Headington Ward  is “missed off”  the new planning recommendations! Do they know we exist?

Sadly the Labour Group voted against Ruth’s amendment at Monday’s Full Council meeting  which said

This Council deplores the exclusion of Headington Ward from the proposed changes to democratic arrangements, and refers the proposals back to City Executive Board for the necessary amendments to be made to include Headington Ward in the East Area Planning Committee

This proposal was defeated in a named vote in which all the Labour councillors in the North East Area of Oxford voted against it.

The necessary amendments will be made by council officers to cover up the administration’s  embarrassment.

Just think! If 9 members of Labour’s City Executive Board can’t check officer paperwork well enough to spot an entire ward missing from democratic changes, how effective will the introduction of Single Member decision-making be when there’s just the one of them working on their own!?

Despite huge opposition in the public consultation (up to 80% voting against taking local planning decisions away from local area committees, 159 out of 196 with 9 don’t knows!), the last meeting of the North East Area Committee will take place on 17 May.

After that, planning applications on properties in Headington Ward and the South East and North East areas that have not been delegated to officers will be decided upon at the Town Hall by a group of councillors from across Oxford. There will be just three places on the East Area planning committee for Lib Dem Councillors and only one Green.

There are likely to be quarterly Area Forum meetings but no decision has been taken about what those will look like yet. Ruth has been nominated as one of the two members attending all planning meetings for area forums across the City on behalf of the Scrutiny Committee, so will find out what is happening where.

If you have some good ideas about making area meetings better attended and more effective, please contact David and Ruth by the end of the first week in May. We’d love to hear from you.

And we promise WE will listen!