civic Hall from 7pm until 9pm where Stagecoach managers will be on hand to hear your views. You can also leave comments on the website link above.

May Fete in Grove

Here is a picture of the May Fete early this afternoon on the village green in Grove. Although there were a few drops of rain, the weather held and there was a good turnout throughout the afternoon until proceedings finished at about 4pm.

As usual, we were entertained by the excellent Wantage Silver Band.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Bank Holiday despite the doom and gloom in the newspapers.

Jousting on The Politics Show

Today, I was at Blenheim Palace to appear on The Politics Show on BBC South. The pictures on the left show me with the presenter Peter Henley. This all took place whilst a mediaeval jousting tournament was in full flight in the background. The idea was to have both knights and politicians "jousting" at the same time in the lead up to the local elections on 4th June!

The programme was covering issues surrounding the Oxfordshire county council elections (see previous entry regarding our Lib Dem manifesto). We covered the pedestrianisation of Oxford City Centre and educational achievement in the first half of the programme and then went on to the housing allocations in the forthcoming publication of the South East Plan.

As we all know, Grove and Wantage along with Bicester and Didcot, have all been named as locations for housing growth up to 2026. I tried to get across (although this can be challenging on live TV) the concerns of residents about large-scale housing in areas such as Grove where there is little existing infrastructure. Both Didcot and Bicester are much better locations as they have existing infrastructure like railway stations, close links to the A34/M40 and cultural/leisure facilities (e.g. cinema and arts centre at Didcot).

If you missed it, you can still watch the programme here. The Oxfordshire piece is about 30mins into the programme and is 20 mins long. There was a lot to pack into this short time, but it was an opportunity to try to push our message across.

May Day Manifesto and Grove Annual Parish Meeting

Today has been a very busy day for me. May Day revellers were launching themselves off Magdalen Bridge whilst I was busily preparing myself to launch the County Council's Liberal Democrat manifesto on Radio Oxford. I hope I got our main message across on the Drivetime programme this evening. We have been in Opposition on the County Council for the last four years, and it has not been an easy job for me as Leader. It has been difficult to have any influence on the administration with the Conservatives taking all the Scrutiny Chairs and basically scrutinising themselves instead of giving us the power to do that. This would be the obvious democratic solution. But with the County Council elections coming on on June 4th, it will be an opportunity to change things for the better.

Liberal Democrats have 7 clear messages in our manifesto:

• Helping our economy to thrive
• Giving our children the best start in life
• Improving our roads and pavements
• Investing in social care & home support
• Protecting our environment
• Making Oxfordshire a safer place
• Using your money wisely

Our key message is to invest in front line services – this is what people tell us they want. The County Council has been criticised for children’s poor achievement in schools, and we want to turn that around. We also need to support our young people, provide more youth workers and support the elderly and vulnerable. But when it came to budget setting this year, the administration chose to invest in things like appointing a new Head of Marketing and Public Affairs. Wasting money on glossy leaflets instead of spending money on residents’ everyday needs. We are ambitious to change that. This is what we have set out to achieve in our manifesto today.

Afterwards I attended our Annual Parish Council meeting in Grove, where I reported on my activities over the past year. David Buckle, our new Chief Executive at the Vale of White Horse District Council came to give us a presentation, which was very informative and I hope interesting to residents. He set our the savings we are achieving at the Vale with our shared management. He also gave us an update on the proposed development for Grove which now seems to be on hold due to the economic recession and the impact it is having on housebuilding.

There were not many questions from the public, and nothing controversial, so I suppose that means we must be doing something right. I always enjoy these occasions where it gives us a real opportunity to engage with our electorate. Interesting times ahead for all of us.

Wantage Town Mayor's Charity Ball

I attended this last Saturday evening, but where has the time gone since then? It has been a very busy week. However, I do wish to record that this was an excellent evening at Wantage Civic Hall. Music was by "Out of the Blue" and there was a wonderful performance of Riverdance which had us all tapping our feet! Proceeds from the event were donated to the Wantage Advice Centre, who are doing excellent work, especially during these times of recession helping people with debt problems. Oxfordshire MIND was the other nominated charity by the Mayor Patrick O'Leary. It was good to see old friends and new.

St. George's Day

Today I attended a Citizenship Ceremony at the Town Hall in Oxford which was conducted by the Oxfordshire County Council's Registration Service. Ceremonies take place each Thursday, but today was a special occasion because not only was it St. George's Day, but we welcomed the 5000th person to become a British citizen in Oxfordshire.

The decision to implement 20 mph speed limits in Oxford also took place today at County Hall, it will be interesting to see how this will be enforced. Oxford is the second city after Portsmouth to bring in such measures.

Finally, I ended up at Wantage and Grove Traffic Advisory Committee where we looked at many local issues which need attention. We had the discussion regarding the speed limit reduction at Mably Way, and it looks like we are going to have to wait for the countywide review of all speed limits. So not a quick decision on this one. Let us hope there will be no more accidents in the meantime.

Public Health and Community Safety

These are two of the issues I pursued at today's Cabinet at the County Council. The Public Health Report for Oxfordshire has been published and it was interesting to hear it reported on the news this evening as the 'demographic time bomb'. I sat on a scrutiny review commissioned by the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee where we spent many hours of the last 18 months looking at all aspects of this. We made many key recommendations which were reported to Cabinet in January. You can read the review here

Today, however, it was time to revisit the problems and highlight the concerns made about the challenges we face to deal with this in the future. Certainly, I was pleased to see the reference made to carers and how current health services and social services would collapse without them. It is time their role was officially recognised and they are given the support they need. Government is slow in ackowledging this. The full Public Health report is available to read online.

The County's Audit report was also looked at and it is well known that the 'excellent' 4 star rating was lost some time ago, especially due to their poor record on Children's Services. However, today I highlighted aspects of community safety which need to improve especially with regard to deaths and serious injuries on the roads. Funding for community safety schemes were taken out of the budget about 2 years ago and this would have helped to fund schemes like zebra crossings and road safety measures which may have helped to improve this. It will also be interesting to see how implementation of 20 mph speed limits in Oxford will go ahead, which is up for a delegated decision on Thursday. I know there is a debate about police enforcement on this.

Speeding is known to cause accidents, and certainly, Cllr. Jenny Hannaby and myself have been looking into the reduction of the speed limit on Mably Way as the doctor's surgery had contacted us after a resident was badly hurt on the crossing recently. This followed a fatality there just over a year ago. This will be discussed on Thursday at the Traffic Advisory Committee in Wantage. We arranged for a speed survey to be undertaken there, so it will be interesting to hear the results.

Wantage Town's Annual Meeting

Tonight I attended Wantage Town Council's Annual meeting. There were quite a few members of the public present which was good to see. We had a presentation about the Wantage Civic Hall from the Wantage and Grove District Arts Guild and heard about the possibilities of using it for the community and arts facilities. There were reports from the various town council committees and the district and county reports. I was pleased to present a report on behalf of the County Council especially focussing in on local matters. There were a number of questions from members of the public on various topics.

Last night I was at the local Neighbourhood Action Group in Wantage where we discussed policing matters. Street lighting and footpaths and pavements came up as they did tonight. Maintenance of our roads seems to be a very popular subject at the moment. Anyone who wishes to report a pothole can do so at the Oxfordshire County Council website online or telephone: 0845 3101111.