County Hall Crossroads

It was the Annual County Council meeting last Tuesday where we had to decide on the new Tory leader of the Council.   We also had to elect a new Chairman and Vice Chairman.   Keith Mitchell was standing down after 10 years of rule and during that time I have served six years as Leader of the Opposition.  It has been a challenging task, especially as the ruling group insist on taking all the chairs and vice chairs of the scrutiny committees. So, in effect, they scrutinise themselves. 

Also, we used to have a long tradition of sharing the Council Chairmanship role around the three main political groups, but that all changed three years ago when the Conservatives increased their majority.  Now, of course, the landscape has changed and nationally we are in coalition government.  Locally, however, that made little difference to the leadership style.

Now that Ian Hudspeth has taken up the reins, we are at a crossroads so it will be interesting to see if there is any difference. Maybe, the sign above should be realigned to point to Woodstock rather than Bloxham?