A338 Road Closure from Valentine's Day

The A338 between Mably Way and Limborough Road will be closed temporarily for carriageway reconstruction and resurfacing from 14 February. The estimated duration of the work is 8 weeks.

Access will be allowed for emergency service vehicles and those residents within the closure area. For everyone else, it will be quite a long diversion around alternative routes (e.g. the loop along Mably Way, Denchworth Road and back into Wantage).

This is the work that was originally planned for last year, but was postponed. See here and here.

Grove Library Latest

A local resident has set up an e-petition against the threat to withdraw funding from Grove Library. It appears along with similar petitions to save a number of Oxfordshire libraries and can be found here. Please note that you have to register to sign an e-petition (instructions at the petition), but it is very quick.

Expansion of local primary schools

There is currently a consultation exercise going on with Oxfordshire County Council regarding the expansion of both Charlton Primary School in Wantage and Grove Church of England Primary School at North Drive in Grove. I have had a number of complaints from parents locally about the fact that some children have not been given a place at their local primary school because the roll is full. I am hoping that the expansion of both of these schools so that they can accept more children in their first year will help alleviate the problem. If you wish to take a look at the consultation and/or take part do check it out here.

Packed Meeting to Save Grove Library

The public meeting to discuss the future of Grove Library was held last night and Old Mill Hall saw a huge turnout - at least 200 people by my reckoning. This shows the strong feeling of the local community and how they value the library as a local focal point as well as for the services it provides. The discussion was wide ranging and covered many issues. These included: the strategy/business case for e-books, how school children/parents valued the library in promoting literacy and providing books beyond the very limited resources of school libraries, the difficulties that elderly people and those with disabilties would encounter if they were forced to travel to Wantage, the recurrent costs and value of running the library (estimated to be in the region of £50,000/year), the fact that no account seems to be have been taken of the future expansion of Grove (a potential doubling of the population!), why the cuts cannot be applied across all of the libraries in Oxfordshire (e.g. through reduced opening hours) and, above all else, how to ensure that Grove retains it's local library.

Questions were asked about the Grove library usage figures and for the record here are some numbers. In 2009/2010, Grove had 23,400 visits with 28,099 items issued. The 28,099 issues break down as follows: 15,850 adults, 11,381 children with 868 AV (audio visual). This indicates that Grove really delivers very good value when you consider the relatively small amount it costs to run the library (less than £50k/year).

At the end of the meeting, it was agreed to form a local action group and volunteers were encouraged to come forward and help. Local district councillor Sue Marchant agreed to help co-ordinate the group and to agree a plan of action. This is, of course, reminiscent of how we set up the Friends of Grove Library (FROGs) when the library was previously under threat.

One thing that is worth noting is that Oxfordshire now has a Big Society fund of £600,000 to kick-start community initiatives. This has to cover other community activities (e.g. youth services), but certainly includes the possibility of bids from communtities wanting to support local libraries.

A number of people also came up to me at the end of the meeting frustrated because they had already volunteered to local or even national government to work on other matters, but had received little response back from the authorities. It seems that if the "Big Society" concept is going to really work there needs to be a lot more joined up thinking between the various departments and levels of government. Read the story in the press here.

No Cold Calling Zones in Wantage

Yesterday, Cllr. Jenny Hannaby and myself were out with the police and Trading Standards from Oxfordshire County Council introducing No Cold Calling zones in the Ormond Road area of Wantage. This photo is taken on Afredston Place and there are 14 other zones across Oxfordshire.

The purpose of the zone is to deter unwanted sales people from calling without an appointment - so called "cold callers". These signs (in photo on left) are placed in the neighbourhood stating that cold callers are unwelcome and should not enter the zone. Each house in the zone then gets an information pack and door sticker advising that they do not buy or sell at the door. Oxfordshire is a low crime area and a safe place to live and work but creating this zone can make it even better. We are coming to the old part of Grove next month - so watch this space. Trading standards can be contacted on 0845 051 0845 or trading.standards@oxfordshire.gov.uk. The press release can be found here and story in the Oxford Mail here.

Power to Communities

It was a full day at the County Council today where we had the first council meeting of the new year and at first it was thought that the public gallery could not be open because of a 'security risk'. A video link was set up in the committee rooms to enable anyone who wished to view us to do so. As it turned out, the public gallery was open, and nobody was interested in watching the video link! It appears that there was not much to engage our communities except that we did have some speakers on the proposed library closure in Summertown.

Quite a lot of people are concerned about library closures and cuts to our youth facilities and as I have mentioned in my previous post, there is a possibility of signing an e-petition on line at the County website. However, today I proposed an important motion welcoming the Localism Bill which was passed today. This is supposed to give power to our communities by encouraging referendums, petitions etc. It also encourages transparency by ensuring councils put on their websites all transactions over £500.

The bill also encourages communities to get involved with local planning decisions and this is to be welcomed as we face housing development all over the county, not least here in Grove and Wantage. We need to be involved in planning local infrastructure as the new Community Infrastructure Levy is implemented. There is a lot to take in, but anyone interested in reading about the bill can find out more here.

Save Grove Library

I have been asked what can be done to save Grove Library, so here is some information.

As I reported previously, I arranged for the County Librarian to come along to answer questions at a Parish Council Meeting in December. At that meeting, it was agreed to hold a public meeting to discuss the issue and this is now arranged for this coming Friday 14th January in Old Mill Hall at 7pm - everyone is welcome.

It is also now possible to submit and sign e-petitions on the Oxfordshire County Council website. If you look here, you will find the current list of petitions, which all relate to saving libraries in Oxfordshire! There is not one for Grove (any volunteers?), but there is one for saving all Oxfordshire libraries. In order to sign or setup a petition, you have to register with your email address, but this is very quick and easy to do.

Around the country, there are also local library groups - see here - which includes our very own Friends of Grove Library (FRoG) that was formed by the community when the library was previously under threat. I would be interested if anyone wishes to help with this.

Congratulations

Since I mentioned the "other" place in my previous post, I should also offer my congratulations to all the people from Oxfordshire to receive honours. In particular, as a member of Thames Valley Police Authority, I can say that the award of CBE to Chief Constable Sara Thornton was particularly well-deserved.

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a happy and successful 2011.

I notice that the inventor John Taylor was awarded an OBE in the recent New Year's Honours list for services to horology. One thing he is known for is the Chronophage clock at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. This video of his clock very vividly shows time being "eaten" up and I find it a good reminder to make use of every minute of the coming year....