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.