Balancing Ponds by Letcombe Brook

The balancing ponds in Grove have started to fill up after recent maintenance work by Thames Water who own them.

The first photo shows the ponds behind Old Mill Hall doing their job with water in them. The second photo shows a muddier pond by Letcombe Walk.

Thames Valley Police set their Budget

This morning at the meeting of the Thames Valley Police Authority, we set our budget for the year allowing for just a 2% increase. This is far lower than other police authorities all over the country, and lower than Oxfordshire County Council's rise last week of 2.75%. There was agreement around the table from all elected members that this was a fair amount which would allow for 27 new police officers across the Force area. It also accounts for efficiency savings across the board. This means council tax payers in Band D properties will pay an extra £3.03 per year or 6p per week for policing in the Thames Valley.

The total police element of council tax for a Band D property in the Thames Valley is £154.30 per year or £2.97 per week.

Grove Works

Those travelling along the A338 near to Williams F1 will have noticed the works that are going on either side of the road. This is to install new bus stops instead of the one opposite The Volunteer that was considered too dangerous.

Works have also commenced to re-install the shelter along Main Street that was damaged by a bus last November - see original post here.

Budget Day at County Hall

Today, the County Council set its budget for the next five years. There will be cuts in spending to try to find over £100 million of savings. There is a danger that some services will be severely affected as 500 posts will be axed. There are certainly difficult times ahead, as I predicted last summer.

In my role as Leader of the Liberal Democrat Opposition, it was my job to propose an alternative budget, which is what we did today. As expected, with a Tory majority, our budget did not get through, but we still needed to give members of the public an idea of what we would have done. We proposed a lower council tax this year with just a 2.5% increase and then retaining that level of increase for the following four years. This would enable our balances to provide for vital Oxfordshire services.

The Tory council tax increase is higher at 2.75% this year and eventually rising to 3.75% in later years. They have a hole in their budget in the medium term because they assume there will be a nil council tax increase in 2011/12 and 2012/13 because a Tory government would be able to somehow find money to increase our grant allocation. Well, considering David Cameron seems to be changing his mind every week about his public spending plans, we did not see this as a viable and sustainable option.

It was a really grumpy council meeting, with disparaging remarks being made. How strange, when I thought all councillors were supposed to be trying to agree the best for the county of Oxfordshire. What a very sad state of affairs!

Charlton Primary School Raises money for Haiti

Pupils at Charlton Primary School in Wantage held a fundraising day on Thursday 28th January for the victims of the Haiti disaster. Children dressed in Carribean or colourful clothes in return for a donation to the fund. The school also held a Bring and Buy sale in the school hall which raised hundreds of pounds. The total raised at the end of the day was a fantastic £720 which was then given to UNICEF to help their work with the people of Haiti.

This is quite an achievement for one of our local primary schools. As I am a governor at the school with responsibility for the PR, it gave me great pleasure today to send in a press release for the local media. The school were able to learn all about the region and the impact of the earthquake and obviously took the fundraising appeal to heart.