Children's Centre for Grove

I spent the morning as part of a 'visioning' group which has been set up to look into a new Children's Centre which will be coming to Grove next year. This is funded by Oxfordshire County Council and aims to give support for young children and families in the area.

There are currently 29 Children's Centres in Oxfordshire, and we heard about the success of the one in Faringdon which is linked to the family centre. You can read more about them here on the County Council's website.

The venue for the new centre has not yet been finalised, but I will keep readers informed of progress on this blog. There is to be an Advisory Group meeting next week. Anyone who is keen to be involved, contact Spurgeons, a charity for children and young people who will be running the centre (tel. no. 01295 690785).

Flood Fair Comes to Town

Another chance to have a look at the latest in products to help protect your house from potential flooding when the Flood Fair comes to Wantage on Tuesday 7th October at the Civic Hall from 3pm - 8pm.
The event is backed by councils, the Environment Agency, National Flood Forum, the Police and the Fire & Rescue Service.
Experts will be on hand to give practical advice to residents. Hopefully it will be a chance to see what is on offer to protect homes from future flooding. Read more here

Neighbourhood Policing

A lot of my casework involves police matters, and many people get frustrated when they report incidents to the police and have to wait before any action is taken. Well, the government may be trying to change all this with the latest Green Paper from the Home Office entitled "From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our Communities Together". Download your copy here

I have spent today at Thames Valley Police Authority where I represent Oxfordshire County Council on the Board, and we have been discussing what this will mean for us in the Thames Valley. For example, how do people feel about having directly elected Police Boards? At the moment the board is made up of independent members, councillors and JP's. Would it make the police more accountable?

I guess most people won't be interested in the make up of Police Authorities so long as they get the service they need when they need it. Like local councils, police authorities raise their income from a precept on the council tax, and year on year, this always goes up. The public like to see value for money so how do we ensure that money is well spent?

I would be interested to hear views if you have time to read the document, and of course, you may wish to take part in the official consultation on the website.

Environment Agency's Reservoir Response

This evening I attended a meeting at the Environment Agency's offices in Wallingford to hear their response to Thames Water's reservoir proposals in our area. The bottom line is that the EA have said very clearly that Thames Water has not yet fully demonstrated the need for such a large reservoir. Their recommendations include:

• improving water efficiency
• revising the demand and supply options
• increasing the use of metering
• improving leakage reduction.

This is all consistent with the Vale of White Horse District Council's response which I reported here last month. It is certainly reassuring to know that the Environment Agency has come up with the same views as many of us have felt all along.

Let us hope the Secretary of State will listen to these concerns and take note. The consultation period has now ended and we can look forward to reading all the responses and watching carefully how they will be dealt with over the next few months.