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Your Council Tax

Dear Neighbours,

I just received my annual council tax bill. I thought it could be helpful if I explain how it’s calculated and where your money goes.

Although your monthly direct debit (well, it’s a 10 out of 12 months DD, to be exact) says Vale of White Horse District Council, only a small portion of that payment actually goes to Vale. Vale is the collector and administers the accounts, receiving payment and sending on the appropriate amounts to the County, Police, and parish.

I once asked Vale Finance officers if we could change the name of the payee on Direct Debits, because when I see Vale of White Horse in my statement, it seems like all the money goes to Vale. I thought if we could change that name, it could be clearer. But I was told that no, the name on the bank account has to be the council who serves as the administrator and pays the correct portions to other parties.

So here we go.

Your council tax is based on the value of your house in 1991. That’s right. Nothing has been revalued since then. If your house is newer, the Valuation office assesses its 1991-equivalent value to use as a council tax calculation.

My house in North Hinksey Parish is a Band D property,

County Council Tax

My band D house pays £173.40 per month (over 10 months) to the County Council. That’s an increase of £8.24 per month for the coming year. 

Thames Valley Police Tax

It’s harder to find this information out. They publish this table on the website:

In the text narrative on that webpage, they explain they raised the tax this year by £15.

So let’s try my maths skills. This year is £256.28. It is a £15 increase for the coming year, which means my tax last year must’ve been £241.28. Right? Divided by 10 months, means I used to pay £24.13 per month.

My Band D house pays £25.63 per month (over 10 months) to Thames Valley Police. That’s an increase of £1.50 per month for the coming year. 

Vale of White Horse Tax

Last year I paid £146.69 per month to Vale.

My Band D house pays £15.12 per month (over 10 months) to Vale of White Horse. That’s an increase of £.45 (45 pence) per month for the coming year.  

Town or Parish Tax

The green table above shows the average parish precept. But I looked up the actual precepts for a Band D property, which are set by the parish council or parish meeting.

North Hinksey: £51.20, or £5.12 per month.

Wytham: £39.44 or £3.94 per month

Sunningwell: £55.33 or £5.53 per month

South Hinksey: £105.06 or £10.51 per month

In Summary

Add the monthly amounts for each of the taxing agencies: County, Police, District, parish, and you have the total.

For my annual amounts, it is: £1734.03 + £256.28 + £151.26 + £51.20 = 2192.77

For my monthly payment, then, it is: £173.40 + £25.63 + £15.12 + £5.12 = £214.27

Here is my statement:

That adds up to £2193.20, whereas I expected to be charged £2192.77. It’s down to rounding errors on my part.

Here is my calc:

And that’s how it works.

Best wishes, and kind regards,

Debby

 

Safeguarding the Raleigh Park Fen

On the evening of 25 Jan 23, Stephen Parkinson (Chair of Friends of Raleigh Park) and I (your  local councillor) addressed the Vale Planning Committee about our concerns regarding the site at the top of Yarnells Hill, whose owners wanted to build 3 new dwellings.

At committee meetings, we only get 3 minutes to express ourselves, so I usually write to them ahead of time. This was no different. Here’s what my letter said.

Officers remind us that the NPPF says decisions must be made in accordance with the Development Plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. I contend that the high risk of irrevocable damage to the irreplaceable habitat adjoining the site is just such material consideration; the NPPF says irreplaceable sites like this must be safeguarded.

Vale is not in a situation where these three luxury homes are needed. We have currently over a 6 year supply of housing land. So our strategy for providing housing is working, and these extra windfall houses are not necessary to provide the housing numbers we have committed to.

The proposed mitigation must be monitored. Even if monitoring works and notes a failure of the mitigation, it will be after the fact and the harm will already be done. This is the nature of anything that requires monitoring to succeed.

Vale’s Countryside officer doesn’t support the application. Oxford City does not support this application.

This application has been set to come to committee three times. Each time, local people and concerned ecological professionals trying to preserve Raleigh Park’s ancient fen launch into action, presenting hard evidence to committee members to urge you to vote to refuse this development. For whatever reasons, planners have removed this application from the agenda at the last minute three times. Once it was to gain ‘independent’ paid consultants’ opinion regarding the ecological risk – this was when they hired a company, Aspect Ecology, to help them out (the same company that also provided evidence to government in support of HS2). Once it was during the planning meeting itself, when it was clear the agenda could not be completed (I don’t think officers included this instance in their report). Once, most recently, was when it was recognised that there had been a problem with consultation procedures. Each time, so many people’s hard work had gone into preparing arguments about why this application should be refused. Each time, the officers took away that evidence to bring back more arguments why this development should be allowed. Why is that? Is this council a culture where we are unable to revisit decisions in light of new evidence and come to a different conclusion? A large handful of ecological experts have all pointed out in detail what can go wrong, how the fen is endangered. It’s our duty to safeguard the irreplaceable habitat.

Please read Dr Parkinson’s assessment of the mitigations. He provides a summary of what several other ecologists have determined.

Over the years that I’ve been trying to protect the wildlife and natural resources up in this corner of Botley, we’ve seen about a dozen million pound homes built in this area, one site was turned from a single family home into multiple flats (Little Dene), and the whole of the development by Bovis of 136 homes went ahead. Badgers have been forced out of their habitats. Most recently a site just opposite was approved for two new huge houses. (That site is interesting; the decision to grant permission came early, in spite of officers telling me it was being considered alongside this one, due to the similarity in ecological concerns. It also adjoins Raleigh Park, but it is brownfield where the current site is green field.) Local wildlife now have only this small corner of Yarnells Hill available for foraging and shelter, adjacent to Green Belt, adjacent to an irreplaceable habitat in Raleigh Park.

But the main this is that this is a planning decision to be taken “on balance”. Does the benefit outweigh the risk of harm? A windfall of 3 houses vs damage to an irreplaceable habitat that it is our duty to protect. How can we rely on a planning condition that requires enforcement to protect what’s irreplaceable?

You can see the meeting and hear what everyone said on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkA4ZiPfIoA

Planning Committee voted unanimously to refuse the application. I’m very grateful to everyone who helped in this effort.

Life after Oxfordshire Plan 2050

Earlier this month, the five local authorities in Oxfordshire announced they were unable to agree the way forward for determining housing numbers in the Oxfordshire Plan 2050, and that work on the Plan would therefore end. That was disappointing to those of us who had worked for so long to make it a success.

In the aftermath of that decision, people are wondering what comes next. Here’s a short list:

  • Vale’s work is now focused on our emerging Joint Local Plan (joint with SODC). Where before, we were waiting for OxPlan50 to inform our housing need numbers, we will now do that work for ourselves. that work is underway.
  • The most recent OxPlan50 consultation, which finished in October 2021, told us that the public valued a lot of the policies being mooted for that plan, especially the environmental policies, and more especially, those to do with sustainable construction and transport. We can use them, and the evidence gathered so far, in our Joint Local Plan.
  • One really great thing about the OxPlan50 was the vision, which each council approved. We will be going ahead with our plan, and take into account that Vision. (See the whole Vision for sustainable Oxfordshire in my DropBox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/arigeo06o6zygdt/Oxfordshire%20Plan%20Vision.pdf?dl=0)

Here’s a summary of the Strategic Vision for Oxfordshire: 

  • All of the housing we committed to in our Local Plan 2031 is still going forward, including the 2200 we agreed to provide to help meet Oxford’s housing needs (that they are unable to provide on their own).

Personally, I am determined to do all I can to make this emerging Joint Local Plan all that we need it to be for our districts for the next 20 years: the right numbers of the right types of net-zero carbon houses in the right sustainable places, the jobs and employment locations that ensure this area’s economic health, and whatever else we can do to look after our residents’ and workers’ well-being.

 

Historical housing delivery in Oxfordshire

In recent month, everyone’s been talking about how many houses we’re going to need to build in Oxfordshire between now and 2050. Now that the OxPlan50 project has stopped, the work to determine those needs reverts to the 5 local planning authorities: Cherwell, Oxford City, South Oxfordshire, Vale of white Horse, West Oxfordshire.

I explored the councils historical housing delivery numbers. I took a look at the ten years to see how housing delivery is going in the local authorities. Figures are from the published Authority Monitoring reports.

Since about 2016, local authorities have been delivering to a very high housing figure, which was derived from the Strategic Housing Marketing assessment (SHMA) that came forward as part of the Oxfordshire Growth Deal. That deal required ambitious growth targets beyond anything ever seen here before.

Cherwell

Oxford City

South Oxfordshire

Vale of White Horse

West Oxfordshire

Back into blogging!

I used to post here on my blog a lot; when I was an opposition councillor I had a lot to oppose!

I discovered in May 2019, when we won control of Vale, and I was appointed to Cabinet, life was too busy and I was too full of new responsibilities to find time to blog. Also, I needed to find the boundary between things that are confidential and things I could blog about. I feel I’m there (after three years I should hope so!)

My intention is a weekly or fortnightly blog post to tell you about something of interest that I’ve encountered.

 

My letter to Planning Committee re: West Way 30 flats

Here’s the letter I sent to members of the planning committee before their meeting on 2nd Dec 2020 to consider the West Way application for 30 extra flats, none affordable, and with no parking provision.

Dear colleagues, 

I’m emailing the members and substitutes of the Planning Committee, mostly due to my doubt that I can fit my message into the time I’m allowed in the meeting. 
There are a couple of good reasons to refuse this application: 

First, this is over development of the site, in terms of both number of storeys and density. The proposal is non-compliant with the Botley SPD  (part of Vale’s development plan), which limits any building height to 8 storeys. I see that West Way Community Concern has comprehensively covered that topic in their note to you. For convenience, I’ve attached it here.

Second, this application is non-compliant with our affordable housing policy. Core Policy 24 requires 35% affordable housing on all developments over 10 dwellings. This application is for 30 units, so policy compliance would be 35% of that, or 10.5 affordable units. Policy allows a monetary payment in lieu of a fractional amount. So, to be policy compliant, the applicant would provide 10 affordable units plus a financial contribution (for the .5 united of the 10.5 required) to affordable housing elsewhere in the district. 
There is already permitted consent on this site for 120 flats with zero affordable units. The developer previously agreed to pay £2m in lieu of the expected 42 onsite units, which gives a value per affordable-unit-not-provided-on-site of about £48k. So if the developer were to negotiate a similar obligation for this application, £48K for 10.5 units would be £500,000 as a payment in lieu of onsite units. But there is nothing on offer here.  

Those two material considerations should be enough for you to vote to refuse. 

However, if you are still minded to approve it: 
Please require the following conditions: 

  1. All residential units, student rooms and hotel rooms are intended to be car-free. In the permitted application, the developer recognised that this would likely be problematic for the local area, so they agreed to provide funding for a Controlled Parking Zone in nearby roads. Adding 30 more flats would surely lead to a greater need for funding for a wider area of CPZ. 
  2. Cycle parking does not meet County’s current standards, as you’ve read in the officer’s report. Officers concluded that since the permitted application doesn’t have the required number of cycle parking spaces, it was fair to not require it for this application either. I urge you to add a condition that there will be safe and secure cycle parking provision to County’s current standard for all the residences to be built under this permission.

And finally, in reading the officer’s report, I had these questions…

  1. CCG asked for s106 monies. Do you understand the reasons why it isn’t getting any for the GP surgery? 
  2. Leisure asked for s106 money. Do you understand the reasons for not giving any to local leisure facilities? 
  3. Do you understand where the hundreds of residents in this development can go to find open green space amenity? Is that OK in your view?
  4. The registered providers don’t feel these flats are suitable for family living. Do you disagree or agree with that?

I hope you vote to refuse. If you refuse, the applicant still has permission for the 120 original market flats with no parking and inadequate cycle parking. The Botley community doesn’t want to have a worse deal than they have now.

Thanks for listening. See you at the meeting.  

Regards, 

Debby

Committee voted to refuse the application for reasons of parking, mass and density and lack of affordable housing.

What’s wrong with the Planning for the Future White paper?

We all agree — the country needs more houses that people can afford.

Government thinks that the solution is to build more houses faster. They think the main impediment to this is the slow speed of the current planning system. So they are proposing changes to take away some of the local decision making. One of their previous ideas was to allow disused office space to be turned into housing without need for planning permission. That led to greedy developers across the country producing tiny box-like flats where people are crammed into spaces with no windows. Govt recently changed its mind and now requires habitable space to have natural light. The planning system adds value; it makes spaces liveable for human beings.

Let’s look at the problem in a systematic way. In any system, when you don’t get the outcome you expect, you can assess three things:

  1. Make sure you are doing things right. Govt says local planning authorities aren’t giving permissions fast enough. This assumes faster movement through the planning system will bring more houses that people can afford.
  2. Make sure you are doing the right things. Govt says there should be more schemes allowed under permitted development, assuming that if developers have a free hand in what they build, unencumbered by the local planning authorities’ processes, there will be more houses that people can afford.
  3. How do we decide what is right? Make sure you are aiming at the right thing. Govt thinks that developers are the answer to the problem of not enough houses that people can afford.

I think Govt is aiming at the wrong target.

Developers are in the business of making as much profit as possible though the houses they sell. That’s OK; it’s what they do.

  • Our objective in Vale is to provide more houses that people can afford. We have a policy that requires a percentage of each major development to be ‘affordable’. (The Govt definition of ‘affordable’ is a house available at 80% or less of market price. In Vale, that still isn’t affordable to a person on a median income, so even the best intentioned policy is ineffective. Today we must think in terms of ‘houses that people can afford’.) But developers claim the policy lessens their profits. They’re right; it does.
  • So developers sit on permitted plans, because they know land values and therefore house prices will continue to rise, and they will build their houses when the profits are high.

I’m not distracted by the harm that is forecast to come from the various proposals in Govt’s Planning for the Future. (But there is a lot of harm.) I’m focussed on how the overall proposed solution doesn’t solve the problem.

Government thinks that the reason we don’t have enough affordable houses is that developers don’t get planning permission fast enough to build the number of houses we need for prices to come down to an affordable level. However, I think that expecting profit-hungry developers to solve our problem of a shortage of affordable housing on ever increasing land value is doomed to fail because it’s the wrong solution.  

It’s the wrong solution. It makes no sense to say that the way to provide more houses that people can afford is to rely on for-profit developers to provide them for us.

My speech to my motion on LPP2

At the Vale full council meeting on 17 July 2019, I tabled a motion about the problems with LPP2. You can read it here.

Vale has a duty to cooperate with our neighbouring councils. In our Local Plan, this shows up as Vale’s commitment to take on a portion of Oxford’s Objectively Assessed Need that they are unable to meet for themselves. That’s completely reasonable.

What isn’t reasonable is for us to have to commit to exact numbers of houses to help meet Oxford’s unmet need, BEFORE that need has been established by examination and adoption of their Local Plan.

Instead, our Inspector accepted the unmet housing need figures the Growth Board came up with, and said that the 2200 houses for Vale are a ‘working assumption’ and should be revisited once Oxford’s need is established. The inspector was silent on how we should do that. But it really matters, because once this LPP2 is adopted, the allocated sites will come forward in planning applications, and these Green Belt sites will be gone forever.

Letters to the Inspectors and the Inspectorate have argued that Oxford’s need must be determined prior to allocating sites in the Green Belt land for houses to meet Oxford’s need. Replies have been illogical. Cherwell’s inspector says that’s just the way planning works; examinations are scheduled when they come forward. The inspectorate says each local plan is handled independently; there’s no higher view for planning these hearings.

But the Local Plans aren’t independent. Cooperation requires sensible ways of working. We need to determine the need before adopting a radical plan to meet that need. That hasn’t been done.

In order to remove land from the Green Belt, there must be exceptional circumstances (beyond just a need for housing). Consider that the inspector of Vale’s LPP2 said that Oxford’s need for 2200 ‘mostly social rent houses’ was the exceptional circumstance. I’m shocked at the lack of rational thinking that demonstrates. How can that be the exceptional circumstances for such a serious decision, when the actual need hasn’t yet been established?  

Council needs advice from the Minister as to how he envisions this working out. If, as is expected, Oxford’s need is drastically reduced with a recalculation, it could well be that we need do nothing to help – that our Local Plan Part 1 had enough houses located close to Oxford to meet their unmet need. But we cannot know that until Oxford’s evidence and their own ability to deliver the housing they need is assessed.

The problem with LPP2

Here’s Vale’s press release about my motion at full council last night.

The Leader of Vale of White Horse District Council will be writing to the ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government to raise concerns about the process required to adopt Part 2 of the districts Local Plan.

The district council will point out that the numbers of houses the rural Oxfordshire districts are required to provide depends heavily on how many houses the city of Oxford can and can’t accommodate. In its Local Plan Part 2, the Vale is allocating land for housing that Oxford indicates it cannot find the space for, and so councillors at the Vale believe city’s Local Plan should be examined first to properly establish how many houses the Vale really has to allocate.

This is particularly important as the inspectors examining Oxford City’s plan have directed questions to the city about the level of housing being used in the county – the inspectors examining the city’s plan identified that the assessment of housing need in Oxfordshire that the city council is using is based on figures which are now a few years old.

Cllr Emily Smith, Leader of the Vale of White Horse District Council, said: “The Local Plan Part 2 would remove land from the Green Belt, and allocate thousands of houses in the Vale that Oxford cannot find space for. It would be wrong to do this if it turns out Oxford ultimately doesn’t need to find space for as many houses.

“We believe Oxford’s need for housing should be properly established before we’re asked to adopt a plan that goes to these lengths. We’re also keen to make sure Oxford has done all it can to accommodate its own need — the duty to cooperate works in both directions.”

The Council agreed to send the letter at a meeting on 17 July 2019 – the full motion that was passed at council was as follows:

  1. Council notes the Inspector’s Report of the Examination of Vale’s Local Plan Part 2, dated 25 June 2019. In his report, the inspector lists the four objectives of LPP2, one of which is to set out policies and locations for new housing to meet the unmet need of Oxford City.
  2. Council notes that the inspector (in paragraph 26) reminds us that the Oxfordshire Growth Board agreed a ‘working assumption’ that Oxford City’s unmet need was 15,000 homes, of which Vale should supply 2200 homes over the plan period. He says (in paragraph 28) that this ‘working assumption’ is to be ‘confirmed or adjusted’ through the examination of Oxford’s Local Plan and the preparation of Oxfordshire’s Joint Statutory Spatial Plan, which is currently in its early stages. He reminds us again (in paragraph 92) that the additional housing requirement is a ‘working assumption rather than definitive and warrants some caution in allocating sites in the LPP2’. There is no guidance or explanation of what this would mean in practice.
  3. Council notes that Oxford City has submitted its local Plan for examination, but the inspector has found some issues that require more work before it is ready to be examined in public hearings; he discusses the issues in his letter to that council (undated, but found on the Oxford City’s Local Plan examination website page). Inspector is concerned that the housing figures are based on the figures in the 2014 SHMA, which are based on 2011 ONS population and household projections that ‘are now a few years old’ (page 2). He also points out that there may have been double counting. Therefore the housing needs figure is questionable. This housing need figure ‘could have a bearing on the level of unmet need which would have to be accommodated by neighbouring local authorities’.
  4. Council notes that LPP2 allocates 1200 homes at Dalton Barracks, for Oxford’s unmet need. Dalton Barracks and the neighbouring village of Shippon are to be removed from the Green Belt for future housing development.
  5. Council notes that paragraph 137 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires Green Belt boundaries to only be modified under exceptional circumstances. The inspector for Vale’s LPP2 says (in paragraph 29) that the housing required for Oxford’s unmet need must be close to Oxford, and much of it is to be social rented housing. The inspector says (in paragraph 55) that the number of houses to meet Oxford’s unmet need, and the fact that they must be near Oxford, demonstrates there are exceptional circumstances to justify the removal of Dalton Barracks and Shippon from the Green Belt.
  6. Council notes that the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) wrote to the planning Inspectorate in May 2019 to object to the order in which Oxfordshire’s Local Plans are being examined, citing rules in NPPF: (Jpg of letter not reproduced here). The reply from PINS failed to answer the question: (jpg of reply not reproduced here).
  7. It is this council’s opinion that in order for Vale’s Local Plan to be sound, the exact, evidenced number of houses that Oxford requires in order to meet its real need should be determined before Vale includes them in Vale’s Local Plan Part 2. Oxford’s assessment of its housing need must include evidence that Oxford City has done all it can to accommodate its own need, including evidence that the use of land for employment sites over housing sites is justified and lawful. There must be a public examination of the Oxford City Local Plan to definitely identify the unmet need (if any) to precede any adoption of neighbouring authorities’ Local Plans to accommodate it. Until this is dones, there are no exceptional circumstances to allow removal of Dalton Barracks and Shippon from the Green Belt.
  8. Council therefore requests the Leader of the council to write to the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government to:
    1. Let the minister know that Vale is assessing its options with regard to the local Plan Part 2 and of council’s opinion as stated.
    2. Point out that in Oxfordshire the various Local Plans are not independent of each other That fact should have been considered in the examination process by ensuring Local Plans that are part of another authority’s evidence, as is Oxford City’s Local Plan, are examined first. Current examination procedures are deficient.
    3. Point out that the Duty to Cooperate should include Oxford City’s duty to have a clear evidenced housing target before asking its neighbours to help meet its need. The Duty to Cooperate should run both ways.
    4. Ask for the Minister’s advice about how we should ‘confirm or adjust’ our Local Plan Part 2 once Oxford’s unmet need is established, if our Local Plan is already adopted.
    5. Ask the Minister to explain to use how this Local Plan Part 2 can be considered sound and legal when the housing figures used are based solely on a ‘working assumption’ of Oxford’s unmet need, the Plan allocates housing development in the Green Belt in clear contravention of paragraph 137 of the NPPF, and the Plan removes Dalton Barracks and Shippon from the Green Belt without the exceptional circumstances the regulations require.

And to write to our two local Members of Parliament, explaining the situation and asking them for their support.

What 8 years of Tories cost the Vale of White Horse

A couple of years back, Vale’s external auditors said council’s Tory administration had let too many senior staff go, in fact to the point that council was no longer able to run the business effectively. So the last three years have seen an expensive structural reorganisation taking place.

About three years ago, I read a newspaper article about how angry and shocked local people were in another authority when they learned their Local Plan has cost them over £3mil. I thought ours had probably exceeded that, so I asked our Head of Service. At that point they didn’t track the cost of Local Plan work separately (!?). But they said all their policy budget was essentially for Local Plan work. So there have been eight years of Local Plan work, at £1mil per year, and we still have no complete local plan. That should be in the news. That’s how the Tories have managed the planning policy budget.

In 2018, we learned that the estimated £9mil savings to be realised from the 5 Councils Partnership (5CP) outsourcing scheme was lost. The financial outcome at that time was described by the council’s Chief Exec as ‘break even, at best‘ (my emphasis). This decision to outsource was a huge, risky decision, made in secret, without ever coming past Vale Scrutiny Committee or Vale Full Council. I heard the former Deputy Leader of Vale say on radio during the 2019 elections debate, that it HAD come to council. That isn’t true. Obviously the contracts weren’t thought through or evaluated enough. There were errors in the calculations of current costs of service. Some critical services weren’t even IN the contracts (such as wifi in the council offices, a basic provision). There was not enough time allowed nor people involved to ensure it was a good deal for the taxpayers. £9mil in forecast savings, gone. Unsurprisingly, Council’s external auditors found problems with council’s value for money assessment. Council is still spending money to improve the contacts and services that are part of this 5CP. Many services have already been brought back in house. There are seven more years to run in this contract.

Council has three main income streams: business rates, new homes bonus, and council tax. Government frequently modifies the business rates scheme and new homes bonus schemes, and ministers have said they expect local councils to maximise their income from council tax. For years, Tories decided, against officer advice, to freeze council taxes. They are proud of this past; they still brag about it. But now we are in a bad state; the medium term financial plan shows council will run out of money in about 4 years time, unless something happens to fix the problem. The cost of these Tory decisions to freeze council taxes is estimated by our accountants to be > £10mil over the medium term. This failure to responsibly incrementally raise council taxes has led to an over reliance on new home bonus, which was always a fragile scheme. This year the new homes bonus has been wound up, leaving us in a perilous financial situation.

It all started in 2011, when Tories announced their free 2 hr parking scheme, a clever bribe for votes, which actually worked to get them into power for the first time in years. Who wouldn’t vote for free parking in their market towns? Tories assured everyone it would increase footfall and the spend in town centres. The cost to our taxpayers is £200,000 per year, and it’s ongoing. So, £1,600,000 of taxpayer money, income that could have been used for frontline services,  has been lost due free 2 hour parking for car drivers over the 8 years. When asked for evidence to support their benefit claim of increased footfall, no evidence was provided, since none is available. Tories produced zero evidence of any benefit for that spend. In fact evidence around the nation shows that city centres actually suffer when free limited parking is provided. People come and instead of lingering for lunch (etc), pop in and get out before their free parking time expires.

Most recently, the Tories gave about £250,000 to the Abingdon Flood Scheme, which has since been cancelled as forecasted costs rose beyond what was viable. It was public money down the drain.

It’s obvious the Tories never had enough people in place to do the work required. That has cost the council both financially and in terms of reputation.

So the Tories lost control in the recent election. We, the Liberal Democrats, were elected instead. We have made it our highest priority to get the council’s finances under control.