Author Archives: admin

Latest from Planning (26 Jan 15)

This is the latest message from the Vale website, 26 Jan 2015, re: planning

Planning

  • We’re currently predicting a fortnight’s delay in deciding planning applications.
  • If you need to apply for planning permission, it would be a great help if you could delay submitting it for a couple of weeks, so we can deal with urgent issues.
  • We are extending the deadline for comments on planning applications by eight days, which was the length of time our systems was down for.
  • You can now view and comment on planning applications online. It will take our planning officers a few weeks to get back up to speed with the applications, so please hold off ringing about your application until the end of next week unless it’s urgent.
  • All planning applications and comments we received either by post or online on Tuesday 13 January and after were definitely lost in the fire. Please resend your application or comment.
  • It’s not yet clear if we still have applications that we received on Monday 13 January, so please stand by for an update.
  • If any of this will cause you a major problem, please call 01235 540546.

South Hinksey: Beautiful Music for Beautiful Places, 27 Feb

South Hinksey Information Network
 howdenjones

howdenjones in Concert

‘No halls barred’ 2015
 ‘the beautiful music in beautiful places’ tour continues
At South Hinksey Village Hall OX1 5AS
Friday 27th February 2015
 7pm for 7-30pm. Price £10 includes Nibbles. Donations Bar Available. Suitable children 11+.
 FREE Admission children 11-16
 
 
Good evening everyone. This concert is suitable for children from 11.
Tickets on sale now.
Maggie 735288 , mstopard1@btinternet.com

Vale recovery latest

Emails are back up. Websites are back up, with partial functionality.

See the temporary website here: https://southandvalecouncils.wordpress.com/

See the Vale website here: http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/

Planning system is not functional yet (it relies on other systems that aren’t fully up yet.)

Offices are a total loss and will be rebuilt. This may take 3 years. In the meantime, office accommodation is being actively sought. The Vale and South Oxfordshire were fully insured for contents and buildings.

Planning department: By sheer good luck, all the hard copies of Local responses were stored in Abbey House, whilst everything else is backed up. Hard copies of historical planning documents (pre c1985)  are lost and are probably not recoverable. Neighbourhood Plan referenda for Drayton and Great Coxwell have been knocked back one week whilst election services gather back up electoral information. Not known how consultation and determination deadlines ar affected. I have asked today for a statement from Planning.

 

URGENT UPDATE FROM VALE OF WHITE HORSE DISTRICT COUNCIL

fire 5If you haven’t seen the news, there has been a major fire this morning at the Vale and South Oxfordshire District Council offices in Crowmarsh. Latest news here: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/top_news/11726143.Blog__Fire_at_South_Oxfordshire_and_Vale_of_White_Horse_district_council_buildings_in_Crowmarsh_Gifford/?ref=mac

Here is the latest emergency update from the Vale of White Horse  and South Oxfordshire District Councils:

https://southandvalecouncils.wordpress.com

For the time being, this temporary website is where you can for the latest updates.

We will at some point have an idea of what services will be affected and for how long.  As soon as this is confirmed, we will publish the information on the temporary website.

Vale councillors – the normal switchboard number (01235 520202) is working, however is for genuine emergencies only.

South councillors – the switchboard number has been redirected to Vale’s customer service team, and again is only for genuine emergencies.

(Un)answered Qs from Dec 2014 Council Meeting

You may have read about this in the Herald: Tight Lipped Vale Tories. (I think it was also in the Oxford Mail.)

At the Vale full council meeting on 10th Dec 2014, the Tories refused to answer questions in the meeting, in order to get away early for Christmas tipples and nibbles. Instead of answering in public, despite some Vale residents attending specifially to hear the answers, they said they’d respond in writing.

On Dec 24, we had those answers. Here’s the complete list of Questions and Answers in a pdf: Answers to Qs from Dec 2014 meeting

Questions for each full council meeting have to be submitted many days in advance of the agenda being published, and the agenda is published 7 days before the meeting. There’s plently of time for Cabinet members (etc) to prepare answers. Our constitution doesn’t require public, verbal answers to properly submitted questions, but by refusing to provide them, Tories have shown their true colours on how much they value communication.

One of the roles of an effective opposition is to question the ruling party; it is one way to help prevent corrruption and bad decision-making. Where there is in effect no opposition, there is no democracy in action. By shutting down the public questions, Tories remove one of the valuable safeguiards in local government.

What’s next?

Since there was no chance to ask the usual supplementary questions at Council, the Lib Dem councilllors are working on their supplementary questions. Watch this space.

HMOs in our area

HMO’s are ‘houses of multiple occupancy’. This term refers to households where there are several unrelated people sharing facilities. In many communities, HMOs are regulated and licensed to ensure the houses are fit for use.

Recently there has been renewed concern about HMOs in North Hinksey and Wytham ward. So I asked the Vale of White Horse officers about the facts of HMOs in our area. They provided me with information both from a planning permission perspective, and from a licensing perspective.

Here’s the reply I had from a member of the Planning Enforcement team:

Under the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order, planning permission is not required for up to 6 unrelated individuals to occupy a dwellinghouse as their main residence sharing basic amenities such as a kitchen or bathroom.

Under the above order, the use of a dwelling by up to 6 persons does not constitute a material change of use of land from a dwellinghouse (Use Class C3). A material change of use to a HMO (Use Class C4) for which planning permission is required only occurs when the number of unrelated residents exceeds 6 persons. This is a rarity. Most landlords are aware of this distinction and operate within the 6 person limitation. They therefore remain unknown to the council.

I am advised by [an officer] from the Environmental Protection Team that the licencing regime for HMO’s is similarly limited to 5 or more residents and three or more storeys. HMO’s that are two storeys or less are not required to be licensed and as such the council has no record of these. Again the vast majority of HMO’s operate within the above criteria.

[The Environmental Protection Team] informs me that [there are] three HMO’s licensed in your area namely:

98 Arthray Road, Botley
1 Coles Court, Botley
2 Coles Court, Botley

I understand that the the Environmental Protection Team will be updating the information on the council’s website within the next three weeks, so that it has much more comprehensive information regarding HMO’s.

 

What are your plans for 2015, Debby?

© Mim Saxl Photography, www.mimsaxl.comHappy New Year, everyone.

Twelfth Night has passed, and we are solidly alive in 2015. I’ve been taking a look at my priorities for the year, and thought I’d share them with you. (Is it true, do you think, that if you make a  commitment public, you are more likely to keep it?)

I’ve been plagued by a persistent lung infection, which is finally relaxing its hold on me. I can tell I’m getting better, because I had enough energy to post things on my blog today. 🙂

There are some of the things I plan to devote time and energy to this year.

  • The main thing is my campaign. I’m up for re-election on the 7th of May, and since it is also a general election, local Lib Dems need our supporters to turn out to vote. I need YOU to vote for me.
  • Did you know that people who are registered to vote by post are something like 8 times more likely to vote that people who have to show up at the polling station on the day? So if we contact you to ask you to register for a postal vote, that’s what’s behind our thinking.
  • If I’m re-elected, most of the things I’ll do from May 2015 relate to my job as your district councillor, and my role as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats at the Vale of White Horse District Council.
  • Doric have appealed their planning refusal. The planning inspectorate says they received the appeal docs, but haven’t yet validated them. Once they have, the Vale will be notified, and they will let us know the process and deadlines. Best guess of people in the know at the Vale is that there won’t be a hearing until after the election. So between now and then, I will be actively working for better collaboration between the Vale administration and local people, to get a better plan for Botley.
  • The Local Plan 2031, which proposes to build hundreds of homes in the Oxford Green Belt, is under consideration now by the Secretary of State. I objected, along with my Lib Dem colleagues, to building on the Geen Belt without a proper review of the full Green Belt by the different authorities affected. The Lib Dem Group also objected to the section in the plan that relates to Botley. It used Doric’s plan to define the Botley Central Area, and it continued to define Botley as a ‘district centre in the context of Oxford City’ (when there is really no such thing). A decision is not expected until after the election.
  • If the Lib Dems gain control of the Vale (winning 20 of the 38 seats in the re-warded district), I’ll have a different responsibility to what I have now in opposition. So in reality, everything depends on the election outcome. My job as your district councillor continues if I win here in the new ward called Botley and Sunningwell. And my job on the council changes if the Lib Dems gain control.
  • So for the 17 weeks remaining, I’ll help residents with planning matters and continue to help in other areas where I can.
  • And other than that, my main focus is the campaign. I’ll work for my own re-election and to see my Lib Dem colleague Emily Smith elected as the other District Councillor for Botley & Sunningwell.  (Who knows who our opponents will be!)

 

Harcourt Place New Road Names

Harcourt Place, off Lime Road in Botley, is quickly approaching completion. Some people have already moved in.

There are three new road names for that area: Turner Drive, Ruskin Close and Millais Close. So, we are naming streets after painters, it would seem, rather than after, say, trees.

Here’s a map. Click on it to enlarge. (Note they skip 13. Does that mean 14 is the unlucky one then, since it is the 13th house? I think that’s silly.)Harcourt Place Road Names-page-001