On Friday evening, I attended the Annual Parish Meeting of Grove Parish Council at the Old Mill Hall. I gave the following report to residents about the work I have undertaken in my role over the past year as County Councillor for Grove and Wantage. I hope it will be of interest to residents who were unable to attend.
COUNTY
COUNCIL ANNUAL REPORT TO PARISH COUNCIL 2017
This year, I have been back
to my usual council duties as your representative for Grove and Wantage, but it has been a real honour to have
taken on the role of Vice Chairman of the County Council during this last year. This has meant that as well as supporting the
Chairman at County Council meetings, I have been out and about the county doing
many duties on his behalf when I can.
Several of these duties have included supporting events of the Armed
Forces, but I was particularly delighted to have opened the A338 Wantage Road
bridge after the Network Rail electrification works had been completed last
July. As many residents will recall,
this was a controversial issue when the original plan to close this busy road
for 6 months was avoided when it was agreed with the County Council that the
new bridge would be built alongside the old one which was eventually
demolished. I must admit I have had a
lot of good feedback from residents about the new bridge since it has been
built, so this was an excellent outcomefor us all.
As I reported last year, a
stay of execution was given to our local Childrens’ Centre in Grove and Wantage
to enable community solutions to take place where possible. I am pleased to say
that I have chaired our local steering group with St. John’s Parish Church
where we have been working with many volunteers to find a solution. We put in a bid to the County Council’s £1M
Transition Fund and were given an interim payment of £10,000. We were also fortunate in winning a
successful bid from Wantage Town Council, who have very generously promised us £10,000
over the next 3 years.
I have now handed over the
Chairmanship of this group over to the PCC (Parish Church Council) who will continue
running services for mums and babies in the area both at The Beacon in Wantage
and at St. John’s Parish rooms in Grove.
We are also seeking more funding to ensure this group continues in the
future, as it is much valued, especially with more houses planned for the area.
The long term aim will be that this group will come under management of the
Vale Academy Trust when it begins building the new Grove Cof E Academy in
Grove.
I am sure that many of you
will be aware that the bid to the Dept. for Education to build this new school
for Grove to cover ages 2-16 has been successful. I must say I was delighted to
hear this news, after campaigning for Grove to have its own secondary school in
its own right for many years as it has always been a problem for as long as I can
remember that schoolchildren have to travel into Wantage (a near 3 mile journey
for some) to go to secondary school. This should provide a seamless education
right from nursery through to 16.
Regarding the cuts to bus
subsidies which went ahead last year, I have been working hard with officers
and the bus companies to see if we could keep some of our valuable routes
going. Since the 38 Town Service has
gone, I believe that Thames Travel tried to incorporate some of the routes into
their services to Didcot/Harwell, but this has been difficult, because their
services do not cover Grove. This means
that although we still have a regular service to Oxford with the Stagecoach X30
and the 31 which also covers Abingdon, to go to Didcot or Harwell, residents
have to change buses in Wantage. This
has been creating problems with Wantage Town Council complaining about too many
buses in the Market Place. On the other
hand, the local town service around Charlton and Stockham has been discontinued. So the dilemma
for the bus companies is how to make their services commercially viable whilst
trying to keep their regular loyal customers. There has been a recent
consultation undertaken with Stagecoach re-routing the X30 or 31 services, but
I haven’t yet heard the outcome of this.
I did meet the manager of Stagecoach to ask him to extend the
consultation period until the end of March which they did thankfully. Early
signs (though not official) is that the route may not change. I am still waiting the official results of
the survey.
Last year, I did report that
there was a consultation regarding one unitary council for the whole of
Oxfordshire. As far as I am aware at the
current time, the South and Vale district councils have now agreed on this
proposal renaming it ‘A Better Oxfordshire’ and I understand this
re-organisation bid is currently with the government. With a General Election now called for in June, it is unlikely any decision will be
taken for some time after that. I am
sure that district councillors present here may wish to say more about this.
We have had some success
with road resurfacing in the area (for example the recurrent potholes on the
Denchworth Road by the Bay Tree), but for most people the biggest problem is
that potholes are not fixed, or left too long or once fixed, they come
back. I am always told that the best way
to report anything like this is to the Oxfordshire County website page ‘Fix My
Street’. This way, you are able to track
dates of repairs and see others who may have reported it, as well as learning
the current status of repair.
Finally, just to update you
that the County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee did write a letter to the
Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt regarding the lack of funding for GP
surgeries in the area. This included both Wantage & Grove Health Centre at
Mably Way and Faringdon. Of the £50
Million bid for Oxfordshire, only £2 Million was allocated and none of it came
here. There will be another bidding
round next year which we hope will be successful.
I am sure that there may be
something I have missed, so please feel free to ask any questions. As you know, I usually hold my surgeries in
Grove Library one Saturday a month, but I have none planned at the moment
because there are County Council elections on 4th May and obviously, we don’t
know the outcome. However, what I would
like to say is that Grove Library has been one of the first in the County to
have been given open access (meaning you can access the library out of hours)
at all times. If you feel you would like to take advantage of this service,
then please see library staff and I am sure they will help.
May I just say that it has
been a real pleasure serving you as County Councillor for Grove for 16 years
now, and depending on the wishes of the electorate may or may not be here to
continue.
Cllr Zoé Patrick
County
Councillor for Grove & Wantage
