Agenda item
Questions from County Councillors
Any
county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am two working
days before the meeting, ask a question on any matter in respect of the
Cabinet’s delegated powers.
The
number of questions which may be asked by any councillor at any one meeting is
limited to two (or one question with notice and a supplementary question at the
meeting) and the time for questions will be limited to 30 minutes in total. As
with questions at Council, any questions which remain unanswered at the end of
this item will receive a written response.
Questions submitted prior to the agenda being despatched are shown below and will be the subject of a response from the appropriate Cabinet Member or such other councillor or officer as is determined by the Cabinet Member, and shall not be the subject of further debate at this meeting. Questions received after the despatch of the agenda, but before the deadline, will be shown on the Schedule of Addenda circulated at the meeting, together with any written response which is available at that time.
Minutes:
Councillor Howson had given notice of the following question to
Councillor Reeves:
“How many maintained schools in Oxfordshire have either solar or
photo-voltaic panels on their roofs or elsewhere on school grounds?”
In the absence of Councillor Reeves Councillor Lindsay-Gale replied:
‘The
Council does not hold a database with this information, as schools would need
to register for the FIT (Feed In Tariff) themselves, information on the
installation and/or registration is not readily available.
On
request at such short notice we have been able to ascertain that 30 of our
maintained schools have either solar or photo-voltaic panels on their roofs or
elsewhere on school grounds.’
Supplementary: Councillor Howson asked whether the Council could
encourage maintained schools to introduce energy schemes and whether the
Cabinet Member could engage with the Diocese of Oxford and the Arch Diocese of
Birmingham to encourage them to consider such schemes for their schools. In the
absence of Councillor Reeves, Councillor Lorraine Lindsay-Gale, Cabinet Member
for Education & Cultural Services replied that yes she was happy to follow
this up.
Councillor Price had given notice of the following question to
Councillor Heathcoat
“Could the Deputy Leader outline why the most recent Community Risk
Management Plan did not include explicit reference to the planned piloting of
Initial Limited Response (Crew of Three), therefore missing the opportunity for
the widest possible engagement with residents, interested partners and elected
members who would have a valuable contribution to make to the debate?”
Councillor Heathcoat replied:
Thank you for your
question. The Fire and Rescue Service identified in the 2017-8 Community
Risk Action Plan that :-
Project
2 “Would review and implement changes to key stations
and provide area based strategic cover”.
As a result of this
review an operational project was established to pilot an initial limited
response. The review took the form of:-
o All Whole time watches have been visited to
discuss the pilot. All On Call Stations were invited to locality meetings
o Attendance by OFRS at public meetings with
town and parish locations
o
FBU invited
to Charlbury Fire Station to discuss changes in procedure with the operational
staff
o FBU provided with all operational procedures and the relevant risk assessments for the pilot
o FBU representative attended the visit to Kent FRS to see how this had been implemented in other FRS.
Following the
closing of the consultation amendments were made.
Supplementary:
Councillor Price commented that it would have been good to see the details
included in the current CRMP. Councillor Price asked if the consultation
documents could be made available and why the local member for Charlbury had
not been consulted. Councillor Heathcoat replied that the CRMP was a strategic
document and the project had been included in the 2017/18 Action Plan. It had
been fully consulted on and Councillor Heathcoat could provide more detail
direct to Councillor Price.
Councillor Bearder had given notice of the following question to
Councillor Hudspeth
“Following our resolution
at the last full council for yourself and the
Cabinet Member for Transport to write to the Minister
for Housing, Communities and Local Government
– demanding that a fuller consultation is carried out asking local residents if
they want an Expressway and associated construction before any route is
considered, could you please update council as to where we are with this?
Whether the letter has been sent or a reply received and what time scale we can
expect on the actions of this motion. Could you please also supply copies of
any correspondence sent or received from either party thus far.”
Councillor John
Sanders had given notice of the following question to Councillor Hudspeth
“Has the Leader or the Cabinet Member for Environment yet
written to the Government asking it to conduct a consultation among
Oxfordshire's residents asking them whether they want an Expressway and if not,
when?.”
Councillor Hudspeth
replied to both:
“Yes, the letter has been
sent (copy attached as an Annex), no we have not received a reply and cannot
say when the reply will be sent.
It is my standard
practice to send copies of any reply to all councillors.”
Supplementary: Asked by Councillor John Sanders whether the decision on the route
being pushed back to Autumn and the likely route was an indication of the
Government attempting to lessen the impact on conservative held Divisions,
Councillor Hudspeth replied that throughout there had been no political nuance
in the Council response.
Annex
|
Date: 18 April 2019 The Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP Minister of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF |
Leader’s Office County Hall New Road Oxford OX1 1ND Councillor Ian
Hudspeth Leader of the
Council |
Dear Mr Brokenshire
Motion at Oxfordshire County Council – 2nd
April
We are writing to you
following a motion resolved at Full Council on 2nd April as follows:
“Most people accept
that building more roads creates more traffic.
Council instructs that the Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment
jointly write to the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government –
demanding that a fuller consultation is carried out asking local residents if
they want an Expressway and associated construction before any route is
considered.
The Leader and
Cabinet Member should also ask the Minister whether the million extra houses
outlined in the National Infrastructure Commission’s vision for housing along
the route of the arc are in addition to, or included in, the 100,000 houses
planned for by the Oxfordshire authorities outlined in the growth deal”
We look forward to
hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Cllr Ian Hudspeth Cllr
Yvonne Constance
Direct Line: 01865
815283 Cabinet Member
for Environment
Mobile: 07956 270318 Mobile: 07976 934884
Email: ian.hudspeth@oxfordshire.gov.uk Email: Yvonne.constance@oxfordshire.gov.uk
Supporting documents:
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