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!

Photo: courtesy of Stephanie Jenkins and the Headington Forum

Several of you have commented on the intermittent flooding in Cuckoo Lane and one resident has asked if it could be resurfaced. Our latest information is that

There have been a couple of incidents where pedestrians have struck their heads on the tunnels that cross the footpath.  These tunnels form part of the Grade II listed Headington House so cannot be interfered with, although some sort of application for Listed Building consent is not out of the question.

The only positive drainage in this section of Cuckoo Lane is by two gullies, one opposite the end of Stephen Road which drains to Thames Water’s surface water sewers, while another between here and Old High Street has to be assumed to go to a soakaway.  By normal standards, 2 gullies for just over 400m2 is just about adequate, but this really doesn’t work for such an elongated site.  The provision of further gullies would almost certainly have to be to soakaways and these would constitute fairly substantial amounts of work.

You can find out more about the history of Cuckoo Lane here

Great news for the supporters of our Save Our Cheque campaign in Old Headington!

We are delighted to tell you that on Thursday of last week the Treasury’s Select Committee agreed to re-open its enquiry on the future of cheques as a result of public concern, and you can find news of this  at:

new-inquiry-the-future-of-cheques

This news was also covered in this week’s  Moneybox programme on Radio 4 this week which you can hear at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox#playepisode1

This is great news for many people who choose to pay by cheque:

• they may be housebound or have mobility problems
• older people prefer to use this method rather than cash to settle bills with tradesmen e.g. plumbers (because of the security risk of having large amounts of cash in the home)
• they may be partially sighted and need more time to make payments
• they may have less motor control which makes card payment by PDQ machine difficult
• charities rely on cheques from their individual donor base
• small businesses and charities often send multi-signatory cheque payments with orders
• many people still worry about the risks of fraud if they change to internet banking

It’s great to see that our lobbying has paid off!

Ruth has now withdrawn her motion on behalf of Headington residents to Monday’s Full  Council meeting which called on the Council to lobby our MPs for this review

Here is the latest newsletter from our Headington Neighbourhood team.

Consultation

The neighbourhood team have now finished the consultation process for Headington. The Neighbourhood Action Group (NAG) have now closed down the old priorities and set up three new ones. The new priorities are Parking, Littering and Anti Social Behaviour.

Cycle Operation

The Headington PCSOs recently set up a series of operations to tackle cycling on the pavement in Headington. The PCSOs issued tickets to those found offending. The roads targeted include London Road, Headley Way and Old High Street.

Robbery / Burglary

PCSO Steph Barras set up an operation in Headington along with PCSOs from other areas to provide high visibility and reassurance patrols.  The patrols focussed on burglaries, theft of lead and robberies. The operation proved very successful.

Arson

Since the 13^th March we have had 9 offences of arsons along the London Road and into Risinghurst and Sandhills, the offenders are targeting sale signs. We are investigating these incidents at the moment and appealing for witnesses. PC Eele has now put out a press release. The neighbourhood team will be increasing their patrols over the next couple of weeks.

Cycle Theft

We would still like to remind people about the cycle thefts across Headington even though we have recently seen a reduction.     You can protect your bicycle with free postcode marking.

A postcode marked bicycle is more difficult for a thief to sell on and is much less likely to get stolen.   If it does get ‘nicked’ and we find it, we can get it returned to you much easier.   We provide tamperproof ‘postcoding kits’ or ‘bicycle passports’ free of charge.    The advice on the passport is demonstrated on a new crime prevention video. If you would like a cycle passport then please contact PCSO Dave Hession by email: david.hession@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk. You can view the video by using the two links below or by visiting the Thames Valley Police website. www.thamesvalley.police.uk

Post coding – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4FQrP3zdxg

Bike locks – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xzhsvT0mLw

Community Messaging

Community Messaging is a free service which provides information to subscribers about crime and police activity in their area via phone or email. It also includes information on what we and our partner services are doing to bring offenders to justice or combat anti-social behaviour.  More information can be obtained via our website, and you can sign up by following this link: http://www.tvpcommunitymessaging.org/rmwebportal/startup.aspx’

Contact us

If you want any advice or would like to contact the neighbourhood team you can call us on the police non emergency number 0845 8 505505 but if your call is an emergency then dial 999.   You can also contact us via email: headington@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk – please note this email address cannot be used to contact Thames Valley Police to report crimes or for any urgent matters.   If you have information about crime or Anti Social Behaviour in your area but you do not want to speak to the police, please call the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555111.   To view information on your neighbourhood team you can visit the force website at:

www.thamesvalley.police.uk

David and I are aware that there are concerns about rats in the Old Road area. Please can kindly residents who leave food out for the birds  make sure none is left out overnight as this attracts the rats into neighbours’ gardens?

Thanks for your help with this!

Excellent news! The comments from residents on the Labour administration’s proposals to abolish area committees, give local councillors £1500 budgets, take planning decisions away from councillors with local knowledge, and impose decision-making by single Board members has now been published by Oxford City Council and make exciting reading!

There is clearly no democratic mandate to proceed with these proposals, just as David and I predicted

Don’t be put off by the length of the document! The individual comments by citizens across Oxford are direct and take no prisoners! Click here and prepare for a thumping good read!