Agenda item

Council received the following Petitions and Public address:

Ms Margaret Wareing presented a petition of 220 signatures requesting that the Council provide a safe crossing in the form of a zebra Crossing on Oxford Road, Littlemore for adults and children on the basis that it was a residential with constant heavy traffic due to being the main road into Littlemore and a rat-run for traffic seeking to avoid Heyford Hill Roundabout.

Ms Helen Marshall spoke on behalf of the Council for the Preservation for Rural England (CPRE) against the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway on the basis that CPRE were not satisfied that the environmental harm of the scheme would be outweighed by the benefits, that the priority should be for investment in local sustainable schemes, that the Expressway would cause air and light pollution and that the rate of housing growth proposed with the scheme would impair the rural nature of the County and put a great strain on the County’s resources.  Referring to the lack of Consultation around the project and the seven billion hole in infrastructure in the current plans, she urged the Council to call on Government to hold a parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry, a strategic environmental assessment and a full public consultation.

Ms Sarah Lasenby, spoke against the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway and in support of the Climate Change Motion at Agenda Item 17, highlighting the negative impact of building the Expressway in terms of environment and pollution and in terms of traffic and infrastructure in Oxford City.

Ms Hazel Dawe spoke against the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway on the basis that it would increase traffic, pollution, noise, ill health and worsen climate change.  She believed it would not solve Oxford’s traffic problems but would exacerbate them, would cut through areas of outstanding natural beauty and Green Belt causing degradation to biodiversity and that the carbon emitted to build the project would negate any carbon efforts already made.  She urged the Council to join the City Council in unanimously voting against the proposed Expressway.

Mr David Williams spoke in support of Motion 17 by Councillor Damian Haywood on Climate Change.  He urged Councillors to vote for the motion and accept that there was a Climate Emergency right now.  Over 70 authorities had already declared a Climate Emergency.  He further urged Council to lobby Government who needed to accept that there was a Climate Emergency now and that the current level of action currently undertaken by the Government was not appropriate for the situation we were in now, heading towards a 3 or 4 degree Celsius rise in the earth’s temperature. 

Ms Nell Davies-Small spoke in relation to Motion 17 (Climate Change) urging the Council to take action, questioning why, when so many people had tried to raise this issue, including 15,000 young people in 60 towns and cities getting up and walking out of classrooms, had nobody been heard? Why young people had been openly criticised for marching, why more importance was given to deaths from hate crime than death from climate pollution? Why is was not recognised that Climate Change affected the most vulnerable people in Society?  She believed climate change was as much as a social issue as it is a scientific one and that climate change was on our doorstep.  She urged the Council to protect future teenagers and do something about the Climate now.