Recruitment Evening at Wantage Fire Station

This evening I went along to see the recruitment evening which was planned at Wantage Fire Station and to give my support. Oxfordshire has an excellent Fire and Rescue service and there are plans across the county to try to recruit more retained firefighters at many of our local fire stations. See the press release here

There are currently 16 retained firefighters at Wantage and we would like to encourage more. There are 2 fire engines at the station and the plan is to be able to keep them both active. One of the requirements is that you have to live close to the station so that you can get there in an emergency within 5 minutes.

There were quite a few who turned up this evening to 'have a go' at the various tests that were on offer. Climbing the high ladder looked one of the biggest challenges - I think I would have failed that one! Anyone interested - do look at the weblink above and find out more. Everyone will remember how busy they all were during the July 2007 floods.

World's Largest Picnic in Grove

It was a real pleasure to help officially witness this event today which hopefully will make the Guinness Book of Records. Families had to register before 1pm to take part in the family picnic which was taking place on the playing field of Grove Church of England Primary School and was organised by Grove Free Evangelical Church. Myself as County Councillor and Frank Parnell, Grove Parish Chairman were there to see that the rules were being followed. Read more about it here

The weather was excellent and there was fun and games including bouncy castle, water balloons, football, rounders and finally a big tug o' war. There were 123 families registered altogether which will go forward along with all the other numbers counted at other events happening all over the country. In Oxfordshire, there was an another event organised at Cogges Museum in Witney. A good day was had by all.

Local bus timetables changing

Stagecoach, who run our local bus services into Oxford and Abingdon are to change their timetables in July and are currently consulting with the public about their proposals. To read in full and to download a timetable click here

The good news is that there will be more frequent journeys of the popular X30 fast service into Oxford. Also the first X30 bus into Oxford which can be used by those who are eligible for concessionary fares will now be 9.35am instead of 10.15am, which will give more time to make hospital and other appointments in Oxford. There are also some additonal evening services to improve journeys for passengers coming home. Oxfordshire County Council will be subsidising some of the evening services until December because of the poor patronage on some of these journeys - so a plea to residents to use it or lose it!

There will be a public meeting in Wantage next Tuesday evening 19th May in the Civic Hall from 7pm until 9pm where Stagecoach managers will be on hand to hear your views. You can also leave comments on the website link above.

May Fete in Grove

Here is a picture of the May Fete early this afternoon on the village green in Grove. Although there were a few drops of rain, the weather held and there was a good turnout throughout the afternoon until proceedings finished at about 4pm.

As usual, we were entertained by the excellent Wantage Silver Band.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Bank Holiday despite the doom and gloom in the newspapers.

Jousting on The Politics Show

Today, I was at Blenheim Palace to appear on The Politics Show on BBC South. The pictures on the left show me with the presenter Peter Henley. This all took place whilst a mediaeval jousting tournament was in full flight in the background. The idea was to have both knights and politicians "jousting" at the same time in the lead up to the local elections on 4th June!

The programme was covering issues surrounding the Oxfordshire county council elections (see previous entry regarding our Lib Dem manifesto). We covered the pedestrianisation of Oxford City Centre and educational achievement in the first half of the programme and then went on to the housing allocations in the forthcoming publication of the South East Plan.

As we all know, Grove and Wantage along with Bicester and Didcot, have all been named as locations for housing growth up to 2026. I tried to get across (although this can be challenging on live TV) the concerns of residents about large-scale housing in areas such as Grove where there is little existing infrastructure. Both Didcot and Bicester are much better locations as they have existing infrastructure like railway stations, close links to the A34/M40 and cultural/leisure facilities (e.g. cinema and arts centre at Didcot).

If you missed it, you can still watch the programme here. The Oxfordshire piece is about 30mins into the programme and is 20 mins long. There was a lot to pack into this short time, but it was an opportunity to try to push our message across.

May Day Manifesto and Grove Annual Parish Meeting

Today has been a very busy day for me. May Day revellers were launching themselves off Magdalen Bridge whilst I was busily preparing myself to launch the County Council's Liberal Democrat manifesto on Radio Oxford. I hope I got our main message across on the Drivetime programme this evening. We have been in Opposition on the County Council for the last four years, and it has not been an easy job for me as Leader. It has been difficult to have any influence on the administration with the Conservatives taking all the Scrutiny Chairs and basically scrutinising themselves instead of giving us the power to do that. This would be the obvious democratic solution. But with the County Council elections coming on on June 4th, it will be an opportunity to change things for the better.

Liberal Democrats have 7 clear messages in our manifesto:

• Helping our economy to thrive
• Giving our children the best start in life
• Improving our roads and pavements
• Investing in social care & home support
• Protecting our environment
• Making Oxfordshire a safer place
• Using your money wisely

Our key message is to invest in front line services – this is what people tell us they want. The County Council has been criticised for children’s poor achievement in schools, and we want to turn that around. We also need to support our young people, provide more youth workers and support the elderly and vulnerable. But when it came to budget setting this year, the administration chose to invest in things like appointing a new Head of Marketing and Public Affairs. Wasting money on glossy leaflets instead of spending money on residents’ everyday needs. We are ambitious to change that. This is what we have set out to achieve in our manifesto today.

Afterwards I attended our Annual Parish Council meeting in Grove, where I reported on my activities over the past year. David Buckle, our new Chief Executive at the Vale of White Horse District Council came to give us a presentation, which was very informative and I hope interesting to residents. He set our the savings we are achieving at the Vale with our shared management. He also gave us an update on the proposed development for Grove which now seems to be on hold due to the economic recession and the impact it is having on housebuilding.

There were not many questions from the public, and nothing controversial, so I suppose that means we must be doing something right. I always enjoy these occasions where it gives us a real opportunity to engage with our electorate. Interesting times ahead for all of us.