County Councillor report
Can I wish residents a Happy New Year. No quiet start to the new year. There is lots going on.
Budget
The government has changed the way funding for local government is arranged and produced a 3 year settlement, announced just before Christmas Eve. All the grants have been bundled into one package, the government has determined what the total spend of local authorities should be, and used a complicated algorithm to apportion that around the country. The very brief version is that we have been told to increase Council Tax by 4.99% each year, and the amount of money coming from central government is being reduced. Effectively, money is being redistributed away from the county and Council Tax is no longer a local tax. The reduction in funding amounts to about £27m. We face a challenging few years. Austerity is back again. The County Council will set its budget on 10 February. The budget for 26-27 will balance via reductions in the money kept aside for things like wage inflation, assumptions about interest on cash balances and some small cuts to services.
Future years will be extremely challenging. More info
Fire Service
The consultation on reshaping the Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service to meet the demands of the county has been extended to the end of January. Thank you to the parish council for hosting the recent public meeting, at which the chief fire officer, residents and the FBU all had their say.
I am not sure it has been made sufficiently clear that any closures of Eynsham and Woodstock could not happen until 2029 at the earliest, if at all, since they rely on building a new fire station north of Oxford. The objective is to ensure that shift patterns and locations of fire fighters correspond to where they are most needed. There are different populations, different equipment, and different demands on the fire service (mainly driven by a large reduction in the number and timing of fires). If the proposals don’t achieve those improvements then they won’t happen - and the consultation is designed to test that.
Please do respond to the consultation.
Let's Talk Oxfordshire
Elections and Local Government Reform.
WODC elections will go ahead in May. The Government asked WODC and OCC if they want to postpone elections given upcoming local government reform. WODC has declined to ask for such a thing. The government has indicated that the statutory consultation on local government reform will start in February. You will get a say on whether we have one, two or three local authorities in Oxfordshire. Whether government, which has the say, will listen is open to doubt. More info
Household Waste and Recycling sites.
A booking system has been introduced to the household waste sites, including Dix pit. It went live last week. The objective is a) to enable OCC to charge people from outside the County for using sites, in line with what all the neighbouring authorities do; b) to prevent trade waste being unlawfully dumped at HWRCs; c) to reduce queuing at the sites, particularly while the City site, Redbridge, is shut for maintenance.
From 14 January: Book a visit to a household waste recycling centre | Oxfordshire
County Council
All the neighbouring authorities to Oxfordshire have a booking system. There is no evidence that their sites are less well used or that there is increased fly-tipping compared with Oxfordshire. I would welcome feedback from people who use the system.
Buses
The S2, which serves the Evenlode on the Oxford to Cheltenham route is being replaced by the X52. This will have a very similar service, but will be run by Pulhams rather than Stagecoach. There will be limited stops between Witney and Oxford – but no difference for Eynsham. The free buses from Park and Rides will remain in place for a few more months. It has been very successful in encouraging bus use. Bus use is up and car congestion down in the city, as planned. The S1, E1, H2 and buses to Standlake and Hanborough remain as they were.
Roads
It is the time of year when potholes develop fastest. Wet, followed by ice, followed by wet. Because there is insufficient money to do more than repairs in most places, potholes will appear wherever there are cracks. If we had the money from central government to do full resurfacing then this would happen less frequently. Unfortunately government is not funding road maintenance properly. The County Council has put £60 million above the government grant into roads, and has been recognised as “mid table” amber in the recent government audit. Please do report potholes on FixmyStreet, and it would be good if some residents were to agree to become “super users” to speed up the repair process. The road to Farmoor will be closed overnight in early February for repairs.
As ever you can get hold of me at dan.levy@oxfordshire.gov.uk