District and County Councillor for Kidlington East, Parish Councillor for Kidlington, Yarnton and Gosford & Water Eaton Parish Council – Promoted by Karl Kwiatkowski on behalf of Ian Middleton both at Flat 3, 69 West Street, Banbury OX16 3HB
I went for a wander around Kidlington and Yarnton to check out the state of the roads. So many people have told me this is one of their major concerns in the area. Cyclists in particular are worried about poor maintenance of cycle paths and the spaces on roads that they have to use.
Last year I highlighted the County Council’s cynical actions in painting a cycle path marking over the top of an appalling road surface that was actually dangerous for cyclists to use. I said then that they were quite literally painting over the cracks in their road maintenance responsibilities.
Things haven’t improved in the meantime and I thought it was about time some of these appalling road surfaces were documented for posterity. Also I’m hoping that my video can be used to shame the council into finally dealing with damaged roads in our areas that have remained untouched for years. You can watch it for yourself here
Many of our local roads and walkways haven’t been properly repaired for years. County Councillors need to be lobbying for more funds to keep our roads in a decent state of repair and focusing on making proper cycling infrastructure more plentiful across the county.
If we al wake up to a new County Council next week I hope one of the first things they set about doing is getting a grip on this worsening situation. I know that if I’m one of those councillors I will certainly be calling for this as soon as possible.
At the full Cherwell District Council meeting in February I brought a motion calling for a more joined up approach to flooding response in our area and across Oxfordshire which was passed unanimously by members of the council.
The motion called for areas that are at risk of flooding to establish a ‘flood resilient community’, including the formation of local flood response groups and forums for residents to feedback information on current and potential flooding risks,
To support these groups I suggested the setting up of local flood response stores to provide locally available flood alleviation equipment. I had hoped that there would be funding for this, but there was some push back on this from the County Council due to shortage of money. I still don’t think that’s good enough and will be pursuing this more fully in the future.
The motion also said that updated surveys and maintenance programs, with maps of drainage and flood defences and associated repair responsibilities should be published regularly to help local groups and response agencies to maintain and monitor them.
Finally I called on risk management agencies across the county to set up a cooperative task force, including the provision of a centralised contact point which can trigger an immediate, proportionate response to all emergency flooding events. It is envisaged that all local councils and other agencies would play a part in this.
Flooding in Yarnton
I was very glad we managed to debate this motion, even though it only just made it before the new 11pm guillotine imposed by the Conservatives in the recent constitutional review. If it hadn’t been discussed at this meeting, it would have been another 5 months before it would have been heard and obviously we could be facing many more flood incidents before then.
As a councillor, I’ve been trying to help local residents deal with flooding in both my Parish and District council wards. It’s become apparent that there is no central co-ordination and no single contact point that can be called on to manage flooding at all levels. Smaller floods are often given a low priority by the relevant agencies and even the new guidance issued by the County and District councils doesn’t provide a timely response to these incidents.
Cherwell District Council recently resumed responsibility for flood defence in the region and as we also work closely with the county council we are in a unique position to take some leadership on this issue and improve responses to these distressing and costly incidents. This is even more important in areas like Yarnton and Begbroke which have been flooded recently and where the council has recently identified areas for development as part of the local plan review.
Covering areas in tarmac and concrete is only going to increase the likelihood of flooding and we need to ensure that suitable and long lasting flood alleviation measures are included along with responsibility for maintenance.
St John’s College, part of Oxford University have started tearing up green fields in Wolvercote, North Oxford, for their money making project dubbed Oxford North.
The people in the area are in shock at what is happening to their green spaces and the likely impact on everyone of this massive project.
This will comprise mostly business parks, shops, restaurants and hotels with some housing, most of which will not be affordable to the people in the area. It’s not only removing vital green infrastructure it’s also going to massively increase congestion on local roads as it creates another 4500 jobs that the city simply doesn’t need, without providing the houses that it does desperately need.
Oxford City Council claims it can’t meet its own affordable housing needs. The Oxford North development demonstrates the reason why. The City Council chooses not to meet that need and instead pushes it on to the surrounding districts such as Cherwell and South Oxfordshire.
I joined the protest as Wolvercote directly abuts my district council ward in Cherwell and is likely to impact heavily on Kidlington, especially on top of the extra development that is planned for the area around Kidlington, Gosford and Water Eaton, Yarnton and Begbroke, assuming that goes ahead.
I made a short video giving some of the context which you can watch using this link below.
We need to stand up against the same brazen greed that is motivating the concreting over of our precious green spaces before it’s too late. You’ll have a chance to send a message to those councillors who backed these projects in the election in May.
In Cherwell the plans were promoted and pushed through by the Conservative ruling group in the face of massive opposition from local residents which they completely disregarded and continue to ignore. In Oxford the Labour run City Council continues to apply pressure on other districts to deal with the housing need the city is making worse by using spaces like these to build more economic development rather than affordable housing,
Greens have always stood against this sort of opportunistic expansionism for profit and we always will.
Ian Middleton 