The People's Millions

This week From Monday 26 November until Thursday 29 November, you can have a say on how lottery money is awarded to local communities in Oxfordshire by voting in the People’s Millions competition.

A number of local organisations are in the running to win a grant of up to £80,000. The grants will fund projects that aim to improve the quality of life of local communities through transforming the local environment.

There are six projects from across the region that are in the running. You can support the following Oxfordshire projects by voting on the relevant days:

Blackbird Leys Adventure Playground - screened on Tuesday 27 November on the ITV Thames Valley programme
Carterton Town Square Regeneration - screened on Tuesday 27 November on ITV Thames Valley
Farmoor Pontoon for Disabled Sailors - screened on Wednesday 28 November on ITV Thames Valley
Oxford Sea Cadets HQ Refurbishment - screened on Wednesday 28 November on ITV Thames Valley
Fernham conversion of parish church into community hall - screened on Wednesday 28 November on ITV Central East
Bicester Athletics Club improvement of facilities - screened on Thursday 29 November on ITV Thames Valley.

As you will see from the above, there are two Vale projects listed who would benefit from your vote, so do give them some thought when making your decision. The Vale projects are:
Fernham's community hall initiative, Project Inspire (to make their vision of a community hall for Fernham and surrounding villages a reality). Fernham will be competing with a charity in Stamford, Lincs which has a population of 18,000; with a population of 200 Fernham is definitely the underdog!
AND
The Farmoor Reservoir Pontoon Project (for an electric lift so that disabled sailors can get down to their boats safely)

So, here's how to vote:
The numbers for voting will be announced in the regional media on the day of voting and will also appear on The Big Lottery's website.

For full details of the projects visit:

www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/peoplesmillions.

On the Buses

New bus services for our area are to start running from 9th December 2007, as written about in my earlier post in October . Please see the County Council website for up to date information here and the full range of service timetables here. Thames Travel will be operating the no. 32 hourly service between Grove/Wantage and Harwell campus and Didcot/Milton Park/Abingdon from Mondays to Saturdays.

The new Milton Park Express service also starts from 10th December run by RH Transport Services operating at peak times as a commuter link to Didcot Parkway, Didcot Town Centre and Milton Park. I do hope that residents will take advantage of these services, and I shall be grateful for any feedback.

Stagecoach will also be operating services to Abingdon and will continue the X30 route to Oxford and I do hope that there will be improved reliability as some passengers have reported punctuality problems recently. Perhaps now that we have 3 different operators running these services, there will be some incentive to improve.

I am pleased that my constant campaigning for better public transport locally is beginning to have an impact. I hope that there will be increased bus usage so that we will not lose these valuable routes in the future.

The Vale's Future

Last night, district councillors were asked to discuss the future direction of the Vale for the next 20 years. Please do visit the Vale of White Horse District Council website here to read what it is all about. The Vale's priorities will then be fed into the Oxfordshire Community Strategy (again on the same web page).

Simply speaking, this is new government legislation which is trying to shape the places in which we live, making our communities more sustainable and giving people a chance to have their say.
Many of us will have heard these words before, but if we do want to make our towns and villages better places in which to live and work in the future, it is worth giving this a look.
Why not fill in your response, which has to be submitted by 31st December 2007? Of course, I can think of better ways of spending New Year's Eve, but there's plenty of time to do it before then.

All district councils in Oxfordshire, including the County Council, have to be signed up to deliver targets on some of the chosen top priorities, and in return will be given reward grants. One of these is affordable housing. What does this mean for us? The new Development Framework is to replace what we now call the 'Local Plan'. It is hoped that this will make local people decide for themselves about their communities.

Well, I see the challenge for us will be that whenever people say they want 'affordable housing', they usually want it to be built somewhere else. And of course, this presents a dilemma for the planners. Do send in your responses and of course, comments posted here are welcome too.

A Closed Cabinet

When you are a politician you can spend many hours attending meetings, trying to do your best for the community, but when you are in Opposition it can be doubly difficult to make progress.

The County Council is controlled by Conservatives with Liberal Democrats being the party of Opposition. In my role as Leader of the Opposition, I spend many hours trying to raise issues that are important to my constituents. Unfortunately, all Chairs and Vice Chairs of the committees are Conservatives and all members of key outside bodies are Conservatives. Many people would argue that this is completely undemocratic and they would be right!!

However, the Government is trying to change this, turning backbench councillors into frontline councillors who will champion their own communities. I am looking forward to this day with anticipation, hoping that there will be rewards for those of us who try to do the right thing by those who elected us.

The ruling group changed the official name of their Executive decision-making body to the "Cabinet" - does this imply they had always intended to make every decision themselves without fear of any scrutiny?

This doesn't give politics a good name. Today I spoke about the floods in Oxfordshire and how it would have been better to take immediate action rather than waiting for scrutiny to do the job at a snails pace. I also spoke about the important role of public health and the challenges we face with our ageing population supporting everyone's needs without necessary funding from the NHS to cover it. It would be nice to think that the "Cabinet" was listening. Fortunately, the press were there today, so we can only hope that they will give a balanced view.

Water, Weeds and Wind

A long day at County Hall for the full council meeting. It began with patting the lovely horses outside in the car park who had come to protest at the Council's decision to allow BMW to re-route a bridleway in Oxford. The complicated saga means that after a court ruling the Ramblers Association and the British Horse Society are being asked to pay costs. How appalling and what a day for civil liberties when charities could be made to pay for taking companies to court to defend their rights. As Opposition members on the County Council, we were not allowed to give an alternative reply to that given by the ruling group.

Then our long awaited motion to deal with action on flooding was voted down, but not before the County Council agreed to undertake a flooding scrutiny review. Originally, this was not going to be the case, but now they have changed their minds. I think this U turn means we were right in the first place, and people want to see firm action being taken. I look forward to finding out more and hopefully our district councils will be able to contribute. I made the point about good communication, so that at the very least people know where to go for help. I also emphasised that drains and gulleys need regular maintenance because I do not believe that once a year is enough. It is vital that the Environment Agency and Thames Water play their part too. Also, we do need to encourage parishes and towns to set up their own flood defence groups so that local action can be taken.

Next my motion on weeds, and again time has passed since my initial call for action and we are already into the winter months - some have died off, but many still remain. The Cabinet had put an amendment asking that this be part of the budget setting process for next year. Well, that is fine, and we shall ensure there is adequate funding in our budget, but will they? However, the crucial point I made here is that if we do not meet our national targets for improved street and environmental cleanliness, we shall be in serious danger of losing reward monies of up to £1.2M. So, it will be a certain false economy not to take this seriously, let alone the fact that repaving pavements is more expensive than killing the weeds!

And finally, where is the wind in all this - well I guess that can only describe some of the 'hot air' which was expelled in the council chamber. I can only hope that I made a smidgen of difference and something really will happen... and that will make it all worthwhile. We live in hope.

Road Safety Matters at Millbrook School

This afternoon I had the pleasure of seeing children from Millbrook School in Grove Library presenting their work on road safety around the village. They had been out and about at various locations with a speed gun to monitor speeding cars. Do read the full story here
and do pop along to the library and take a look at the excellent display of the children's work.
All the children were very enthusiastic about their project and hope that lives could be saved as a result. The Oxford Mail came to take a photograph, so hopefully their work will be recognised in Oxfordshire and other schools may follow their initiative.

Vale Publishes Flood Review

The Vale of White Horse District Council has now published its internal review on the July floods. Do check this out on the website link below

http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/council_and_democracy/council_news/DetailPage12191.asp

This will also link to the large amounts of reports and documents which have now been published in the public domain. Anyone who was listening to Radio Oxford last night or saw the local news on BBC South Today would have heard Tim Sadler, Strategic Director at the Vale, talking about this live. Everyone who sent me their questionnaire should be assured that all comments were fed into this process. Messages coming back about future preparation, in particular, regarding stocks of local sandbags are consistent with some of the areas of my report which I submitted.

There has also been a joint letter written on behalf of all district councils and the County Council to government ministers. Read the full story here

Grove Primary School Celebrates

This afternoon I had the pleasure of presenting Grove Church of England Primary School with an Inclusion Quality Mark award from the County Council. This was given to the school after an enormous amount of hard work on behalf of staff and children, led by the previous head of the school, Julie Carr, who came back today to join in the celebrations.

We all enjoyed seeing the children take part in a special assembly and hearing about the activities they have been involved with. Apparently, there are only about 20 schools in Oxfordshire who have achieved this prestigious award so congratulations to our local primary school for being amongst them.

Sunset flypast at Grove Airfield

This evening I witnessed an unforgetful ceremony at Grove Technology Park. Many local residents turned up to see the official installation of a De Havilland Venom fighter at the entrance to the former Grove airfield. Although set up last week ahead of this evening's event, we watched enthralled as this plane held aloft on a plinth was surrounded with light, fireworks and music. During the sunset, we saw a Spitfire flypast and watched its breathtaking display above.

The RAF were there along with representatives of the community, who like myself, had been invited to witness and share in this memorable occasion. This was all put together and hosted by Robert Lamplough, Chairman of Grove 2000 and will be a reminder for many years to come of how Grove played such an important part in our war history.

Grove Station back on track

The prospect of a new railway station for Grove is one step nearer after the Vale of White Horse District Council granted planning permission at the Development Control Committee meeting last night. I was there along with my District colleague Cllr. Sue Marchant, to give our support to this application.

It has been an aspiration of many residents for a long time to re-open the station after it was closed during the 60's under the Beeching cuts. Since then we have been given various reasons why the station may not be feasible, one of these reasons was that the prospects of having a rail service to serve the station are not likely in the short term. But surely what is really needed is the political will?

We need firm action from national government and the County Council to press for rail services here in the future. This needs both commitment and investment. If we are really serious about climate change then we need to provide good public transport, and this is desperately needed if Grove is expected to take any further housing development. Who will rise to the challenge?

Oxford Prison Re-visited

Last night I visited the Malmaison Hotel in Oxford for the re-opening night of the 'Visitors Room' at the previous prison. It was an eye-opener to see the huge refurbishment this hotel has undergone as part of the Castle Heritage site redevelopment some years ago with funding from SEEDA. Read the story here of the history and some of the awards they have won. It is amazing to think that this was once used for scenes from 'Porridge' and other TV series. All the hotel rooms have been converted from previous prison cells and it has all been very tastfully done. I did attend the official opening ceremony by the Queen last year.

This whole complex is a real asset to Oxford city centre and an excellent stop for visitors, especially if they also take a look inside the Unlocked musuem nearby. It is also now registered as an official site for wedding ceremonies and other civic functions as you can read here

However, last night was a precursor for Christmas so although it was nice to sample some offerings from their Christmas fare, it was a wake-up call to think that the festive season is not that far off and another year will have come and gone.

Letcombe Brook Project Meeting on Flooding

Last night there was an excellent turnout to this special meeting which was called in response to the recent flooding. The Letcombe Brook Project Partnership is funded by the Environment Agency, Grove and Wantage Joint Environmental Trusts, Letcombe Regis Parish Council and the Vale of White Horse District Council. This enables us to fund our Project Officer, Sally Wallington, who works to improve the environment of the brook and organised this event.

We had presentations from the Environment Agency which explained the incidents which led to the flash flooding on 20th July, and we also had various myths expelled like 'opening sluice gates caused the flooding' and 'we were flooded to save others downstream'. This was followed by a question and answer session with the county and district councils, Thames Water and Environment Agency. Some questions were answered more satisfactorily than others. However, the general feeling was that the meeting was well organised and that everyone had a chance to have their say.

I do hope that those residents who were flooded are now getting their lives back to some sort of normality again. We did hear from the Vale's Emergency Planning Officer that there are some really good flood prevention measures on the market now which can be used to protect one's home from serious flooding, so it is worth investigating these products if you live near the brook. However hard we try to plan, you can never predict when these freak events will happen.

If anyone has any queries regarding the Letcombe Brook, do email:

letcombebrook@hotmail.com

Local Bus Services

Today I attended the Transport Decisions Committee at the County Council to argue the case for ensuring local bus services in the Wantage, Grove and Faringdon area are continued.

Much of my casework is involved with dealing with residents' concerns about the local buses, and it is always a passion of mine to try to improve public transport. In an ideal world, people would choose to leave their cars at home because the experience of public transport is so much better than sitting in traffic jams.

Details of the individual services and any changes to those currently running will be available shortly, but I just wanted to make people aware that there are some improvements on the way. One of the possible new services will be a through service at peak times from Wantage, Grove & Hanney to Didcot and Milton Park. This is something I have been pushing for over a number of years ever since a young man came to my surgery who had lost his job at Milton Park through lack of a regular, reliable bus service to get him to work on time.

Today it was also agreed to continue to award grants towards the very successful Wantage/Grove Community Car Scheme run by the Independent Advice Centre in Wantage, the Grove 'Shopperbus' Service and Stanford in the Vale's minibus. All very valuable services run locally by volunteers and which contribute greatly to improving the lives of elderly and frail people within our community.

I had spent a long time preparing my report for submission to this committee and was very pleased that my comments were listened to and was particularly grateful for the hard work which has gone into these individual contracts by our Public Transport Team at the County. Watch this space for further details.

Lessons to be Learned from July Floods

Please see the latest news from the Oxfordshire County Council website link here where Emergency Planners from Oxfordshire County Council have passed on their views to an independently set up inquiry that is investigating the floods that struck England in July.

Let us hope that more lessons will be learnt from this and ensure we do plan and co-ordinate better in the future.

A Tour of Italian Cities

I have been away from my computer for the last two weeks on holiday in Italy. It has been a long-standing wish to visit Venice, Florence and Rome and we managed to be able to spend a few days in each. Venice is a city where people live with the regular winter floods and have to try to plan for the sinking of the city each year, made worse by the river traffic. Public transport in Venice is by water taxi and it was a joy to walk around without worrying about cars. Our hotel on the Lido had a beautiful view across the water to the city and the basillica of St Mark's.

At the other extreme is Rome where the traffic is chaos and around 2 million people travel into the city each day to work. Finding a parking space can take up to an hour. Crossing the street can be taking your life into your hands. All noisy and chaos which fitted well with the Colosseum which still holds its atmosphere after hundreds of years. We had a guided tour of the Vatican, and the Sistine Chapel did live up to its expectations.

Florence on the other hand was a mixture of both, with quiet streets and large squares in which to wander within the historic centre. Many wonderful art treasures including Michaelangelo's David were awe-inspiring and it was quite exhausting to try to fit it all in. We shall have to go back!

The only fly in the ointment were the Italian baggage handlers' strike which meant we couldn't land in Venice and had to detour to Verona which made us late on arrival. Then on our return, their decision to leave everyone's luggage on the runway in Rome in a thunderstorm. Emptying a wet suitcase is not much fun -unpacking is depressing enough without that!

But it is nice to be back! I now have a mountain of post to deal with which is always one of the joys of going away. So now I need a holiday...

Positive Action in Millbrook Square

I was delighted to receive an email communication today from the owners of Millbrook Square to confirm the following:

1. All the gullies and drains in both Millbrook Square car park and in the access road behind the shops have now been emptied and cleaned.

2. A regular maintenance programme for their cleaning is to be set up.

3. The application for the 8 flats has been withdrawn and will only be re-submitted once the Environment Agency (EA) are happy with the Flood Risk Assessment (FRA)

4. The revised FRA will be submitted next week and hopefully it will address the issues raised by the rain on 20th July. If not, then it will be amended until the EA are satisfied.

This is excellent news for the residents of Grove and I am pleased that our concerns have been taken seriously by the management of the shopping centre. This bodes well for good community relations in the future and I welcome such a proactive approach.

Council Debate on Flooding in the Vale

This evening the Vale of White Horse District Council had an extraordinary Council meeting to deal with the events surrounding the July flooding. A number of issues were discussed not least the Council's response to the recent flooding and how improvements could be made to emergency planning for the future. I certainly welcome the emergency plan's priority to put in place a robust communications strategy, because one of the main themes which emerged from the situation in Grove was the confusion of where people went for help. We need clear advice on this to pass on to residents.
Many councillors, including myself, shared experiences across the Vale, and many people suffered like ourselves and it was helpful to listen to this and from speakers who came to the meeting to address us.
We passed a cross-party motion to urgently review the Operational Flood Plan in light of the recent flooding. To bring a report to the October Executive. To consider funding for flood defences in its budget setting process. To call on responsible land owners, Oxfordshire County Council, Thames Water, Environment Agency and Network Rail to

• Carry out a major clearance of water weeds, to remove silt and remove blockages of culverts and bridges in selective areas in the Vale where urban flooding occurred
• Clear and repair any controlling outlets to the existing storage ponds where there are flooding problems
• Ensure that all sewerage pumping stations are regularly maintained in good order so as to avoid breakdown in critical flooding periods when there is a potential for overspill of sewage

So what a contrast to yesterday where at the County Council we were told that our motion on flooding was 'not urgent' and would not be discussed, yet the Vale Council were willing to give this important topic such priority that a special meeting was called to deal with it.

I look forward to reporting back on more action as it happens.

Weeds and Pavements

Numerous residents have complained to me this year about weeds and the state of many pavements in Grove and Wantage. I discovered early this summer, when I made my first enquiries, that the budget for routine weedkilling has been curtailed at the County Council and no money was being delegated to parish councils to do it either. Basically, the work wasn't being done. I had therefore prepared a motion for debate at today's Council meeting to call for the re-instatement of this budget for next year.

We have had some success with overhanging brambles being tackled in our worse areas, but as evidence in the photograph shows, our pavements are cracking up with this lack of maintenance and it will lead to more costly repairs in the future. Hardly efficient use of our money if we think about it. Urgent action is still needed.

Today was the full meeting of Council and it was an unusual day. Standing orders were suspended to allow the Leader of the Council to put forward his ideas about developing a sustainable community strategy for Oxfordshire. .... so our pavements were yet again put on the back burner. However, I live in hope and we will bring it back to the Council in November. Watch this space!

Inauguration Ceremony at Oxford Brookes University

Today I attended the inauguration ceremony of Professor Janet Beer as the new Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University. This position was previously held by Professor Graham Upton, who had played a key role on Oxfordshire County Council's Strategic Partnership. Please follow this link for details of Professor Beer's career to date:

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/about/structure/management/janet_beer

After the official ceremony, we were invited back to the gardens of Headington Hill House where we had the opportunity of meeting many of the key players in Oxfordshire's community.

Oxford Brookes University began life as the Oxford School of Art in 1865, and then expanded to become a technical college. When it moved to Headington, it became a Polytechnic and finally in 1992 it became the University that we have today. It honoured John Brookes' memory by choosing the name Oxford Brookes University. Read the full history here:

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/about/history/timeline

Now the university enjoys an excellent reputation within the academic world, so long may its success continue.

Health Walks

Today I led the health walk in Abingdon, leaving the White Horse Leisure Centre at 2.30pm on the first Sunday of every month (except Bank Holiday weekends). Walks take place every Wednesday mornings too leaving the Leisure Centre at 10.30am. We walked around the River Thames over the lock and back through Abbey Meadows. The river is still very full, but the meadow has completely dried out after the floods. Health walks take place all over the county and indeed all over the country and were set up and funded by the Countryside Agency (now renamed Natural England). Visit their website at: http://www.whi.org.uk/

to find out where walks are taking place in your area.

I helped to set up health walks in Wantage too, which take place every Thursday at 10am at the Vale and Downland Museum in Church Street, Wantage. If you wish to come along, please do just turn up, there is a small health assessment form to fill in, but otherwise you can just join in as and when you wish to. It is all completely free and run by volunteer walk leaders.

Walks are usually just about 1-3 miles long, and take up to an hour. It is a great way to keep fit if you don't get much exercise and a way of meeting new faces with similar interests.