Red Cross Flood Relief Funds released

Today the Vale Council has announced the British Red Cross have launched a scheme to help vulnerable residents affected by the July floods. Please read full details here

Anyone who feels they may qualify for these hardship funds or who knows any elderly or vulnerable residents who would benefit, please download a form from this link or pick one up from Council offices in Abingdon, Wantage or Faringdon, or by phoning 01993 861000.

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.