All Change at County Hall

Today was the annual County Council meeting where we elected a new Chairman and Vice-Chairman and agreed allocation of cabinet and committee places.  Unfortunately, the Conservative ruling group continued to break with tradition by electing both the Chairman and Vice Chairman from their group.  In opposition, we believe this politicizes the posts and therefore put forward alternatives.  We proposed a Lib Dem Chairman and a Labour Vice Chairman, but both were voted down.  We also saw the Conservatives appoint two new members onto their Cabinet, with the retirement of Cllr. Ian Hudspeth and Cllr. Michael Waine.

We put forward three motions today, though only one was accepted with an amendment - this was to welcome the reinstatement of the speed cameras across the county and calling upon the police to enforce the 20mph zones in Oxford city.  I had a motion calling for the new money (£3.525M)  from government to spend on repairing damaged roads caused by the harsh winter to be used to get on with fixing the multitude of potholes all over the county.  This was voted down, but I was told that the money has to be used for new work to be done.  Well let's hope this new work is completed soon and a better job made of it than the recent works undertaken in Wallingford Street in Wantage which will have to be done all over again due to the poor quality of materials used.  Details of all the work will have to be published on the council's website in September this year.