North Oxfordshire Green Party Blog

On Tuesday North Oxfordshire Green Party's 2017 Parliamentary Candidate Ian Middleton delivered Oxfordshire Green Party's formal response to Cherwell District Council's Partial Review of their Local Plan which calls for the removal of large portions of Green Belt to the North of Oxford. The review, being championed by Councillor Barry Wood, the Conservative leader of the council, is seeking to build 4400 new homes on ancient green belt land in Begbroke, Yarnton, Kidlington, Woodstock and surrounding areas. The Green Party response highlights large areas of inconsistency, poor planning and lack of evidence within the review and disputes the council's claims that they have established the exceptional circumstances that are required by national planning guidelines to remove land from the green belt. Ian Middleton said : "It's clear to anyone reading the Council's review that these plans have not been properly thought through.  It's not so much a

The North Oxfordshire Green Party has taken note of the concerns raised by the Save Bicester Group. Below, Robert Nixon, Vice Chair and Bicester resident, responds to the questions raised at this page and in doing so hopes that residents will realize that the Green Party can provide a real alternative to the policies of the incumbent district councillors. In a recent video Robert, and district council candidate Roger Nixon, discussed issues facing Bicester and most importantly Green solutions to these problems. You can view it on Youtube here . Question 1 The fact that there was an inadequate level of public consultation is certainly of concern. The Green Party are in favour of all important decisions such as these being appropriately discussed with those they will affect. Parish councillors should be involved in dialogue with district councillors regardless of their respective political parties and parish and district councillors should be obliged to consult with the publi

The North Oxfordshire Gre en Party officially launched it s local elections campaign last week with a promise to continue its focus on resisting the cuts agenda of the other main parties fighting for wards on May 5 th . Bus services are now under serious attack after the County Council agreed swinging cuts in the recent budget and the wholesale withdrawal of subsidies to rural routes. This is effectively marooning entire swathes of the county and leaving those without personal transport means unable to do simple things like shopping and visiting friends. The NHS and the Horton Hospital in particular continues to suffer under the austerity agenda being imposed on us all by the Conservative government. As one of the instigators of the NHS re-instatement bill in Parliament the Green Party has always been a staunch supporter of the NHS and will stand with the people of Banbury to resist any further degradation of services at the Horton. Other key issues of concern are greater prov

Original letters in the Banbury Guardian I feel compelled to respond to the two letters last week from Kieron Mallon and John Christie replying to my criticisms of them in a letter the week before. Firstly Mr Mallon's characterisation of the agreed budget as a compromise was somewhat disingenuous. Most of the original cuts remained in the agreed budget with only some of them moved to a category called 'unspecified cuts'. Of course it remains to be seen if any of these 'parked' cuts are eventually re-instated throughout the year, but that is a distinct possibility. Moreover the majority of the cuts to children's centre s remain. These were highlighted this week when the Prime M inister's own mother lost her job after the children's centre where she worked closed. Mr Mallon's refusal to see any of this as something he and his Conservative cohorts owe the people of Oxfordshire an apology for is of course between him and his conscienc

A quick post about the North Oxfordshire Green Party Quiz which is happening this Saturday (5th March). Full Details can be found below along with a Facebook event. Where: The Dupuis Centre, St. Johns Church, Banbury When: Saturday March 5th, 19:30 Additional Information Maximum 6 per team. (Teams can be formed on the night) £3 per person Raffle, Bar and Snacks available To Book, Call John Haywood on 07785235715 or email a.j.haywood@hotmail.co.uk Facebook Event All are welcome to what should be a great night for people curious about the Green Party to come and have a chat with us.

I read with interest reports in the local press that members of the Banbur y and Bicester Labour group have criticised the final County Council budget that agreed to massive and damaging cuts in local spending, many of which will directly impact the vulnerable in the co unty, particularly children, the old and the vulnerable . I was at the very long meeting where these cuts were agreed and I have to say that in my opinion the spirit of opposition was very much a bsent from the Labour members in the chamber. Their leader Liz Brighouse gave a long and somewhat nebulous spee ch prior to the vote where she expressed concern with keeping council tax at current levels for people on low incomes, whilst simultaneously ignoring the fact that many of the cuts her group had agreed to would directly impact them. The Green Party were alone in presenting budget amendments which would have removed the need for virtually all the cuts to services by, amongst other measures, reducing councillo

Bicester is currently undergoing the building of new developments including housing. Additional housing is something the Greens campaign for to address the national housing crisis. However new local housing developments are often built in the interests of those that can afford expensive luxury homes and not local people, particularly the young, who want to live close to where they have lived all their lives. New developments in Bicester increasingly make you feel that the town is being formed, not in the interests of local people, but the interests of those purely seeking to profit from new developments. The voice of Bicester residents needs to be heard loud and clear in decision making at all-levels of Government, particularly by the town and district councillors that are tasked with representing them. Decisions taken by the district council recently seem to have been decided by party politics rather than what makes the greatest positive difference to local people’s lives.