(April 2006 / March
2007)
It
is now 18 years since I first became the
Committees.
During
the last 12 months I have served on the following committees:
Children's Services Scrutiny.
Planning
& Regulation.
Cotswolds & Malverns Transport Partnership.
Oxfordshire
County Council South Africa Link Group.
Oxfordshire Youth Advisory Group (representing the voluntary sector).
I
also substitute for colleagues on other committees.
I
am also a member of the Shadow Cabinet with the portfolio of Schools
Improvement. I have regular briefings
with the Director of Children's Services and also the lead member of the
Cabinet for Children's Services with regard to schools improvement.
I
also represent the Culham JET site on the National Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority.
The Budget. This year's budget showed a County Council
Tax increase of 4.0% compared with last year's increase of 4.375% and the
previous years 4.5%. You may recall that
a manifesto commitment of the now ruling group was to reduce the rate of
increase of the Council Tax. However this was done at the expense of
another cut in the Social Services budget of £2 Million, and further a
cuts in road maintenance.
Education. As you may know
all the Government schools portion of their grant is now ring fenced direct to
the schools. The results in
GCSE's and A levels show a steady improvement, but
there is still much to be done to raise our performance to the level of some
similar authorities.
Bus Services. The bus services for
Tiddington have just been reviewed as part of the four yearly review for this area.
I am pleased to report that services remain intact. However, the 275 service through Milton
Common will no longer receive a subsidy from the County Council. However the bus company Red Rose have said
that they will still run a service commercially on the route and we await a new
timetable. The officers were instructed
by the ruling group to save 5 to 10% on subsidy costs. I feel that to invite people to suggest new
services as we were at the consultation meetings at Thame and Watlington when
it must have been known a cut in expenditure was going to be sought was
misleading to say the least. The
Government initiative of a free bus pass for the over sixties for use after
9:00 AM from April of 2006 onwards has resulted as expected in more
passengers. However this has produced a
dispute between the District Councils and the Bus companies as to what is the
correct level of recompense.
Road Maintenance. I get more complaints about
road maintenance than anything else put together. It is therefore disappointing that this
budget has seen no improvement. The
County Council has a huge backlog of out standing road maintenance and this
will not make matters any better. At the
present rate of expenditure it will take ten years to clear the backlog and
that assumes no new maintenance required which of course it will be.
Highways Issues. Despite representations we
have not managed to reinstate the Tiddington pedestrian crossing into the
highways programme. The Cabinet member
responsible and the officers of the County Council maintain that the Government
regulations prevent them from doing this work, which they claim cannot demonstrate
satisfactorily that it would save lives.
The traffic calming measures in Milton Common were well received. It remains to be seen if the measured
reduction in speed following the work completion becomes a permanent feature of
driving behaviour.
Older Peoples Homes. As I reported last year the new homes replacing older ones
project continues to bring provision up to modern standards. For example, larger rooms and removing the
shared room situation which was not liked-in particular, by new residents. The Donnington new
home was completed in December 2006 and the first phase of the Thame one is due
for completion in October 2008 with the second phase following early in
2009. You may recall that new homes were
opened in recent years in Didcot and
Housing. As I reported last year a supply of affordable housing in
rural villages remains a testing problem with many younger people being forced
out of our communities. Many villages
including Tiddington are considering rural exception sites, which are
restricted to people living in the village or having a strong connection to it.
We
still have to keep a very watchful eye on the aspirations of Oxford City
Council and the Government's Regional Office on land in the Green Belt. For example, at the land to the south of
Grenoble Road where the County Council finally took this area off their
potential list to be developed for housing.
I feel that if this land were to be developed we would see incursions
into the green belt from the south east to the north east side of
Unitary Authorities You will probably have heard through the
local media that the
Finally
may I say how much I have enjoyed working with you as your
David
Turner
Chalgrove
Division