Lambourn Open Day on Good Friday

If you are looking for an outing over Easter, the Open Day at Lambourn is always a good event and I have been to it many times over the years. Money raised goes toward the Lambourn Valley Housing Trust for stable staff and the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance Trust.

On Good Friday morning (8:30am - 1pm), you are able to look around almost 30 racing yards in the Lambourn area and visit places like the veterinary hospital and the hydrotherapy pool. In the afternoon (1pm- 5pm), there is then a programme of events which includes a parade of famous horses, show jumping and entertainment/trade stalls.

See here for full details.

Congratulations to the LHC

At about midday, the Large Hadron Collider today achieved a new world record energy - 7 Tera electon Volts - for colliding protons. This is the start of 18-24 months of operation to start studying the fundamental structure of matter at this new energy.

Congratulations to all of the scientists in Oxfordshire, CERN and around the world who contributed to this huge effort. See here for my last post on the LHC and the Oxfordshire connection.

Oxford Literary Festival - Final Day

Today was the final day of the Oxford Literary Festival and I went along to see Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel interviewed by P.D. James in the Sheldonian Theatre. Both are shown in the photo opposite just before the event. Of course, the main topic of the interview and the subsequent question session was the historical novel Wolf Hall about the life of Thomas Cromwell and the Tudor court of Henry VIII. There were fascinating insights into how Hilary captured the life and interactions of the characters and how she filled in the parts missing from historical research. The book is 650 pages long and is an astonishing piece of work. For those awaiting more, she has already started writing the sequel called The Mirror and the Light.

Wantage, of course, is planning its very own Betjeman Festival in September 2011 - a fantastic opportunity to put the town on the map with its literary connections. In the run up to the festival, there are also some pre-festival events starting as early as April of this year. See the festival website here for details.

Street Pastors Training

Yesterday I ran a training session for the Wantage and Grove street pastors. They have to undergo quite an extensive training schedule, which is covered in their manual and includes all their roles and responsibilities. My section was entitled 'Knowing Your Community' so I was able to introduce them to the world of politics and policies, social exclusion and the whole dynamics of community planning.

It was a very lively affair with everyone having their say and I was told it was enjoyed by all. Street Pastors have been tremendously successful in both Grove and Wantage in helping our young people late into the night at weekends when they are a bit worse for wear by the excesses of alcohol! Lollipops and flip flops are the solution I am told, and a call home if needed. Readers of my blog will remember their launch event back in June last year.

The race is on ...

No, not the General Election - yet - but for the Formula 1 championship with the season well and truly underway after the opening GP in Bahrain and this weekend's Australian GP.

Time for a word of support for local team Williams F1 who moved to Grove in 1996 from their old headquarters in Didcot. The conference centre situated at the HQ is a unique venue as it also houses the fascinating collection of Williams racing cars. You can see me in one of them in the sidebar photo from a previous event held there.

The site in Grove was previously home to Janssen Pharmaceuticals, but one thing that has remained the same is the iconic avenue of beautiful trees shown in this photo after a winter trim. More news on the team and details about the facilities can be found here. There is also a Twitter feed here, which is useful for coverage of race weekends.

Sweatbox Update

This afternoon we met to discuss how to move forward with the re-opening of the Sweatbox as a music venue on Fridays. This was a closed meeting with officers of the County Council, youth workers, police, head of the school, street pastors and Cabinet member. The review continues and it is hoped this will be completed by the end of April, by which time we shall meet again to hear the outcome.

Meanwhile we decided to set a date for the new 'relaunch' on 7th May. There will be all the usual security at the entrance including bag searches but no breathalysers. It is hoped that this will be a positive step forward to ensure our young people continue to have somewhere they want to go on Friday nights, in a safe and enjoyable environment.

Fire Service Cover Dispute

Oxfordshire firefighters were out in force with placards and banners at County Hall this lunchtime to lobby councillors about new measures due to be implemented as part of the Fire Authority's Integrated Risk Management Action Plan 2010-11. This decision was taken at today's Cabinet meeting.

I went outside to talk to them to hear their views. Firefighters are concerned that residents of Abingdon and Didcot will have a reduced service under the new plans, and response times will be delayed, especially at weekends. The idea behind the plan is that there will be increased cover in some of Oxfordshire's rural communities, and some of us were shocked to hear that some areas, particularly in West Oxfordshire were not covered under the present system. More retained firefighters rather than full-time officers would be employed under the new scheme.

Despite the protest, and speakers at Cabinet, the vote to go through with the plan was unanimous with all Cabinet members approving the scheme.

Sweatbox Meeting

Tonight I attended the meeting to decide on the future of the Friday night sessions at The Sweatbox in Wantage. It was a very confrontational-style meeting which was a pity because many of the questions asked by the very concerned audience were not fully answered. We still never found out what wasn't 'safe' about the venue and why the music sessions which have been happening over the last 5 years were suddenly stopped without a proper explanation.

The 'Sweaty' relaunch event was supposed to have added security measures to make it safer for our local young people to go along to it. They had won a grant of £5000 of taxpayers' money through the County Council's 'Chill Out Fund' to buy the new sound and lighting equipment to give the atmosphere a 'night club' feel but they are now unable to use it! The event had the backing of the school, the police, the street pastors and the whole community and the sudden closure has caused much upset . Sadly the website says it all.

This Friday will still open hopefully, but without the music, so I hope there will not be lots of disappointed youngsters on our streets. Somehow I can't help feeling there has been a complete breakdown in communication. The 'sensational-style' press story on the use of breathalysers didn't help either - one can't help thinking that without that newspaper headline, the event would have just gone ahead as planned. However, there is now a 'review' and we can only hope that this will not take too long, and the 'Sweaty' will be business as usual on Friday nights.

Open Meeting at The Sweatbox

Further to my previous post, there will be an open meeting held this Wednesday 10th March at The Main Hall, East site in Wantage to discuss the way forward with the Friday night sessions. The meeting will be from 6.30pm - 7.30pm and will be chaired by the County Council's Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families, Cllr. Louise Chapman. I hope that this will be a constructive meeting and we can open our youth centre again to the benefit of the young people and families of Grove, Wantage and surrounding villages.

Sweatbox Closure

There has been a lot of media attention over the recent closure of our local youth centre, The Sweatbox, based in Wantage. There was to be a re-launch last week, which was postponed when the County Council raised concerns about the use of breathalyser tests at the venue.

Many of us have been concerned about the misuse of alcohol and underage drinking which has been reported at the local Neighbourhood Action Group which I attend, and everyone is hoping for a resolution to the problems as soon as possible. The Friday night sessions are hugely popular with our young people, and we need to see it open again. I have heard this afternoon that the 'Sweaty' (renamed) will now open as usual on Friday March 12th (not as a music event) and there will be a meeting to discuss the issues shortly. I will keep you posted.

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.

Potholes Galore!

There seems to be a plethora of potholes wherever you drive in Oxfordshire - a situation made worse, no doubt, by the recent winter weather.

Please note that you can report potholes and other problems online to the county council at:

http://tinyurl.com/yac4499

New Date for Your Vale - Your Future Consultation

A new date has been fixed for the exhibition on the proposed housing development north east of Wantage. If you will recall, the original event had to be rescheduled due to the snow. Consultation will now take place on Monday 25th January at Charlton Day Centre (next to Charlton Primary School) from 4.30 - 7.30 pm. Hopefully residents will be able to go along and have their say.

Joint Ticketing on the Buses Coming

Today it was announced that two of our main bus companies are joining together to offer joint ticketing in Oxford. Read all about it here

This should make life so much easier for people travelling in and around Oxford, especially during the time when major changes are happening in the city centre under the Transform Oxford scheme. I have been calling for this to happen for a long time, since I first put a motion to the County Council during April 2008. This was reported on my blog and I have had several meetings with people including the bus operators themselves to help make this happen. Let us hope that it won't be too long before we see this Smartcard system expand beyond the city into other areas like ours.

Update - Charlton Exhibition Cancelled

Just heard that this evening's exhibition at Charlton Parish Hall on the Vale's development proposals which I referred to on Monday has been cancelled due to the bad weather. It will be rescheduled in future, will update new date when available.

More Snow!

Looks like we have had another 5-6 cm of snow overnight here in Grove.

The photos give an idea of the state of the roads this morning around Denchworth Road and Brereton Drive area.

See my post from 6 Jan here for information sites.